Piezo - love it or hate it?

axisus

A general quick poll, do you love or hate piezo sounds, or are you totally indifferent. I know that a lot of people can't stand them.

Personally I love the sound. It is it's own thing and I think it's a cool sound.

sweepy

I like them on the whole, especially blended with magnetic pickups, add delay, chorus and reverb and some spacey chords and hours can be lost

WezV

I am generally not a fan, but the extra warmth from the graphtech saddles seems to make it usable.   Hard to rule out the quality of the pre-amp used too.

guitarfishbay

Pie = good in general, less good at getting acoustic guitar sounds
Piezo = less good in general, marginally better at getting acoustic guitar sounds

imalrightjack

I seem to recall discussing this with @Deijavoo as I hate the guitar sound on Alice In Chains unplugged. Give me a real, mic'd up guitar sound any day of the week. 

thermionic

A necessary evil for performing live maybe, but no excuse for using it in a studio.

spark240

Quite like it on my EBMM super sport...

Richardj

It has it's place. Mixed with the magnetics it adds extra body and 'air', separately put through a decent DI box etc. into the PA or into a good acoustic amp and it's good enough.

Obviously it will never sound like a vintage Martin, but that isn't the point of it and no-one should reasonably expect it to.

lasermonkey

Hate it with a passion. It really sets my teeth on edge.

Lewy

I despise the sound on such a visceral level that I can't and won't listen to it, regardless of how good the notes being played might be. Beyond the fact that it sounds shit, it's become a metaphor in my mind for the general devaluation of acoustic  music and what it takes to actually generate tone on an acoustic instrument. There is an entire generation of live sound engineers who don't know what to do with an acoustic guitar other than DI a piezo pickup and I find it profoundly depressing.

I recognise my views are more militant than most though!

fretmeister

Lewy said:

I despise the sound on such a visceral level that I can't and won't listen to it, regardless of how good the notes being played might be. Beyond the fact that it sounds shit, it's become a metaphor in my mind for the general devaluation of acoustic  music and what it takes to actually generate tone on an acoustic instrument. There is an entire generation of live sound engineers who don't know what to do with an acoustic guitar other than DI a piezo pickup and I find it profoundly depressing.

I recognise my views are more militant than most though!

That made me laugh!

octatonic

There are only 6 things I hate more in the world

axisus

I'm quite surprised that people can be quite so blinkered and closed-minded about a sound. Still, each to his own I guess. I really like Petrucci's sound on his album with just him and Rudess live: (although there will be plenty of haters here!)

ESBlonde

For:
Very reliable, not much to go wrong.
Not particularly feedback prone.
Easy to set up in a basic form.
Cheap/VFM.
No battery/special cable etc.
Decent live sound in a band mix (particularly strummed rhythem).
Many modern acoustic guitars have that nasel hard new string sound already (IMHO).

Against:
Can sound Harsh.
Doesn't do the subtle 'Martin D' sound.
Not always suitable for pure acoustic/solo playing.
Takes a decent mixer chanel to contour the tone for many guitars.
Benefits from being plugged into a quality sound system (hey what doesn't)! That includes a suitable high impedence DI to load the pickup first.


If you've spent £2k+ on a working instrument then invest in a quality case, strap and Pickup solution.
I've loaned my old Epiphone acoustic with built in Piezo to players who play it through my big PA and it sounds OK and extra nice if there is a hint of Mic pointed at the sound hole mixed in. At that point I defy anyone thats not a real gear head to close there eyes and tell me what it is.

olafgarten

My friend has one of those Fishman Aura Di things and we compared his Martin 000 15M to his Piezo Les Paul through the equivalent model on the Pedal (Concert 9 IIRC). 

It was pretty close, you could tell that it was just modelling the guitar but I'm sure you could get even closer with a bit of reverb and some more tweaking. 

If you're playing live it's definitely a good compromise. 

crunchman

Given that we are in the main guitar forum (for electrics) and not in the acoustic section, then in that context if can add interesting extra sounds to an electric when mixed with magnetic pickups.

On acoustic guitars there are better options but the issues can be mostly fixed with modern digital trickery.

Lewy

axisus said:

I'm quite surprised that people can be quite so blinkered and closed-minded about a sound. 

These are pejorative terms that indicate someone has decided they don't like something without giving it due consideration.

If you have actually heard something and subsequently decided that, for you, it would be preferable to have the liquidized remains of every pet you've ever owned boiled and then poured into your ears then that's still not being blinkered or closed minded. It's making an informed choice.

RandallFlagg

I love it, pepperoni and spicy ground beef are my favourite toppings...oh, hang on...

Ravenous

In the '80s I loved the piezo sound, it was new and fresh sounding to me. I even fancied those solid body strat copies with acoustic bridges on them.

But I admit I find it all a bit bland these days - though not actually offensive.

ICBM

Not a big fan. I don't mind some piezos as acoustic pickups - generally the body-contact type (eg K&K Pure Mini) rather than the undersaddle type. The undersaddle type sounds less bad blended with a magnetic or a contact type. I strongly dislike piezo bridges on electric guitars for "acoustic" sounds.

[Nerd warning] There is a good reason why undersaddle pickups sound wrong. When you hear an acoustic guitar, the sound is produced by the *movement* of the strings, moving the soundboard. This means that the peak sound pressure comes when the string is moving fastest in the middle of its vibration cycle. This is also true of the signal waveform from a contact pickup, and even a magnetic - which respond to motion, not pressure - but is not true of a piezo trapped under the bridge saddle… that produces its peak signal at each end of the cycle when the string is exerting its maximum and minimum pressure on the pickup. Hence the odd overly-pronounced attack and weirdly hollow quality to the sound - because it's too sensitive to the sharp transient as the string is released, and is literally out of phase compared to the true acoustic sound, by 90º. That's also why blending one with another type of pickup sounds better, because you get the full frequency range of the piezo but with more of the correct phasing. [/Nerd warning]

Sporky

I don't much like it on acoustics or as a pretend-acoustic sound on electrics.

But it is absolutely awesome through filthy fuzz or distortion or both. It has a really weird attack then, almost like a "schlomp" sound, especially with a really floppy plectrum.