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so I got a piezo buzzer from Radio Shack...

#81
Thought I'd add this in if anyone is interested...

I didn't use that Digikey PCB+piezo part specifically but that was pretty much what I used in the construction of my EUB.

Front.jpg


Each string has its own element and all 4 elements are paralleled together (as mentioned elsewhere, lower resistance). The string contacts directly with the piezo element itself so there's exceptional pressure resulting in a superb sound.

When I first built this (it's been at least 2? years now) I originally made a DIY impedance/gain preamp (loosely after the MIMF preamp). For about the last year I've been running an outboard preamp instead.

I got my elements off of ebay from some China-direct importer though, not Digikey (but no fundemental difference).
 
#82
Poor ol' thread, all neglected and whatnot. That is quite the rad EUB.

I was playin' with some Radio Shack piezos and an EMG piezo preamp last night, and I got to wonderin'. The EMG pre has no input for magnetic pickups, but once the piezo's impedance matches the magnetic pickups, couldn't it be treated as though it were a magnetic pickup? Could I just wire the preamp's output lead like a magnetic pickup's hot lead?

I'm not sure I'm explaining that right; I'll have to do some more experimenting tonight.

UPDATE: Done experimenting. For those wondering, the preamped piezo works as I suspected, and plays nicely with a 500k? pot, which means I can now blend it with magnetic pickups. Fun stuff.
 
#83
FWIW:

Stuck the peizos in and wired them parallel don't get squat with them ran straight to the jack. I assumed the crystal would face up under bridge but really figured it wouldn't matter. Anybody know?

By the way, in pages of this thread I don't think anybody describe a good way to remove the RS peizo from the case so here's how I did it and it worked quite well with no damage.

I just used an exacto knife, pair of channel-locks, and small standard screwdriver.

On the back of the piezo, I stuck the exacto knife point down into the notch in line with the screw slot with the blade edge facing the screw slot. Got a bite in the notch and pride down to pop the lid up enough to get the screwdriver under and popped the lid off. If you stick the exacto knife in with the blade running parallel to the back of the peizo, you'll probably snap the tip off the blade.

I took the channels-locks and snapped the rim off all the way around flush with the peizo but trying to get it to break off below the peizo if possible to allow for bite under the peizo if needed.

Then I took the channel-locks and gripped the sides of the casing below the level of the piezo and walked around the perimeter gently squeezing the casing as I went in order to break the glue loose from the perimeter of the peizo. On one I got the peizo to pop right out, the other took a little more finess and work - but neither ended up with a scratch on them or any deformity.

On one there was some glue residue left around the perimeter of the peizo and I just used the tip of the exacto knife to pop it loose so the peizo would be flat as possible.

Update:

well I think I've found my problem - and maybe yours too. I was staring off into space in the direction of my bass (what a temptation to keep the rhyme going) when I noticed the solder point of the hot lead of the peizo was up against the bridge. Hmm? Apparently I was staring off into space when I rigged the piezo's up. So I got the meter and checked - direct short. In fact, you couldn't slip the piezo under the bridge face up without it shorting unless the connection was insulated because the solder point is the thickest point of the piezo.

Haven't messed with it since to verify making the change will produce results but it should. I know the piezo's work cause I hooked a meter to them and got fluctuation when I squeezed on them.

Update:

got back to dinking with the piezo's. Loosened up the bridge and pulled the piezo hot leads away from the bridge. Out of curiosity, before buttoning the bridge back down, I put a meter to it. Oddly enough the ground showed no continuity to the bridge but the hot lead did. So I checked to make sure I hadn't crossed the leads in the control bay. They were good. Hmm?

So I thought what if I insulated the top of the peizo's - plus that would permit sticking the solder point right up to the bridge and getting more of the piezo under it. So I took some electrical tape and covered the top of the piezo. Plugged up and tapped on the bridge before tighting the bridge down and got response.

Tuned up and works fine. Lower side of average output, not bad. Doesn't sound anything like an upright to me but in a hollow body, like a beatle bass, may be very interesting. No complaints for $5. I'll rewire them in series and see what it does.
 
