Peizo Pickups

[Pappy P]

I was wondering how many of you gave have Peizo bridge or neck pickups in your Lectrics.

 

Tell me how they sound.

[Kramer Ferrington III.]

I had one on an acoustic bass.

 

It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really amazing, somehow.

[fantasticsound]

They tend to emphazise the fundamental note over its' harmonics. The subjective description is often that the strings sound like rubber bands compared to the acoustic tone.

 

I've had a Takamine FP-360SC with a piezo and preamp w/eq (bass, treble semi-parametric mid) for 15 years and the luthier who ordered my Blueridge 8 years ago installed an L.R. Baggs Ribbon p'up with a similar preamp layout to the Tak's.

 

When the Tak was brand new people marveled over the sound. Piezo's were hardly brand new, but Takamine's electronics raised the bar for typical a lot. Today it's not so great, but part of that is the guitar itself.

 

The Baggs ribbon is a piezo p'up, but they crush the crystals into a relatively fine powder rather making it less prone to overemphasized fundamental than others I've played. It sounds pretty good, but you won't get the incredibly rich tones a mic can provide. It sounds good, but more importantly, piezos in general give you a measure of convenience that's hard to pass up unless you're a solo acoustic player with a good sound man at the board to control issues with a good, sensative mic.

 

Which brings up the most important factor whether you'll likely enjoy a piezo; your style. If you play solo acoustic most of the time, you may not like the loss of tone that's associated with a piezo p'up. But in the context of most bands, especially if you primarily play rhythm on acoustic, you'll probably be more than happy for the convenience of a piezo because very little of the nuance in your guitar's tone shines through in the average band. In fact, many people deliberately turn their acoustic tone into that high end, mostly rhythmic sound so overused in pop music. If that's your M.O., you won't miss anything by using a piezo over a mic.

[Scott Fraser]

<>

 

In a never ending search for a bit more acoustic warmth & realism added to a semi-hollow jazz sound, I've gone through a bunch of them. First was a Carvin AE185, acoustic bridge w/ a pair of humbuckers, active EQ, blend control, coil taps. Next a Godin Acousticaster, piezo only in a chambered Tele body. More recently a Yamaha Artstar AE200 semihollow, with a minihumbucker & a piezo. They all have a similar aspect to the piezo sound, which is a big emphasis on pick scratchiness & an oddly exaggerrated attack. The basic post-attack string sustain is good enough & fairly acoustic. None of them pick up the actual acoustic unplugged quality of the instrument, which is what I was after. It's a very dry, unnatural non-ambient kind of thing, & I was wanting to add some of the unplugged sound in with the mag pickups. So, I got best results from the Yamaha, with the minihumbucker on 10, piezo up to about 2, & tone rolled back around 5. I just did a 3 hour gig with it last Sunday & I was losing a lot of clarity (my amp was stuck behind my rack, no room,) & I kept inching up the tone & the piezo, until I noticed a lot of fingernail scratchiness coming through. So it's a fine line between getting the slightest bit of an acoustic sound & starting to hear how truly awful a piezo really is when it's not well hidden enough. Basically I think they suck mightily & I'm beginning to believe there might be no amount of piezo in the blend which will both hide the suckitude yet provide a bit of true woody acoustic realism. But, you might have a very different idea of the sound you're aiming for.

I've spent a little bit of time with the Taylor T5, which incorporates both, sort of, & I'm not quite sure but I think they've gotten it right. Warthog may want to chime in here at this point.

BTW Pappy, love the new avatar. I'm showing it to both my white cats right away.

 

Scott Fraser

[Pappy P]

Scott:

 

Which cat is the guilty party?

[AeroG33k]

Does anyone have experience with the ghost piezo system? It seems to be getting good reviews.

[JoeWalsh21]

I have them in my schecter C-1 E/a and I think they sound great! But im still searching for a vintage strat or a reissue, its at the top of my list right now.

[Scott Fraser]

<

 

Which cat is the guilty party?>>

 

It's the ne'er do well son. The mom is cool.

 

Scott Fraser

[Gifthorse]

I love the Parker Flyers or whatever they are called now. They have the piezo I believe.

 

One of the coolest/unique guitars I have played.

 

I have a Fishman pickup in my 12 string that is piezo. I love it, it sounds great.

 

My other guitarist has a seymour duncan but it isn't piezo. It feedsback sometimes through a loud PA. It to me sounds a bit muddier more pickupy..

 

Tonight we played a gig and his guitar sounded like a cement barrel filled with bowling balls wrapped in sweatpants. We got in an argument after, I just can't hear the thing on stage. When the soundman cranks him up it has booming low end, which of course with acoustic is not what you want.