Piezo System?

[jessejames]

Anyone know of a Piezo system you can put under the neck pickup area of a guitar? Really want to find one and I've been looking but can't find anything, just ones that go into the saddles of the bridge. 

[curtisa]

Not commercially that I know of.

Some people have pulled apart those little buzzers to get to the piezo plate element and inserted that into the neck pocket. The one time I tried it I decided it wasn't the best sound I'd ever heard - very hollow, distant and muted. You'd also need an external preamp/buffer to make the most out it.

If you do decide to try it for yourself don't expect it to sound anything like a traditional piezo saddle pickup.

A piezo pickup relies on direct measurement of the physical vibration of an object in order to reproduce it as sound, which is probably why putting it in the neck pocket or under an existing magnetic pickup makes it sound so weak - too far away from direct contact with a vibrating object to make any serious noise.  Assuming you could cradle the pickup somehow in free air, putting it near the vibrating strings as you do with a magnetic pickup will result in no sound whatsoever. It needs to be bonded to something that is vibrating in sympathy with the strings - the saddles or the soundboard of an acoustic instrument are the obvious places. The neck pocket experiment works a little (it will vibrate a teeny bit, but it is designed to be strong enough to resist the strings ripping the neck out of the body, so transferred vibration from the strings is slugged a lot).

Maybe attach it to the top surface of the body near the area occupied by the bridge?  Maybe on the headstock?

Edited August 29, 2015 by curtisa