Passive piezo systems

Rabs

Ive been doing a fair bit of reading on how best to get an acoustic sound from a semi hollow build. At first it seemed that one of the better ways if using an electric set up was to just buy one of the Fishman or Schaller bridges but they are so so expensive.. Im doing this for a good friend of mine so want a cheaper option than that...

So ive been looking at those cheap piezo transducer disc things... And ive seen varying results with them.. They seem to work quite well in some cases and I thought maybe I could do the rest with what ever wiring set up I end up using.

Then I had an idea..  If these transducers work on picking up vibration from the body what would happen if when I glued the top to the back that I actually glue a couple of these inbetween the centre block and the top? 

Heres a vid I saw of someone doing a very basic version

Funkfingers

At the other end of the price spectrum, PRS builds hollow and semi-hollow electric guitars with added transducer systems. (Alex Lifeson was a noted user.) IMO, these still manage to sound somewhat artificial compared to an actual acoustic guitar - even through a complex, multi-amplifier system. If strumming sound acceptable, picking sounds thin. If picking sounds sweet, strumming sounds muddy. 

Rabs

Funkfingers said:

At the other end of the price spectrum, PRS builds hollow and semi-hollow electric guitars with added transducer systems. (Alex Lifeson was a noted user.) IMO, these still manage to sound somewhat artificial compared to an actual acoustic guitar - even through a complex, multi-amplifier system. If strumming sound acceptable, picking sounds thin. If picking sounds sweet, strumming sounds muddy. 

Well my thought was to get a cheap piezo tune o matic, stick two of those trasducers in and wire them all together and do the rest of the balancing with what ever pot, cap and resistor values that work best (if you see what I mean)...

Or is that a silly idea? 

Theres also another piece to this puzzle I think....  The strings..  When I was reading up on the Taylor T5 it occurred to me.. What sort of strings do you put on a guitar like that. And the answer seemed to be that you get hybrid strings..  They have a steel inner core with bronze wrapping.. Apparently this is because the piezo (the bridge ones) reacts well with the bronze and the magnetic pickup works well with the steel which seems like an important factor to me.

Also I intend to do normal two pickup wiring so im hoping that if the piezo is too weak that you can blend some of the magnetic in when it in the middle position. Of course it wont ever quite sound like a real acoustic.. I get that.. But im just trying to think of the best ways to compensate for that (which im sure much smarter people than me have tried).

ICBM

In my opinion the key is the bridge. I've never heard an electric guitar bridge with piezo saddles that sounded anything other than artificial, but even with its primitive 80s piezo UST and preamp, the Fender HMT Acoustic-Electric Tele sounded really good - at least in the same way as a piezo-equipped acoustic can, if not like a mic'ed acoustic... because it has a normal acoustic-guitar wooden bridge. To date the best hybrid guitar I've played, and I would still have it if it wasn't for the awful wide-thin neck with huge frets.

The T5 also uses an acoustic bridge, but I think the problem is the electrics. I hated the Expression System even on the proper acoustic guitars, and the T5 is based on it.

Roland

The best solution I’ve found is Fractal. It allows me the match electric and acoustic EQ profiles, and use multi-band compression. If you’re doing it on the cheap then a blend of piezo and neck pickup worked best for me

Rabs

Roland said:

The best solution I’ve found is Fractal. It allows me the match electric and acoustic EQ profiles, and use multi-band compression. If you’re doing it on the cheap then a blend of piezo and neck pickup worked best for me

Cool.. Cheers for that....