A single piezo sounds thin and tinny. However if you use a number of them, all different sizes (and more importantly frequency responses), in parallel, they can sound very good. I normally use six on my acoustic guitars. In addition to improving the frequency response this also decreases the output impedance, making it easier to interface with mixers or other audio equipment. Edit - also note that I install these under the bridge when making the guitars. Use CA glue or epoxy to attach, and make sure the wires are well secured to avoid buzzing.
Exactly, produces a very unique sound that sounds good with effects and amps too! A cheaper way to turn your cheap acoustic into an electric, since 6 piezos are often cheaper than a single magnetic-coil-type pickup. I like to place one on the back of the guitar so it picks up the natural distortion/reverb from the body. I am planning on doing this to an acoustic stick dulcimer I have, to 'electrify' it.
That thing sounds rad with the foils! I actually have a set of original gold foils out of a 1964 Harmony bobcat in the old closet at my mom's house, hopefully I'll get to use them in a project fairly soon. Great build! It evolved nicely!
rip the door off that closet and make a guitar! lol. A showed off my 1960 Harmony Meteor earlier this year when I first made these pickups. It has 2 goldfoils and still sounds and plays fantastic.
My face when the distortion kicked in 😂🤩 I share the same thoughts on piezos. I do however have an Eastwood Delta Resonator that has a P90 neck pickup and a piezo in the bridge with a blend control that allows for some great tonal variety (I usually dial it in at 40% P90, 60% piezo 🎸) A lot of fun! Fab work and inspirational as always 👏 great to hear your wise words at the end as well 🙇♂️
@Tim Sway - keep up the great work and be encouraged - you are producing wonderful things, and every video I learn something new, as well as enjoying your presentational style and humour!
You're absolutely right about the sound of raw piezo pickups. But run one through a good impulse response of an actual acoustic guitar and it all comes back. A cool feature that could differentiate your instruments from the rest might be to provide the actual instrument's IR to the customer.
"i love prototyping so much more than actually making stuff" i've never agreed with a statement more. there's no stress to making it look perfect when you can just say: it's just a prototype
Weird coincidence. Yesterday, the gold foil soundhole pickup I got from Amazon/CB Gitty came. Haven’t tried it yet cuz I bought it in case (only $15!) the need arose.
i think the best of both worlds would be a low-impedance pickup with a preamp. part of the sound of acoustic guitar to me is all that high-freq jangle above 8khz that a traditional magnetic pickup with 10k to 1kohms of series impedance can't hear. the problem with piezos is they're hearing what the string's doing at the end, but the sound we normally hear off a string is happening in the first third to first quarter of the length on electric, and the end filtered by the body on traditional acoustic
come to think of it piezos would probably sound a lot better if there were like, six or seven of them glued to different parts of the body to pick up the low end and resonance better, with a little set of faders to blend all that together, so the kinda shrill dry string sound has some body sound to round it out
Pickup Sounds good and you can reach high fret notes with that Sway cutaway and you can sustain overdiven rock notes wildly...also acoustic means if you wanna play that unplugged you can hear it.
I share your excitement using the reclaimed materials to build instruments that are unique, have a story to tell, and become far more than the sum of their parts--something that is relatable, fosters community, and will be handed down for generations...and it's just friggin' cool shit.
Merry Christmas, Tim & crew. I agree, I am not a big fan of piezo under saddle pickups. I have a problem I goofed when I constructed my classical guitar by it being a bit too quiet compared to my expectation. I suspect I made the soundboard stiffer than what might have given me my expectation. Now I want to amplify it and I suspect the under saddle pickup will just make it even more quiet when played strictly acoustically. Since I can't use a magnetic pick up I don't know exactly what do other than a different approach next time.
It's a surprisingly full bodied sound. Another fun experiment to learn and grow from. With one giant exception, 2022 has been a decent year. Thanks for making mine a little better. Here's to a better year to come. Cheers!
That closer inspires me, "the me 10 years ago". Your projects are fanstastic and this reflection demonstrates a solid coping skill for challenging growth projects, even for this software engineer with some guitar-maker DNA.
I think most people live in the past and some people (myself included) live in the future. But, of course, the best place to be is in the present. I am fortunate enough to spend more time in the present than most (nothing like a tablesaw blade next to your hands to keep you in the present!) but I do find the need to remind myself to not always strive towards the future me, but appreciate the present more often. The whole it's the journey, not the destination thing...
Keep going. You’re doing great. And Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Festivus for the rest of us. I made a guitar that has both Piezoelectric and magnetic pickups and I almost always use the magnetic one. So I guess I agree with you about which one I like better. I always thought piezos were mostly for appearance, so the audience wouldn’t see the pickup and could pretend the guitar isn’t being amplified. In the studio, where there’s much more control, they use microphones, piezo and magnetic to fine tune the sound.
