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Piezo type pickups
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Tom Thievin
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Sep 16, 2005 06:14 PDT
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Hi all:
When you are stuck for a pickup, you might want to look into using the
'famous' Radio Shack piezo buzzer pickup. In short, for less that 10 bucks,
you take apart an RS piezo buzzer, hot glue it onto something like the
spider or bridge, hook it up as a high impedance pickup into any guitar type
amp or high impedance input on a board and away you go.
You will find that it actually works a little too good and so you might get
feedback if the amp speaker is too close. Keeping the speaker away and doing
some EQ is usually necessary, depending on how loud you want to get.
Check:
http://web.mit.edu/kumpf/www/Acoustics/main.html. Here he is mounting in a
flat top. (No you don't need to do the racing stripe on the top.) Look also
at
http://www.harmony-central.com/Guitar/Data3/Radio_Shack/273-066-Piezo-Buzzer
-01.html. Google search 'radio shack piezo buzzer pickup' for more on this.
You get the idea. I have one on my spider, works great and on my standup
bass I have two pickups. One is a commercial type, can't remember the name
but it cost $300 and a piezo buzzer hot glued to the bridge. Can't really
tell them apart and I got all the sound I need and compliments. Can't get
better then that.
I have done this in pianos for years and while it takes a bit of fiddlin to
get a nice sound, it works rather great and can really save the day. I guess
for what it costs, I should say it $aves the day.
Oh no need to thank me, it is an old idea that I stole from some one else.
Now when you steal a Mike Aludridge lick, everyone knows, but when you steal
an idea like this, well who's gonna know?
Take care, Tom
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