#84
I wish I'd found this thread a few days ago. Anyway, here's a copy of what I posted last night on the EUB forum:

I'm currently designing an EUB - yesterday I was pricing hardware & pickups in music stores and found an acoustic guitar piezo bug for $20 (probably sells for about $3.75 in the USA). At that price I thought it was worth a try.
I stuck it on a bass - it sounded awful, with very low output.
Then I put it directly under a bridge - it had a huge output but very metallic tone.
Next, I got some cutters and hacked it out of its little metal case, so it was now just a little blob of plastic 1/8" thick - I put it under the bridge and it sounds amazing! Nice top-end clarity without being too edgy, huge output and solid, defined low end. Even without a preamp it's much louder than my Jazz Bass DiMarzios.

There was some hum, so I wrapped it in alfoil, making sure the earth wire was contacting the foil. That reduced the hum to almost nil.

The instrument it's on is a one-string test-bed I made out of flooring timber to try some ideas and work out geometry before doing a serious EUB, but it sounded so good I took it to a jazz jam tonight - it's amazing how much fun I can have with just an A string!

Now that I know about the RS piezo buzzer I'll try to source a couple of them to experiment with.
 
#85
phatcactus said:
Poor ol' thread, all neglected and whatnot. That is quite the rad EUB.

I was playin' with some Radio Shack piezos and an EMG piezo preamp last night, and I got to wonderin'. The EMG pre has no input for magnetic pickups, but once the piezo's impedance matches the magnetic pickups, couldn't it be treated as though it were a magnetic pickup? Could I just wire the preamp's output lead like a magnetic pickup's hot lead?

I'm not sure I'm explaining that right; I'll have to do some more experimenting tonight.

UPDATE: Done experimenting. For those wondering, the preamped piezo works as I suspected, and plays nicely with a 500k? pot, which means I can now blend it with magnetic pickups. Fun stuff.
Click to expand...

Just saw this..

yep! It should (it seems it has I think).. that was my reasoning behind paralleling the whole block. Preamps really don't care what is attached to its leads as long as the impedance is right.




*edit* i can't spell
 
#86
Luknfur: I used two sets of needle nose pliers to open the casing. Grab one around the housing, then the other around the tabbed notch w/ a hole through it (where you'd mount it to something) and snap it off. You'll have an opening large enough for both pliers to fit in so you can just pry it. I messed around a bit with knives and clamps and little screwdrivers and the whole bit, but 2 pliers were very easy.
 
#87
patrickj said:
Luknfur: I used two sets of needle nose pliers to open the casing. Grab one around the housing, then the other around the tabbed notch w/ a hole through it (where you'd mount it to something) and snap it off. You'll have an opening large enough for both pliers to fit in so you can just pry it. I messed around a bit with knives and clamps and little screwdrivers and the whole bit, but 2 pliers were very easy.
Click to expand...

Yep, getting the cover off was no problem. On the piezo's I had, the piezo was the size of a quarter and it was glued around the perimeter midway depth in the housing. It wasn't just a matter of getting the lid off and dumping the piezo out.
 
#89
I recently bought a used Applause ABG to cover a steady "unplugged type" of gig. When I got home and plugged it in the pickup didn't work. After removing the strings and saddle I found the pickup was in pieces. The seller refunded $50 of the purchase price for the broken pickup. Final price, $100.

I was very reluctant to pay $50+ to buy another saddle pickup, not to mention I couldn't find one that was one that was long enough. My goal was to get a useable sound for the least amount of money.

I went to the local electronics store and bought some piezo discs for 45 cents a piece. I used double sided tape and stuck one to the underside of the top, near the bridge. After some experimantation, I found that putting pressure on the disc made a huge improvement in the sound. I ended up putting a wad of gaffers tape on the exposed side of the disc and then cut a metal skewer to length, bent the looped end at a 90, and wedged it between the wad of tape and the back of the guitar, much like a sound post on a double bass. Tada!!!

The only drawback is very low output.