A blend knob would be nice. I don't like piezos either but magnetic pickups in acoustics can get a bit muddy (if that's the word) so having the option of blending that piezo in for a little bit of those higher frequencies is nice.
We love you Timmy Boy. Watching you is actually healing especially when I'm thinking I have a sick active mind when it comes to all things acoustic guitar. I just watch how really bizarrely insane you are and I instantly get healed because I again realize... now my brother Tim he is really off the charts fucking insane so in comparison I'm really okay. I love you. We all love you. Happiest of Holidays to you and the family you weirdo. Cliff
Well done Tim! That guitar really does sound great. Keep up the great work! I wish you & your family a very Happy Holiday Season! Be well & stay safe my friend! 👍👍🌲🌲🎸🎸
Nice! I like a dark acoustic tone for some things, and that pickup sounds great. Agreed about piezo pickups, though you can at least avoid the worst of that quacky sound by matching the piezo into a good *very* high impedance input.
Sounds really good, nice retrofit! One alternative to piezos (I hate that clack from piezos too), is the K&K Sound system that you glue in under the sound board. They don't sound like magnetic pickups, but they have a very "natural" sound without the clack of piezos.
they're still just piezos, but slightly better ones. 100 years ago I got endorsement pricing from K&K for amplifying my double bass but it didn't cut it. Switched to magnetic contraptions built by crazy Europeans. I have plans to make my own crazy contraption soon :)
I also hate piezos. My Buddy is a professional musician and he kept telling me for years that all magnetic soundhole pickups sucked. One day I bought a Dearmond Tone Boss for 89$ and it was ECACTLY the sound I was looking for. Oddly, it sounds so much like my actual acoustic, so much more so than those "natural sounding piezos." Plugged in through my 50s tube amp with a touch of vibrato it has this slappy Scotty Moore Gibson-y sound. I love it. Looking to wind my own next.
Tweek it all you want, Tim; but proof of concept is right there. HCD's AND salvaged wiring + diy pick-ups. You're definitely making a statement my friend. I'm really snubbing my nose at the high-end stuff out there, 1) At the wasteful, harmful manufacturing and 2) The Price. Keep up the good work Tim
In my opinion, the best way to keep some of that acoustic sound of a Peizo without the awful tinniness is to blend them with the magnetic Pickup. And to use the body pickup 'disks' instead. Just smother 'em in expoy, one behind the bass side of the bridge and one closer to the sound hole on the treble side. Wire them in parallel to one another, then to an on/off switch and then - and this is the odd part - to the *output*, bypassing the controls. Putting them in parallel like this with the magnetic pickup and the volume knob brings life into them by cutting their impedance, and even wired like that they get effected by the volume and tone control still - actually makes the volume knob act as a low cut until the very end where it kills the signal.
My preference is to a stereo jack. For short cable runs you can even wire the piezo direct and it will be only a small presence in the mix compared to the magnetic, but you can build a tone and volume know for the magnetic pickup and install a standard, cheap piezo preamp into a belt pack to take the stereo out and output a blend and each pickup straight so you can plug each into a different amp if required. It works on electric guitar too.
@@timsway I'd maybe not follow this. I found out recently that my guitar cable was... very oddly defective. Multi-meter testing showed it to be fine, a capacitor tester showed it to be fine, but I lazily picked up a different cable and the amp was twice as loud and bright, and the Peizo sounded like mud all of a sudden. I'd rather admit to this then have poor advice floating about.
Piezos don't sound especially good in my estimation, but you can make effective use of them for recording. I used to record an acoustic part to two tracks simultaneously; one with the pickup and one with a microphone. With the tracks recorded, I would dial in the EQ on each one, mix them to my liking, and bounce them to a single track--which resulted in a surprisingly full sound. I'd never rely on a piezo alone, however, because I feel that they sound too thin.
tim sway If you use Thomastik JS110 Flatwounds then it makes a great little Jazz Guitar. A friend of mine on RUclips turned those Gretsch Jim Dandy Parlor Guitars into amazingly versatile Hollow Body Acoustic Electrics by adding Magnetic Pickups to em:ruclips.net/video/2AN2ba-LG0o/видео.html & man they sound quite Jazzy
Saddle piezos sound thin to me.. I guess with the right EQ you can get something usable. Those small electric nylon guitars sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. I have heard some decent results mixing piezo pickups with contact microphones in electric nylon guitars but none of them were built like those thinline godins
I also don't like the sound of piezo pickups either. Absolutely horrendous....... Until I recently used it with impulse responses incl some additional EQ. Seriously I would highly recommend to give it a try. At this moment I mostly play an electric nylon string guitar. With the IR it sounds extremely good. It sounds really like a good quality guitar, nothing of that horrible piezo quackiness. Ideally I would blend it with an in-body mini mic.
