Use piezo preamp on magnetic pickup.

[aronnes71]

I am in the process of converting a acoustic guitar to bass. This is my second conversion. I change the fretboard and move the bridge. But I am thinking of installing a magnetic pickup also, I do not want to use a piezo pickup.

Is it possible to connect the magnetic pickup to the acoustic (piezo) preamp?

cheers
Tore

 

[Matt Liebenau]

It’s possible but it may not sound the best. Most peizos want a much higher input impedance then a magnetic pickup so it will undoubtedly work as in the preamp will amplify the mag and alter the tone but the tone being altered may not be the best you could get from the pickup. However, if you know which end of the soldering iron to hold it’s pretty easy to find out. Nothing is going to short out or blow up or anything like that.

 

[bholder]

It’s possible but it may not sound the best. Most peizos want a much higher input impedance then a magnetic pickup so it will undoubtedly work as in the preamp will amplify the mag and alter the tone but the tone being altered may not be the best you could get from the pickup. However, if you know which end of the soldering iron to hold it’s pretty easy to find out. Nothing is going to short out or blow up or anything like that.

Yeah, there's the impedance mismatch, and any eq'ing in included for the piezo may not sound great with the mag.

But try it and find out and let us know?

I was just talking with a preamp builder about designing the inverse - grafting his mag pickup preamp 3 band tone stack back end onto the piezo preamp front end. We'll see where that goes... (why shouldn't a full 3 band eq work with piezos? right??)

 

[Matt Liebenau]

Yeah, there's the impedance mismatch, and any eq'ing in included for the piezo may not sound great with the mag.

But try it and find out and let us know?

I was just talking with a preamp builder about designing the inverse - grafting his mag pickup preamp 3 band tone stack back end onto the piezo preamp front end. We'll see where that goes... (why shouldn't a full 3 band eq work with piezos? right??)

That too. The eq points may be different than what would be ideal for a magnetic pickup but by all means, the only way to know for sure is to give it a shot. It’s just a little time. Let us know what happens.

 

[aronnes71]

Thanks all!
I will try. I’ll let you all know how it turned out.

Cheers.

 

[Jefenator]

I'd be surprised if the input impedance created any problems. The Countryman Type 85 & Noble are well liked for use with magnetic bass guitars and they're both way up at 10M.