Bass Guitar Piezo Pickup and integration

Altoid

Hi there,

Does anyone know or know where I could find out more about Piezo pickups for a bass?

I'm in the planning stage (could last years) for a new fretless and I'm thinking of a Piezo pickup, then a Bartoloni MusicMan pickup with a single jazz nearer to the neck.

I believe piezos need a buffer amp, where could I get one? After that how could I add it in to the rest?

Also, what are good brands for these?

All the pre-amps and eq's I've seen are for 2 pick-up systems only, anyone know where I could get a three way?

I'm good with a soldering iron, and could build from plans, but I have no idea where I could start from on this.

Ideally a volume for each pickup would be ideal, after that maybe a bass/treble active eq.

Your thoughts and ideas are appreciated.

- Altoid.

Doctor J

I had a quick look into this last year, seemed like ABM had some pretty good piezo bridge designs. I dunno if I'd want a piezo on the same preamp circuit as magnetic pickups, most of the designs I've seen have the magnetic pickups on their own circuit, with piezo and magnetic routed to their own outputs or combined via 3-way switch to run through one output but the circuits were kept separate right up to the output.

Have a search for Ibanez s2020 xav wiring diagram. It's a guitar but it'll give you an idea of what's involved in configuring a magnetic-piezo setup. Also have a sniff around the Carvin site for any of their wiring diagrams and send a mail to ABM to ask them what circuitry they'd recommend.

Altoid

Hi Again,

Thanks for the info - it looks like ABM are no longer doing these bridges.

Next question would be - if I have a buffer or preamp for the piezo could I then route the output from the magnetic pickups and the piezo amp into one pre-amp allowing me to use the same eq for the entire output. I would also add a seperate volume for each pickup so that I could fully mix them.

Lots of controls and more batteries - but I'm used to that...

I'm not even sure how this would sound. Should I just blow the idea away and stick jazz pickups in there?

Any thoughts or ideas welcome - what would be the ideal fretless electronics setup?

- Altoid.

Doctor J

Allparts are still selling the ABM amongst others.

The uneffected sound of your piezo will be wildly different from your magnetic pickups and I would be stunned if the same EQ settings worked for both. Running them through the same EQ might leave you with a totally unusable system where when one sounds good and the other sounds ****e and vice versa. Use of stacked knobs would alleviate the clutter, you could have as little as 4 knobs and a switch with two separate preamps for your magnetic and piezo circuits - ie, vol+balance, bass cut/boost+treble cut/boost for your magnetic circuit and vol+middle cut/boost and bass cut/boost+treble cut/boost for your piezo and a single 9v for each, then a three way switch to combine the two signals.

To be honest, I think it'd be overkill though. The ideal setup is the one that gives you the sound you're looking for, but do you know what that is? Are the woods you're using condusive to the sound you want?

Altoid

Thanks again,

I suppose two seperate pre-amps would be the way to go, if I go with this.

I'm still not sure of the woods I'm going to use. This project will not start untill next year if I''m lucky - too busy and no money for this sort of thing.

I am looking at a system that will give me as versatile a sound as possible. I'm tempted to take the Alembic pickups and pre-amp out of my current Jazz-copy fretless and use them as they do sound good, but I don't have a reference for Bartolini's except what I have read about them.

I'll let you know what I decide, when and if I go ahead.

- Altoid.

Altoid

I found the Bartolini website has preamps that will do for the magnetics and buffer amps with a blend for the piezo.

Allparts have a nice 'looking' piezo bridge (I know nothing of what is a good one).

So, I might start buying now as they will cost a LOT by the time I have everything I need.

Thanks.