Great builds! I to want to build out of recycled materials. What is the model of amp you played through? It’s an Ampeg but I don’t know the model. I think both guitars are fantastic! I like them both. The pickup you make sounds as good as other brands! Maybe better! Happy Holidays! Thanxz
I think the nicest sounding acoustic guitar when plugged in are the ones with microfones inside, it is the closest to the standard recording micing, for me at least. It would be nice to se you experiment with some idea like that
Piezos always sound cool before you actually have them in your guitar LOL, it sounds like a great idea but it just never really seems to scratch my itch if you know what I mean. Thank you for a wonderful year full of innovation and creation. Much love to you and yours Tim Sway!
@@theothertonydutch compresser and eq definetly can improve the "plucky" sounding situation, I agree wholeheartedly. Great for Tele bridge pickup type situations as well! Much love and great point-
Impulse responses (IR) are the magic trick here with a bit of additional EQ and compression. I absolutely hate the horrible quacky sound of piezo pickups. It sometimes even ruins a whole live performance of some musicians. The IRs were a total game changer for me.
I have heard some players that somehow manage to make their piezo powered acoustics sound good. The ones I know personally are as much sound engineers as musicians.
These are phosphor bronze d'addario strings! They have a steel core. Electric guitar strings would start to sound more like an electric guitar. So much of your guitar's tone comes from the strings.
Hello, I'm going to do the same with my Fender acoustic bass, I'm thinking about putting a precision bass microphone on it. I have two questions: 1- Is it necessary to make a hole in the back for the potentiometers? 2- Have you had problems with noise? I mean there is no shielding on the electronics. Could you help me? thank you
I've done this to several acoustic basses over the years. It is not necessary to make a hole in the back, it just makes it easier to wire/access the controls and to, yes, add shielding. the other problem is grounding the strings. I have one bass where I wanted minimal interference and I added a wire to the ground that had an alligator clip and clipped it on to the strings behind the bridge on the front of the guitar! lol But if you cut a hole in the back you can do that stuff internally.
Timmy Boy Put THIS on your prototype list. In your spare time... hahaha An acoustic stomp box. No electronics at all. For living room use to accompany one's self while enjoying making music at home. No one has accomplished this successfully yet. Think of tapping a cigar box. No electronics at all. Just a foot thud. This is something everyone needs and wants and would gladly pay you $$$ for. If anyone can do this it's you. There is a huge market for this. No electronics. Love you Cliff
I've seen something like that with a transducer in it to amplify it. Like a little stage the performer stands on. To do it without electronics It's called a drum. lol.
What kinda power saw was that? I've been looking for something like that. I first seen something like that when I was an orthopedic surgical assistant and we'd use them to cut bone..
What was really tell tale was when you said you enjoy prototyping much more than production. Now that comment speaks volumes about your lack of normally functioning brain synapses Timmy Boy. But of course that is also why we love you so much. Cliff
lol. I lack the patience for the final sanding and finish part of building, which is apparent in my work. lol. Once the idea takes form, I lose interest and want to try the next idea :)
I HATE PIEZOS. MIC AN ACOUSTIC OR THROW ALL YOUR GEAR AWAY!!!! 🤣 I bought that dean acoustic everyone has (and has gotten rid of) and I regret it every time I plug it into something. btw, wrote all this during the add, have no idea where you were going with this but I already agree. booo piezo.
you don't "have" to ground it to the strings. I didn't on this guitar. But if you find it being excessively noisy, you can add an additional long ground wire and tie it to the ball ends of one of your strings. that'll help. then when you change your strings it'll just pull the ground wire up through the body and you can tie it to the new string.
Nice, but really..... you could be a bit more of a craftsman with the hole in the back. That current hole is less than just a dirty cut reasonable hole and more like a kid with a hacksaw. Especially with how nice the rest of the instrument is. A rasp file would clean it up better than it is. Otherwise, love your work and channel.
@@dmyers9230 lol. seriously, of course an instrument I'm selling would not go out the door like that, but when I'm messing around on my own stuff, I will often do "eh, good enough" hack jobs on things just to stir the pot and bug a few people, throw some bait out there for you and others to latch on to. Generates engagement. Youll notice the sound hole is wicked crooked on that guitar, too. This was an issue I noticed and could have fixed before gluing on the top (I discuss in the series), but I didn't :)
I find piezos always sound like a straight DI track of a pickup. Not the exact same, but bad for the same reason. There is nothing really there and everything that is there is right inside your ear canal with no room or air or feeling of the guitar being an actual instrument in a space, even through an amp. Your pickup sounds fucking awesome in this, though. I could listen to that for ages.
cheers. A microphone is really the only way to get a truly transparent sound, and even every one of those sounds different. So I figure if we accept plugging any guitar in is going to degrade it's natural sound, might as well start at a place of creating the sound you like.
