Piezo Pickup Question

[Flon Klar Guitars]

Hey People-

I'm building a new fretless, and I want to use a piezo bridge in conjunction with a Bart soapbar. I have no experience with the piezo application, and the information I've found is sketchy and unclear, so I have some questions:

I assume having a piezo buffer is a necessity, not an option, right?

Once the buffer is in place in the system, is the bridge then treated as just another pickup? In other words, can I simply tie it in to the eq system along with the Bart pup? (A lot of the information I've seen on the subject refers to people wanting separate output jacks for the piezo and mag pups, so I just want to make sure that I'm not missing a piece of the puzzle.)

That's it, at least until something else pops up. I appreciate your wisdom.

[Mattia]

Yes, you want at least a buffer, possibly even a seperate preamp for a piezo. At least, if you want it to sound nice.

As for the other questions: that very much depends on the buffer/preamp circuit in question. If you want a design for a homebrew preamp, check the MIMF.com library for something suitable. I think LR Baggs control X will do roughly what you want to, although your best bet is probably to use baggs piezos as well. GraphTech's GHOST system also has a variety of preamp ptions.