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Piezo + Magnetic Pickups With An Audere 4 Band Pre-amp Wiring


Jon

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I'm looking into building my own piezo system for my 8-string bass to add more versatile tone to my bass. I have only played two basses ever with a piezo setup and they sounded unlike anything I've ever heard, it was a very desirable tone for the two-hand tapping work I do.

I am still a little confused as to what kind of piezo system I want for my bass, I have read many tutorials on building piezos and am not positive which will work best with my setup. What I think would fit and be my best bet would be something similar to this ~> Piezo under bridge pickup tutorial. I will be making the bridge out of wood and routing out channels for saddle adjustment (using these as the saddles) and have a brass tailpiece behind it where the strings will load into. Think of it like a TOM bridge + tailpiece. It may sound silly or complicated to some, but I want to make my own bridges as an ERB hipshot bridge will run anywhere from $170-300. So my questions are:

(1.) Has anyone worked with this kind of piezo system before, and do you recommend it? If not, what would you recommend over it?

(2.) How would I wire this in with my Audere pre-amp? I'm sure I will need a seperate pre-amp to run the piezo, but how many pots will I need? - I would like to have a magnetic / piezo blend and a piezo volume. What I'm guessing this falls down to in order from top to bottom (image below to make a little more sense of things) would be:

Treble / High - Mid (Concentric)

Low Mid / Low (Concentric)

Magentic pickup blend

Piezo and magnetic pickup blend (to blend between the two)

Piezo Volume / Magnetic pickup volume (Concentric)

Master Volume

I know it seems incredibly complicated, that's the price you have to pay for becoming a luthier with a board range of interests. But if anyone has any advice for wiring or simplifying any of my ideas, I'd be extremely interested in hearing it.

What it would look like with only the Audere pre-amp. And don't worry, the maple strip will be routed out and I will be using Wenge or a similar dark wood in it's place.

test.jpg

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  • 2 weeks later...

That kind of piezo is designed for use directly underneath an acoustic-style saddle; I'm not sure how much output you'll get, and tone you'll get, with it located underneath a wood bridge plate with individual metal saddles on top of that. It should be fairly inexpensive to try, and you should be able to send it straight to the Audere...I'd actually wire it up to the Audere first without the magnetic pickups connected, and see how it sounds, before you get too fancy with the switching.

If it doesn't work out, Graphtech makes individual piezo inserts for both ABM and Hipshot saddles, about $30 each. link

If you can use these in your own saddle arrangement, or source the individual saddles themselves, then you can make any kind of bridge plate you want and be assured of good piezo output.

You'd also need two connector blocks to plug the saddles into, but after that I think you can rout the signal wherever you want. The Ghost preamp is really easy to use, and offers all sorts of EQ and switching options, but it is pricey.

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I would love to use the Ghost system, it's simply amazing. But I'm trying to save money and it would end up being an additional $400-600 to go that route. Thanks a ton for the info! I thought a piezo system had to have a separate pre-amp? If not, how do you recommend I wire the piezo pickup to the pre-amp? If I can stick with wiring the piezo to the Audere pre-amp, that's going to save me a whole lotta headache!

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A way to simplify your preamp (so that you can afford some nice piezo saddles) would be to make a simple circuit like this: Tllman Preamp. It uses a small amount of very cheap parts and works great for a piezo preamp. I have built this exact circuit and it works great. I tested it with undersaddle pickups as well and coaxial piezo and piezo saddles (like the Ghost system) and it worked fine for all of them.

You will have to add a volume and play around with tone circuits but this is a simple way to go. To blend the piezo with the magnetics build three of these. Run the magnetics and the piezos into two seprate preamps. Then take the outputs and run that into your blender pot. Then run that into a final preamp to your output. You may want to include a separate volume for each instead of the blend. Keep in mind that this will affect the magnetics since it is making them active instead of passive.

If you want a cheaper version of this already built check out the Dtar Timberline. You can order the preamp separately if you call them direct. It has all the volume and tone circuitry figured out and allows for another source (typically piezo and microphone). I have used these before and they also work great.

~David

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This may seem like a stupid question (probably because it is), but since the the preamp has an output impedance of about 6K Ohms, why do you need to preamp the magnetic pickups? I would wager that 6K Ohms is about the output impedance of most magnetic pickups (single coils anyway).

Edited by Setain
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Since I only play clean, with absolutely no effects. I also play many different finger styles that require different kinds of EQ's to build the correct tone for said play-style. A pre-amp is very important for me to have the proper tone adjustment at my fingers, it's practically a requirement for my play-style.

Two-hand tapping: Less low's, more mid's to keep the chord work from sounding muddy and have the notes ring out together.

Finger style: There are many different finger styles I use, I just use the magnetic blend to get the proper tone.

Slap: More low, more highs for a punchy bright attack

Finger-nail: Same as two-hand work.

Thanks a ton, David. You gave me plenty of ideas with your suggestions. Any other suggestions are welcome, but I have just about everything figured out now thanks to the very helpful info from Erik and David. Thanks again, guys!

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This may seem like a stupid question (probably because it is), but since the the preamp has an output impedance of about 6K Ohms, why do you need to preamp the magnetic pickups? I would wager that 6K Ohms is about the output impedance of most magnetic pickups (single coils anyway).

Good point. I just started making my own preamps so followed the advice of my acoustic pickup maker. I will test out the active preamp and passive magnetics blending. If it can work that way it would be an excellent way to go. I ws under the impression that active and passive don't mix but I guess it really does come down to impedance matching. Thanks!

Glad to hear that you are on your way Jon. I will post what I find when I test out Setain's suggestion.

~David

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