On future models are u gonna mount the foil pick up under the top for a cleaner look if possible? Or maybe do a custom pick up ring shape on the sound hole as a accent kind of thing
the pickup or the guitar? I make the pickups in larger batches as to make just one would be unaffordable as there's a minimum order cost on the metal parts, the copper and magnets are cheaper in bulk, etc. I sell them at www.newperspectivesmusic.com if you are interested in having one. The guitar didn't cost a lot in materials but I have some pretty expensive tools these days that help, too.
@@timsway thanks! your pickup should be really good, I tried with cleartone strings and a humbucker in the soundhole and it wasnt nearly as good as your sound, I was tempted to use eletric guitar strings
Merry christmas to you, everyone at Sway and everyone in this comment section!
Merry Christmas to you and yours!
A single piezo sounds thin and tinny. However if you use a number of them, all different sizes (and more importantly frequency responses), in parallel, they can sound very good. I normally use six on my acoustic guitars. In addition to improving the frequency response this also decreases the output impedance, making it easier to interface with mixers or other audio equipment.
Edit - also note that I install these under the bridge when making the guitars. Use CA glue or epoxy to attach, and make sure the wires are well secured to avoid buzzing.
Exactly, produces a very unique sound that sounds good with effects and amps too! A cheaper way to turn your cheap acoustic into an electric, since 6 piezos are often cheaper than a single magnetic-coil-type pickup. I like to place one on the back of the guitar so it picks up the natural distortion/reverb from the body. I am planning on doing this to an acoustic stick dulcimer I have, to 'electrify' it.
Good shit Tim!
Progress and change.......... This is the journey as perfection is impossible. Be well and take care. Have a happy Christmas. God bless us, everyone
That thing sounds rad with the foils! I actually have a set of original gold foils out of a 1964 Harmony bobcat in the old closet at my mom's house, hopefully I'll get to use them in a project fairly soon. Great build! It evolved nicely!
rip the door off that closet and make a guitar! lol. A showed off my 1960 Harmony Meteor earlier this year when I first made these pickups. It has 2 goldfoils and still sounds and plays fantastic.
6:09 Wow it sounds like those Hollow Body Archtop Jazz Guitars, quite a mellow sound.
My face when the distortion kicked in 😂🤩
I share the same thoughts on piezos. I do however have an Eastwood Delta Resonator that has a P90 neck pickup and a piezo in the bridge with a blend control that allows for some great tonal variety (I usually dial it in at 40% P90, 60% piezo 🎸) A lot of fun!
Fab work and inspirational as always 👏 great to hear your wise words at the end as well 🙇♂️
cheers. that's what I'm thinking, a blend knob instead of a switch...
I actually LOVE the sound it produces. And the looks??.. Gorgeous!!!
Thanks! Happy holidays! 🌞🎅🏻🎄🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉🎄
@Tim Sway - keep up the great work and be encouraged - you are producing wonderful things, and every video I learn something new, as well as enjoying your presentational style and humour!
thanks man! feeling positive for 2023!
Can't wait to see what comes up next year. You are pushing a great envelope forward.have a great holiday and New Year 🎉
Dig it. You're a good egg, Mr. Sway. Stay warm, catch you in 2023!
It sounds so good, Tim.
You're absolutely right about the sound of raw piezo pickups. But run one through a good impulse response of an actual acoustic guitar and it all comes back. A cool feature that could differentiate your instruments from the rest might be to provide the actual instrument's IR to the customer.
I didn't know an acoustic could do that. Love it.
"i love prototyping so much more than actually making stuff"
i've never agreed with a statement more. there's no stress to making it look perfect when you can just say: it's just a prototype
Man that pickup fits perefctly on this guitar
Love the sound of that pickup. Might be cool to have the piezo and foil combined with a way to mix them.
Weird coincidence. Yesterday, the gold foil soundhole pickup I got from Amazon/CB Gitty came. Haven’t tried it yet cuz I bought it in case (only $15!) the need arose.
Excellent. I'm not the biggest fan of acoustic guitar (and piezos!) but this looks like something I can really relate to.
