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

#101
lilvampboyx said:
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
Click to expand...

FWIW:

a piezo will do that. On my Lightwave, I can turn the screws to my trustrod cover and tap on the headstock and hear it through the amp. But it's not something that picks up anything during play. Seemed the RS's would pick up tapping on the body but not something I played around with and not any transfer during play.

I doubt that would be an issue if you stuck them under the bridge and I'm guessing they would be much more pronounced under the bridge.
 
#102
Tried this, have a few questions. Basically, can someone explain what wires (red,black) to solder where? Inner/outer ring on piezo, which part of the stereo jack, etc. I bought a seperate jack so I can use it for my banjo. I wired it up, trying to follow this, but it did not work, can anyone check this out and, if it's right, maybe explain it a little more? Thanks!

piezo.gif


And, does it matter if i solder the wires to the middle of the piezo inner ring, as opposed to the outside of it as shown (where the red wire attaches).
 
#103
ZombieGhosTrain said:
Tried this, have a few questions. Basically, can someone explain what wires (red,black) to solder where? Inner/outer ring on piezo, which part of the stereo jack, etc. I bought a seperate jack so I can use it for my banjo. I wired it up, trying to follow this, but it did not work, can anyone check this out and, if it's right, maybe explain it a little more? Thanks!

piezo.gif


And, does it matter if i solder the wires to the middle of the piezo inner ring, as opposed to the outside of it as shown (where the red wire attaches).
Click to expand...

piezos require a high-impedance input to work...do you know anything about op-amps? a simple buffer circuit using an op-amp and a few resistors and capacitors would be give you the high-imp you need.
 
#104
RyanHelms said:
...after reading a diy article about a replacement pup for an Azola Baby Bass. A thread from another BBS had guys saying "Yeah, this sounds like a hundred bucks and the buzzer only cost me $2.99" Got to wonderin' "Hmmmmmmmm, what would happen if I put one under the bridge on my solidbody?"
A couple of buzzers later (breaking the disc out of the plastic buzzer case and then soldering it up without ruining it along the way is super fun...) there's now a piezo bridge on my homebrew solidbody fretless.

I must say I'm shocked at how good it sounds. Not a true DB replication but the notes are definately there! Open notes have a new growl I've never heard from that bass, and if I really dig in there's that unmistakable string click. And that's straight, a pre-amp will really juice it up. The string response isn't 100% even, but hey - I'm comin' in under $10 here.

Anyone ever mess around with something like this? I found a nice solidbody bridge with piezo saddles made by Invalid Link Removed , but they start at $320 ($400 for a 6-string :eek: ) Who else uses piezos and what's yer set-up?
There's got to be an alternative to what's available out there...

-Ryan
Click to expand...
Wow, old thread.

But anyways...

About 20 years ago I had a handheld electronic football game that died. (The kind that used red LED's in the 'display screen'. You kids will have no idea what I'm talking about. This is pre game-boy.)

So I took the piezo buzzer out, connected a 1/4" phono jack to it, puttied the piezo under the bridge of my classical guitar, drilled a hole throught the top :eek: and installed the jack.

Yes, it worked and sounded great. A little bright but nothing that turning the treble down couldn't fix.

Here it is.

YamahaClassical.jpg


A lot older, wiser and still making music.

:D

Joe.
 
#106
PilbaraBass said:
piezos require a high-impedance input to work...do you know anything about op-amps? a simple buffer circuit using an op-amp and a few resistors and capacitors would be give you the high-imp you need.
Click to expand...

If you up the # of piezos you can get away without the preamp. Paralleling the transducers will lower the impedance to something quite a bit more manageable.
 
#110
erm, this may be a stupid question, but why dont you just buy a piezo transducer? its around the same price as a buzzer and you dont need to take it out of the case

i mean like these
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=3202&criteria=piezo&doy=17m5


anyway, i got two of those under the saddles on my old bass, its pretty cool apart from the fact that the D string is louder than all the others(but that was bad positioning )
 
#111
THIRSTYGUMS said:
I would love to see some photos and hear some sounclips about this, maybe a diagram or two?
Pleeeeeese?
Click to expand...

+1. Sounclips and more extensive schematics would be great.

