Piezo addition to floating pickup archtop

[McJazzer]

Hey guys,

So in addition to the floating magnetic pickup on my archtop, I'd like to add a passive piezo pickup to the bridge with volume (mag), tone (mag), and volume (piezo) controls to a single output configuration. I'd also like to make the controls more sensitive (right now I get zero adjustment between 3-10 and all of it happens between 1 and 2 if that makes sense).

My questions are:

1 - Can I use my existing bridge for the piezo pickup?
2 - Is there going to be a sizeable difference in output between the piezo and magnetic pickup?
3 - How do I make the controls more sensitive? I'd like to stick with the existing pots (see pictures below)
4 - Do you foresee any issues with this wiring description?
5 - Does anybody know of an existing schematic diagram I can use for this?

I'll include some picture of my guitar to help:










Thanks in advance

[tonyp145]

I don't know the answers, but I'm also interested in this. Been trying to achieve a sound that has elements of both electric and acoustic jazz guitar.

That's a beautiful instrument, solid carved top?

[Woody Sound]

This guitar has a stereo jack. Don't like his sound, but that's probably just the guitar and the recording.

[McJazzer]

I saw that video when I looked up the piezo you mentioned. Do you have a better source?
Tonyp145 - yes, it's solid top Eastman

[docsteve]

I've got the Fishman in an archtop and it is LOUD. Also, a lot of people have congratulated me on my sound. I added a magnetic pickup nevertheless, but I can't mix the two. I've got two jacks at the moment. I added the magnetic because I wanted a more electric sound.


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[Matt Cushman]

One thing about piezo pickups that is hard to get around is the need for a preamp. To get the best sound some type of imp. matching is needed. Most of your blending and switching can be done with a preamp. The problem here is getting the preamp and power supply onboard. We have all seen acoustic guitars with e q, volume, tone etc. mounted in the side, these are a built in feature and hard to duplicate on guitar not designed with multi-pickup types in mind. It may be easier to design a preamp set up that is located outside of the box.

[Woody Sound]

One thing about piezo pickups that is hard to get around is the need for a preamp. To get the best sound some type of imp. matching is needed. Most of your blending and switching can be done with a preamp. The problem here is getting the preamp and power supply onboard. We have all seen acoustic guitars with e q, volume, tone etc. mounted in the side, these are a built in feature and hard to duplicate on guitar not designed with multi-pickup types in mind. It may be easier to design a preamp set up that is located outside of the box.

Cut a hole in the side of your Eastman and screw in one of these.

[SierraTango]

I went down this road once. Searching for that perfect blend of acoustic archtop and pickup tone. Ironically, it was a 805 Eastman that was the guitar.

You will probably find the Fishman bridge to be easier to incorporate into the set-up. As far as onboard blending-probably not. I just had a separate output jack for the Fishman and ran the mag and piezo into a DTAR Solstice. I don't think those are in production any longer however there are similar units out there. Mr. Matt C is right on the money-piezos usually need some form of pre-amp to optimize the signal to the amp.

I found the Fishman to be rather harsh without some preamp/eq in the signal chain. I also tried the mag pickup into one amp and the Fishman into a LR Baggs Para into a separate amp, a kind of quasi stereo set up.

At the end of the day (apologize for the cliché) I found it to be more trouble than it was worth. Just my experience.

[Alter]

the simplest way is to get a piezo that fits underneath your existing bridge, than connect it to your existing pots (replace them with double concentric pots from stewmac, so you have 2 double volume tone controls). Then wire everything to an endpin stereo jack so you can use a stereo cable to seperate the signals. I would prefer to have the acoustic preamp away from the guitar, for easy and versatility.

[Jabberwocky]

K & K Definity. Definity System | K&K Sound

Rich Barbera Soloist transducer. Barbera Transducers

Lashbrook Naturacoustic (but it appears to be defunct).

Instead of a piezo, have you considered an onboard condenser mike like the DPA4099, AMT, Bartlett Audio or a contact mike such as the AKG411 or Schertler Dyn G?

Piezos capture pure string vibrations and not much of the guitar underpinning them. You do obtain stringy "string tone" as opposed to the magnetic pickup sound (a combination of pickup and amp tone). It works for awhile for acoustic string tone effect but wears thin rather quickly. I would rather condenser-mike a pure acoustic tone where one captures the tonal envelope of the entire instrument than stringy strings.

I have a Barbera Soloist. The guitar it is mounted to is almost irrelevant. I hear a lot of string and the floating ebony saddle. That is the good and also the bad. It is convenient though and amongst this class of transducers dulcet inoffensive sounding minus the quack of cheap early piezos. In a sense, you could say it makes a $1000 archtop sound like a $20 000 one...and vice versa. Fresh strings are far more important than the archtop.

IMHO. YMMV.

[Cavalier]

I use k&k big twins mounted internally using super glue, for the most volume and tone, underneath the areas where the bridge feet are. They have enough volume and good tone to skip the preamp if you need to. I do suggest the stereo jack so you can use a separate signal chain, handy for dialing out feedback at high volumes and optimising your magnetic and transducer sound differences.

For a quick try I'd suggest the K&K floating bridge archtop pickup paddles that fit under the feet on top. They can skip the preamp the definity requires.

[Matt Cushman]

If blending piezo with magnetic is the goal you might look at the Graph Tech pre amp. These are made for adding to an electric guitar with mag. pick ups. These preamps are made to go with the Graph Tech piezo saddles but other types of piezo saddles should work also. It is a very small unit but you still need to have a 9 volt battery to power it. I have no experience with this system but they have been around for while now.

[omphalopsychos]

You could just get this, no?

Used Custom 17″ Non-cutaway

[rlrhett]

+1 on the K&K soundboard transducers rather than undersaddle. And +1 for wiring it stereo with the mag pickup.

[McJazzer]

Wow. The Barbera Soloist sounds amazing.

I'm going to explore that option a little. The K & K pickup sounds good too. I think the K & K mics are great too but I would prefer not having to bring a preamp to the gig. I am definitely not considering mounting a preamp to my guitar.
I think the stereo jack is a wise choice but ideally I would not be bringing two amps to every show. It'd be great to have that option but still be able to use a mono cable that will read both signals if I want. In other words - will a mono cable work with a stereo jack?

[omphalopsychos]

How about you get an external preamp, split the stereo out, send the mic line to a preamp, join it back to your magnetic signal, then go I to amp? That's what I've considered doing. Another option to the piezo is using a lavalier mic.

[MikeTT]

You could try the MagPi-System

I once installed it on a Godin 5th avenue in addition to the P90 (which I also replaced with a noiseless P90 from Fralin), and it turned out great. But I only wanted to drop in some acoustic "flavour" at low volume.
As I'm an idiot, I don't have that guitar anymore....

[MikeTT]

If I did it again (modify an archtop to support both mag and piezo), I'd probably try a mix-pot from Noll.
It'd porbably hard to fit it on a guitar like yours, with no holes in the top...

But you could always ask Noll if he could do a custom version, they do custom work for all kinds of luthiers. (I'm not affiliated).

[Guigui]

Hello everyone, I'm new here.

Very interesting topic, i join because I'd like to try a passive mag/piezo setup on a current build.
I'm more comfortable with my chisels than electronics so I have some questions.
I'm looking for something similar to the following wiring diagram but I'd like to have 3 underbridge transducers instead of one, (similar to a k&k mini). How should I process for parallel wiring? Will this config affect the tone of the mag? Does it seems to make any issue?

Thanks for your help.