Sounds pretty rich honestly
Looking good! Merry Christmas!
i think the best of both worlds would be a low-impedance pickup with a preamp. part of the sound of acoustic guitar to me is all that high-freq jangle above 8khz that a traditional magnetic pickup with 10k to 1kohms of series impedance can't hear. the problem with piezos is they're hearing what the string's doing at the end, but the sound we normally hear off a string is happening in the first third to first quarter of the length on electric, and the end filtered by the body on traditional acoustic
come to think of it piezos would probably sound a lot better if there were like, six or seven of them glued to different parts of the body to pick up the low end and resonance better, with a little set of faders to blend all that together, so the kinda shrill dry string sound has some body sound to round it out
i think they need the pressure of the strings to work, tho, where the problem lies...
I have a Tele neck pickup in my old Samick acoustic guitar. It's fun to play
A blend knob after discrete tone controls for each pickup would be sweet.
Pickup Sounds good and you can reach high fret notes with that Sway cutaway and you can sustain overdiven rock notes wildly...also acoustic means if you wanna play that unplugged you can hear it.
Fantastic work! I'd love to see one of these guitars with a thinner body, similar to the Tim Henson nylon string model.
Nice video. Guitar sounds good. It's fun playing around, experimenting. Great year, Tim. Mahalo for sharing! : )
Tim, you made furniture from old pinball machines? Of course you did. That’s awesome!
yea, there are some videos about them. here's one: ruclips.net/video/GUEL-aAtP7I/видео.html
@@timsway thanks. I’ll have to check it out!
I share your excitement using the reclaimed materials to build instruments that are unique, have a story to tell, and become far more than the sum of their parts--something that is relatable, fosters community, and will be handed down for generations...and it's just friggin' cool shit.
Tim, thanks for another great content year. Merry Christmas to you, your family and everyone at Sway.
Sounding very Jack White 2004 acoustic covered with paper he had! Perfect to me!
Merry Christmas, Tim & crew.
I agree, I am not a big fan of piezo under saddle pickups.
I have a problem I goofed when I constructed my classical guitar by it being a bit too quiet compared to my expectation. I suspect I made the soundboard stiffer than what might have given me my expectation. Now I want to amplify it and I suspect the under saddle pickup will just make it even more quiet when played strictly acoustically. Since I can't use a magnetic pick up I don't know exactly what do other than a different approach next time.
It's a surprisingly full bodied sound. Another fun experiment to learn and grow from. With one giant exception, 2022 has been a decent year. Thanks for making mine a little better. Here's to a better year to come. Cheers!
Hey man, I got the full report already: 2023 is going to be better, and 2024 is going to be even better than 2023! And so on :)
Happy New Year! Nice cutout on the back of the guitar! It does sound good though...
That closer inspires me, "the me 10 years ago". Your projects are fanstastic and this reflection demonstrates a solid coping skill for challenging growth projects, even for this software engineer with some guitar-maker DNA.
I think most people live in the past and some people (myself included) live in the future. But, of course, the best place to be is in the present. I am fortunate enough to spend more time in the present than most (nothing like a tablesaw blade next to your hands to keep you in the present!) but I do find the need to remind myself to not always strive towards the future me, but appreciate the present more often. The whole it's the journey, not the destination thing...
I, for one, will be here watching...
Keep going. You’re doing great. And Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays/Festivus for the rest of us. I made a guitar that has both Piezoelectric and magnetic pickups and I almost always use the magnetic one. So I guess I agree with you about which one I like better. I always thought piezos were mostly for appearance, so the audience wouldn’t see the pickup and could pretend the guitar isn’t being amplified. In the studio, where there’s much more control, they use microphones, piezo and magnetic to fine tune the sound.
I think piezos are supposed to be more transparent, like a microphone. but they are not.
Tim you might consider GHS White Bronze strings. They’re specifically designed for acoustics with magnetic pickups and offer a more even response.
@tim_Sway. how would I go about doing this?
A blend knob would be nice. I don't like piezos either but magnetic pickups in acoustics can get a bit muddy (if that's the word) so having the option of blending that piezo in for a little bit of those higher frequencies is nice.
We love you Timmy Boy. Watching you is actually healing especially when I'm thinking I have a sick active mind when it comes to all things acoustic guitar. I just watch how really bizarrely insane you are and I instantly get healed because I again realize... now my brother Tim he is really off the charts fucking insane so in comparison I'm really okay.
I love you.
We all love you.
Happiest of Holidays to you and the family you weirdo.
Cliff
we are not alone, Cliff :) Happy holidays
Hello, Tim! I really love your acoustic guitar design!
thanks! It's coming along
Nice job Tim. I was kinda expecting a Christmas Carol or two lol Merry Christmas to you and everyone
That is awesome Tim!!! Giving me inspiration for my next GGBO build 😀 happy holidays and I love the heavy metal acoustic 🤟
Well done Tim! That guitar really does sound great. Keep up the great work! I wish you & your family a very Happy Holiday Season! Be well & stay safe my friend! 👍👍🌲🌲🎸🎸
same to you, amigo
Nice! I like a dark acoustic tone for some things, and that pickup sounds great. Agreed about piezo pickups, though you can at least avoid the worst of that quacky sound by matching the piezo into a good *very* high impedance input.
