Acoustic Pickup In An Electric

[Daniel Sorbera]

ok I'm building a semi hollow body electric. It will have a 1/4" maple top, if I used this pickup and mounted it to the top would I get good acoustic sound? or would it just sound like crap because it is mounted to a 1/4" peice of maple?

[monkey69962000]

If its a microphone pickup, i dont think it will work well. Maybe thd sound would be low. From the pickup being mounted on the inside of the acoustic, it most likly is a microphone pickup. An electric guitar un plugged to an amp isnt al loud as an acoustic from the hollow body of an acoustic amplifying the sound in the body. From the electric not producing as big a sound, i feel the pickup would be good on the guitar.

But if its a magnetic pickup then it might work. I dont get why a magnetic pickup can work on a nylon string so i feel its a microphone. Good luck

Remeber im a bit of a newb at guitars, so wait for others approvale too.

[darren wilson]

I don't think it will work very well. That kind of pickup really needs to be attached directly to the bridge for it to sense the vibrations enough to turn them into a usable signal. If you read the description on the L.R. Baggs page, it says it's mounted directly to the bridge plate, which is probably the most active part of an acoustic guitar's top.

I doubt the body of a solid-body guitar would vibrate enough for that kind of pickup to sense very much in the way of string vibrations.

It would probably pick up more bumps, knocks and squeaks from your physical interaction with the guitar than it would pick up vibration from the strings.

There are bridge pickup systems out there for electric guitars, from L.R. Baggs, Fishman, Shadow and GraphTech (among others).

[tirapop]

Yeah, it would probably work. This piezo (not a microphone) is designed to attach to an existing bridge plate... so it's designed around the thickness of the top (.1"-.125") and the bridge plate (about .1"). Your maple is a bit thicker/heavier. On an acoustic the top is light spruce (or cedar, redwood), but, that area around the bridge is the most braced part of the whole top, so your 1/4" maple top might not be too much stiffer. You need underside access. The conventional under saddle piezo would be easier to install and more directly couple to the strings.