To buffer it, I use a Fishman Platnium Pro preamp set flat with a touch of compression, gain & volume set to max, into a DOD 31 band EQ and then to the PA. Overall it sounds at least as good as other comparable ABG's I've heard.

When experimenting with piezos, the key is finding a way to put pessure on the pickup.
 
#91
When experimenting with piezos, the key is finding a way to put pessure on the pickup.
Click to expand...

Yep!

I mounted my piezos (in my EUBs) in the bridge such that the string pressure holds the elements in place. You couldn't do these with roundwounds as the grooves will tear the elements apart, but there's no problem using flatwould or DB strings like this. The direct contact + the pressure really gives my uprights the real double bass chunky sound (you don't get that with a piezo mounted on the body).
 
#94
This has been a good one, let's keep it going!

I'm going to do the piezo thing, myself. I'm going to try both the Radio Shack DIY version and the Experimental Musical Instruments (EMI) piezo film version.

First, I'm going to try the RS DIY on my Spirit fretless XZ-25. It should be interesting to pull the bridge on it and mount the buzzer elements underneath it. I'll report back when I have it operational.

I'm looking to get an acoustic/upright bass tone to add to the stock EMG Select mags' tone.
 
#95
Okay, I've been to Radio Shack and picked up two of the 060's, which were $5 each (they've gone up a lot)!

The first one broke open nicely and no bending or scratching to the piezo element. The second one was a little tougher to get open and the element was bent on opposite sides a little bit.

Okay.. I laid a couple of strips of black electricians' tape down on the body, placed the elements (with new leads soldered on), and then placed two strips of tape over the tops and the wires. I soldered the reds together and the blacks together, then soldered those to a shielded, braided lead that I routed into the control cavity.

I connected both the EMG Selects together on the front volume pot, and then connected the piezo shielded wire to the middle volume pot.

I reinstalled an EMG BTC control to use to buffer the piezo output, but that meant I had to unravel all the connections to and from it and to the jack and the battery!

I just had lunch, so am going to hook up the bass in a few minutes and see if I have output.
 
#96
Well, predictably, the pickups work but not the piezos.

Time to check the wiring yet again...

I tried the piezos wired directly to a passive jack, and that DID work.. Does anyone know if piezos don't like being wired to a 250K pot?

I would think there'd still be some kind of output, even so..

If this is okay, then tomorrow, I'll check the bridge to make sure the leads or the piezos' aren't shorting out somehow against the bridge, or the ground wire.
 
#98
lilvampboyx said:
I dont know if this threat is dead but what would happen if i put it under my pickguard
Click to expand...

Piezo's pickup the string vibration and that's why they're placed under the bridge since not only is it anchor for the strings but the bridge screws pull the bridge tight to the piezoswhich would enhance the signal - since they basically operate off pressure. Seemed like I just squeezed one once and I could hear it.

But do it and find out. There's no reason not to do something that causes no harm just because someone tells you it won't work. I can't see what harm sticking a piezo under the pickgaurd can do and more than I can see what good it would do. But I haven't done it myself so I don't know.
 
#99
luknfur said:
Piezo's pickup the string vibration and that's why they're placed under the bridge since not only is it anchor for the strings but the bridge screws pull the bridge tight to the piezoswhich would enhance the signal - since they basically operate off pressure. Seemed like I just squeezed one once and I could hear it.

But do it and find out. There's no reason not to do something that causes no harm just because someone tells you it won't work. I can't see what harm sticking a piezo under the pickgaurd can do and more than I can see what good it would do. But I haven't done it myself so I don't know.
Click to expand...

do this...hold the back of the bass up to your ear and play the strings....my guess is, that this sound (the sound transmitted to the bass body, will be similar to the sound from a piezo placed under the pickguard...

yeah, heck, try it...you may be onto something...
 
#100
I tryed it undermy pickguard....No bad....I just wish it wasnt SO sensitive....I can barly touch any part of the bass and it will pick it up......also it took over the burp and added growl= GREAt im adding one under my bridge now
 

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