I agree about piezos. I have a 1960s Eko Ranger 6 that I fitted with a Burns pickup in the sound hole; much fuller sound
I have the same, although it's a 1972 as my 1969 Ranger 12 was not salvageable. But I have the cheaper Fishman in it.
Sounds really good, nice retrofit! One alternative to piezos (I hate that clack from piezos too), is the K&K Sound system that you glue in under the sound board. They don't sound like magnetic pickups, but they have a very "natural" sound without the clack of piezos.
they're still just piezos, but slightly better ones. 100 years ago I got endorsement pricing from K&K for amplifying my double bass but it didn't cut it. Switched to magnetic contraptions built by crazy Europeans. I have plans to make my own crazy contraption soon :)
@@timsway Awesome, love your videos and should have figured you have tried those out!
I also hate piezos. My Buddy is a professional musician and he kept telling me for years that all magnetic soundhole pickups sucked. One day I bought a Dearmond Tone Boss for 89$ and it was ECACTLY the sound I was looking for. Oddly, it sounds so much like my actual acoustic, so much more so than those "natural sounding piezos." Plugged in through my 50s tube amp with a touch of vibrato it has this slappy Scotty Moore Gibson-y sound. I love it. Looking to wind my own next.
Tweek it all you want, Tim; but proof of concept is right there. HCD's AND salvaged wiring + diy pick-ups. You're definitely making a statement my friend. I'm really snubbing my nose at the high-end stuff out there, 1) At the wasteful, harmful manufacturing and 2) The Price. Keep up the good work Tim
Sounds pretty good for a door 🚪 Tim rich a little buzz from no ground circuit but that's not bad have a great day and a merry Christmas
these pickups can be a little noisy, especially when not grounded!
In my opinion, the best way to keep some of that acoustic sound of a Peizo without the awful tinniness is to blend them with the magnetic Pickup. And to use the body pickup 'disks' instead. Just smother 'em in expoy, one behind the bass side of the bridge and one closer to the sound hole on the treble side. Wire them in parallel to one another, then to an on/off switch and then - and this is the odd part - to the *output*, bypassing the controls. Putting them in parallel like this with the magnetic pickup and the volume knob brings life into them by cutting their impedance, and even wired like that they get effected by the volume and tone control still - actually makes the volume knob act as a low cut until the very end where it kills the signal.
interesting. thanks for the info
My preference is to a stereo jack. For short cable runs you can even wire the piezo direct and it will be only a small presence in the mix compared to the magnetic, but you can build a tone and volume know for the magnetic pickup and install a standard, cheap piezo preamp into a belt pack to take the stereo out and output a blend and each pickup straight so you can plug each into a different amp if required. It works on electric guitar too.
@@timsway I'd maybe not follow this. I found out recently that my guitar cable was... very oddly defective. Multi-meter testing showed it to be fine, a capacitor tester showed it to be fine, but I lazily picked up a different cable and the amp was twice as loud and bright, and the Peizo sounded like mud all of a sudden. I'd rather admit to this then have poor advice floating about.
@@alaricpaley6865 it's amazing what a bad cable can do. Much like when your car doesn't start you should always check to make sure it has gas first.
Piezos don't sound especially good in my estimation, but you can make effective use of them for recording. I used to record an acoustic part to two tracks simultaneously; one with the pickup and one with a microphone. With the tracks recorded, I would dial in the EQ on each one, mix them to my liking, and bounce them to a single track--which resulted in a surprisingly full sound. I'd never rely on a piezo alone, however, because I feel that they sound too thin.
That sounds really good, Tim. Definitely a good option to add to the production design.
have you tried multiple piezos in parallel? the cigar box guitars community swears by this method.
tim sway
If you use Thomastik JS110 Flatwounds then it makes a great little Jazz Guitar. A friend of mine on RUclips turned those Gretsch Jim Dandy Parlor Guitars into amazingly versatile Hollow Body Acoustic Electrics by adding Magnetic Pickups to em:ruclips.net/video/2AN2ba-LG0o/видео.html & man they sound quite Jazzy
Fantastic 💪
Saddle piezos sound thin to me.. I guess with the right EQ you can get something usable. Those small electric nylon guitars sound like nails on a chalkboard to me. I have heard some decent results mixing piezo pickups with contact microphones in electric nylon guitars but none of them were built like those thinline godins
Switch to light gauge Flatwounds they will make both the magnetic and piezo happier
I have a Seymour Duncan woody pickup in my acoustic, sounds more natural to my ears!