Anyone have a diagram for wiring a jazz bass with:

Master Volume
mag. pickup neck and bridge blend
Blended Mag. Pickup/Piezo blend
Master Tone

Also, I'm a bit confused about needing a preamp. Shouldn't the preamp on the amp or the tone knob on the bass be sufficient?

Are there any more outside resources for this that I can use?
 
#112
I am building my first bass and was thinking... what if I made a cavity IN the neck just above where it connects to the body where I could insert some Piezos and have it wired down to my regular electronics... Ofcorse I would need to have extra long wire to reach the electronic compartment, create proper tension on the piezos through the use of glues, and install a switch to blend or shut off at will. What do you guys think? mabye just put it in the neck joint instead of the acutal neck? Would be a great experiment...
 
#113
Today i went to the shack and bought 2 piezos and a 1/4 jack... Not wanting to wait for my project to get done, or my new acoustic bass to arrive, I taped a piezo to various parts of my p.o.s. squier...

At it's head: it sounded okay, I noticed that when I did a percussive tap at the bottom of the bass it took the waves a short amount of time to travel to the head, sounded pretty neat. It seemed harder to differentiate between what picking style was being used because of the distance. Also, the further you played down the neck, the more the sound got dulled out. By the 12th fret it was pretty faint.

Under the pickguard: Sound was vibrant... Too much treble and way too much noise from both playing the strings and tapping the body. You could probally get a unique playing style out of a piezo in this reletive position, which would include using the actual bass body as a percussion. Fretting and sliding sounded kinda bad, I would not reccomend this position unless you are really innovative.

Back of the neck: Sounded very nice. It gave kindof a "midsy" sound. You could hear the picking style the same as if you were playing with a regular pickup. There was no intense sensativity when touching the body or any other parts of the bass.

I plan on routing a hole in the back of the neck and sticking one or two in there for my project fretless.

Anyone kind enough to help me finish my wiring diagram? there is a knob for tone, volume, and a switch with 3 positions that will blend, the single coil mm with the piezos, allow for only the pickup, and only the piezo.
 
#114
PilbaraBass said:
piezos require a high-impedance input to work...do you know anything about op-amps? a simple buffer circuit using an op-amp and a few resistors and capacitors would be give you the high-imp you need.
Click to expand...
I'm not sure I agree with this. I have run bare piezos direct into guitar amps, mixing boards, rack effects, etc. many times. Now, I have no idea what impedance the inputs of any of those units was, but the piezos have never needed a special buffer IME. Perhaps they might sound better or function more optimally with a buffer circuit, but it's not a deal-breaker.
 
#115
bongomania said:
I'm not sure I agree with this. I have run bare piezos direct into guitar amps, mixing boards, rack effects, etc. many times. Now, I have no idea what impedance the inputs of any of those units was, but the piezos have never needed a special buffer IME. Perhaps they might sound better or function more optimally with a buffer circuit, but it's not a deal-breaker.
Click to expand...

FWIW:

not up on them myself. I know for a fact they'll work wired straight to a jack cause I've done it but from what I gather you only get a higher frequencies that way. A decent piezo will put out like 20Hz - 20 kHz. I've read plenty of posts from guys that seem to be in the know regarding buffers being of significance. Can't remember whether I wired the RS's in with a mag or not but my previous posts in the thread would say.
 
#116
Wow. This thread is 2 years old, yet still no sound clips or pics? I'm going to wire my Squier with piezos when I get a chance, but it would be great if I saw some wiring diagrams because I sill want to keep my stock P's. I'm just going to add a vol. pot for the piezos.

So someone... PLEASE post some sound clips and some pics!!! Thanks!
 
#117
Sweet, found ANOTHER mod for my SX :)

I was thinking of getting two of these and wiring them to a volume pot. I don't know if I should wire it in parallel or seies, and have no clue on the wiring of two leads to a volume pot/output.

Help?
 
#119
I did this to a cheap bass i had a while ago, it works pretty well, but the thing is, i cant get the damn string reponse even!!

any ideas?


also, for some reason if i compress the piezos too hard under the bridge(ie, screwing the bridge down) they stop working, any ideas why and how do get around it?


so ive got them between my saddles and my bridge base
 

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