It sounds great! I think acoustics with piezos sound too bright and thin. This has a nice warm sound.
nothing like a half a mile of thin, copper wire to warm things up :)
I also don't like the sound of piezo pickups either. Absolutely horrendous....... Until I recently used it with impulse responses incl some additional EQ. Seriously I would highly recommend to give it a try. At this moment I mostly play an electric nylon string guitar. With the IR it sounds extremely good.
It sounds really like a good quality guitar, nothing of that horrible piezo quackiness. Ideally I would blend it with an in-body mini mic.
you got no choice with a nylon string! glad to hear you found something that works
Great builds! I to want to build out of recycled materials. What is the model of amp you played through? It’s an Ampeg but I don’t know the model. I think both guitars are fantastic! I like them both. The pickup you make sounds as good as other brands! Maybe better! Happy Holidays! Thanxz
cheers. It's a 1980s or 90s ampeg Reverberocket. Nothing special but does the job.
The “Sway-Acoustasonic”
Both the pick up and guitar sound great 👏
Happy holidays to you and your loved ones ❤️🫂
Like deployed 👍
😎🎙🎸✅️
The plate on the back is essential. I don’t get why hollowbodies still don’t do it
I fitted a piezo to my Yamaha acoustic and it was fine when tuned down to Eb. In E however, it completely cut out for some mysterious reason.
hmmm, the additional string tension was probably grounding something out that was staying clear under lighter, Eb tension.
👍
Instead of using a fishman, have you considered just using a small preamp with a tone and volume wired in instead of the 3 or 5 switch eq?
I have, but if I'm going to suffer with a piezo, I find the built in tuner thing to be really nice, so ... :)
If I'm actually having to use manufactured hardware, I'd use capacitive sliders instead of knobs so they can be hidden.
I think the nicest sounding acoustic guitar when plugged in are the ones with microfones inside, it is the closest to the standard recording micing, for me at least. It would be nice to se you experiment with some idea like that
agreed. nothing beats a mic, but they can are difficult to work with in live/loud situations.
Piezos always sound cool before you actually have them in your guitar LOL, it sounds like a great idea but it just never really seems to scratch my itch if you know what I mean. Thank you for a wonderful year full of innovation and creation. Much love to you and yours Tim Sway!
I feel a compressor and a decent EQ make up for a lot of their wrongdoings
@@theothertonydutch compresser and eq definetly can improve the "plucky" sounding situation, I agree wholeheartedly. Great for Tele bridge pickup type situations as well! Much love and great point-
Impulse responses (IR) are the magic trick here with a bit of additional EQ and compression.
I absolutely hate the horrible quacky sound of piezo pickups. It sometimes even ruins a whole live performance of some musicians. The IRs were a total game changer for me.
I have heard some players that somehow manage to make their piezo powered acoustics sound good. The ones I know personally are as much sound engineers as musicians.
How would a magnetic pickup interact with phosphor bronze or other non ferromagnetic alloy acoustic strings?
These are phosphor bronze d'addario strings! They have a steel core. Electric guitar strings would start to sound more like an electric guitar. So much of your guitar's tone comes from the strings.
Hello, I'm going to do the same with my Fender acoustic bass, I'm thinking about putting a precision bass microphone on it.
I have two questions:
1- Is it necessary to make a hole in the back for the potentiometers?
2- Have you had problems with noise? I mean there is no shielding on the electronics.
Could you help me? thank you
I've done this to several acoustic basses over the years. It is not necessary to make a hole in the back, it just makes it easier to wire/access the controls and to, yes, add shielding. the other problem is grounding the strings. I have one bass where I wanted minimal interference and I added a wire to the ground that had an alligator clip and clipped it on to the strings behind the bridge on the front of the guitar! lol But if you cut a hole in the back you can do that stuff internally.
thank!!!
Hey brother! How the boy doing?
MERRY CHRISTMAS Tim!!
Jack ~'()'~
same to you sir
How about a mic inside the instrument instead of both piezo and magnet?
Mic is 100% the way to go in a recording studio, but big and outside the instrument. In-instrument mics in live settings are kind of a nightmare.
I DON'T LIKE PIEZO'S
No no!
I love it!
Eh!
me 10 years ago is probably concerned for current me, but surely impressed
lol
Timmy Boy
Put THIS on your prototype list. In your spare time... hahaha
An acoustic stomp box.
No electronics at all.
For living room use to accompany one's self while enjoying making music at home.
No one has accomplished this successfully yet.
Think of tapping a cigar box.
No electronics at all.
Just a foot thud.
This is something everyone needs and wants and would gladly pay you $$$ for.
If anyone can do this it's you. There is a huge market for this.
No electronics.
Love you
Cliff
I've seen something like that with a transducer in it to amplify it. Like a little stage the performer stands on. To do it without electronics It's called a drum. lol.
Super distorted has big Sex Bob-omb sound - dig it!
I agree, piëzo pickups are an insult to humanity.
🎸 👂 💎 👍
Not going to lie.. I like it.. it has a nice dirty tone.
I wish you would lie to me more often. Oh, wait that was a compliment! Thanks for being honest :-p
@@timsway LOL!
What kinda power saw was that? I've been looking for something like that. I first seen something like that when I was an orthopedic surgical assistant and we'd use them to cut bone..
its an oscillating saw. i forget what they're called
Tim, with the magnetic pickup do you have to use electric guitar strings?
No, the strings on it are regular phosphor bronze acoustic strings. Won’t work with nylon, obviously, but anything with a metal core.
I like the pepperoni ones,,,oh no,that’s pizzas isn’t it 😁
Distorted sound reminds me of grant Lee buffalo
I am also not a great fan of under saddle piezos. But you owe it to yourself to try piezos under the soundboard, there’s a world of difference.
that kind is definitely less annoying than the under saddle, but still annoying :)
What was really tell tale was when you said you enjoy prototyping much more than production. Now that comment speaks volumes about your lack of normally functioning brain synapses Timmy Boy. But of course that is also why we love you so much.
Cliff
lol. I lack the patience for the final sanding and finish part of building, which is apparent in my work. lol. Once the idea takes form, I lose interest and want to try the next idea :)
I HATE PIEZOS. MIC AN ACOUSTIC OR THROW ALL YOUR GEAR AWAY!!!! 🤣 I bought that dean acoustic everyone has (and has gotten rid of) and I regret it every time I plug it into something. btw, wrote all this during the add, have no idea where you were going with this but I already agree. booo piezo.
I added a pickup to my acoustic but I can't figure out how to ground it
you don't "have" to ground it to the strings. I didn't on this guitar. But if you find it being excessively noisy, you can add an additional long ground wire and tie it to the ball ends of one of your strings. that'll help. then when you change your strings it'll just pull the ground wire up through the body and you can tie it to the new string.
Nice, but really..... you could be a bit more of a craftsman with the hole in the back. That current hole is less than just a dirty cut reasonable hole and more like a kid with a hacksaw. Especially with how nice the rest of the instrument is. A rasp file would clean it up better than it is. Otherwise, love your work and channel.
I do stuff like that in videos on purpose :)
@@timsway Now that's funny ;-)
@@dmyers9230 lol. seriously, of course an instrument I'm selling would not go out the door like that, but when I'm messing around on my own stuff, I will often do "eh, good enough" hack jobs on things just to stir the pot and bug a few people, throw some bait out there for you and others to latch on to. Generates engagement. Youll notice the sound hole is wicked crooked on that guitar, too. This was an issue I noticed and could have fixed before gluing on the top (I discuss in the series), but I didn't :)
I find piezos always sound like a straight DI track of a pickup. Not the exact same, but bad for the same reason. There is nothing really there and everything that is there is right inside your ear canal with no room or air or feeling of the guitar being an actual instrument in a space, even through an amp.
Your pickup sounds fucking awesome in this, though. I could listen to that for ages.
cheers. A microphone is really the only way to get a truly transparent sound, and even every one of those sounds different. So I figure if we accept plugging any guitar in is going to degrade it's natural sound, might as well start at a place of creating the sound you like.
Breakfast at Tiffany's?
just noodling. you know those chords could be any one of 1,000,000,000 songs :-p
I like that..and agree piezos sound awful
On future models are u gonna mount the foil pick up under the top for a cleaner look if possible? Or maybe do a custom pick up ring shape on the sound hole as a accent kind of thing
Next one will probably get a different pickup installed in the body. I might change the sound hole shape to accomodate this one with a permanent spot
My Piezo Pickups are better sounding cause they're special designed.
how much did this cost overall to make yourself?
the pickup or the guitar? I make the pickups in larger batches as to make just one would be unaffordable as there's a minimum order cost on the metal parts, the copper and magnets are cheaper in bulk, etc. I sell them at www.newperspectivesmusic.com if you are interested in having one. The guitar didn't cost a lot in materials but I have some pretty expensive tools these days that help, too.
are you using acoustic strings or eletric guitar strings?
d'addario lights, acoustic 80/20
@@timsway thanks! your pickup should be really good, I tried with cleartone strings and a humbucker in the soundhole and it wasnt nearly as good as your sound, I was tempted to use eletric guitar strings