Acoustic pickup in a hollowbody?

TTony

I’m thinking of building a hollowbody next, and thinking of options to get acoustic-ish sounds from it (as well as more usual electrics).

The body should use bent laminated veneer sides, a centre block as far as the bridge, and a carved top, which I’d hope the CNC could get fairly thin (but not acoustic-top thinness).

 I’m thinking I’ll use a standard electric bridge of some kind, so I *could* use Graphtech type piezo saddles, but I’m wondering what other options might be viable. 

I could design-in some sort of sound hole to house an acoustic sound hole pickup (assuming those don’t need the body vibrations?).  Would in-body sensors of some kind work in that sort of construction?  

Any thoughts?

Funkfingers

First thought: Martin Taylor's signature guitars by Yamaha, Peerless et cetera. 

Second thought: soundboard contact transducers. i.e. K&K, Taylor Expression.

Third thought: If the guitar will prioritise acoustic sounds over magnetic pickup ones, L.R. Baggs Lyric.

Winny_Pooh

Piezo saddles are shit.

Body transducer like the K&K or JJB copy.

Funkfingers

Winny_Pooh said:

Piezo saddles are shit.

I wouldn't say that.

It is the sound that piezo saddles produce that is shit.

TTony

Funkfingers said:

Winny_Pooh said:

Piezo saddles are shit.

I wouldn't say that.

It is the sound that piezo saddles produce that is shit.

Depends what you're after, surely?

If you want a pure acoustic sound, then they're not going to do a particularly good job of that.  But it you want an acoustic-ish sound blended in with the magnetics, then they do a good job.  And using a split output into both acoustic and "normal" amps helps the sound a lot too.

But hence the Q really.

What I'm thinking of building won't have the acoustic soundboard or back nor an acoustically optimised body shape, so it's not going to have the same level of acoustic sound generation of a proper acoustic.  Given that limitation, what are my best options for creating an acoustic-esque sound from it, like a hybrid?

WezV

That's the question really, how "acoustic" is it? 

Contact or internal mics may be less suitable if it is not optimized for them, but they may still add some interesting colour that helps de-piezo the sound

maltingsaudio

Or build the guts of a variax into it……

Funkfingers

TTony said:
What I'm thinking of building won't have the acoustic soundboard or back nor an acoustically optimised body shape, so it's not going to have the same level of acoustic sound generation of a proper acoustic.

Seems to me as if you are building a Godin-alike.

ICBM

Funkfingers said:

Winny_Pooh said:

Piezo saddles are shit.

I wouldn't say that.

It is the sound that piezo saddles produce that is shit.

They're pretty good if they're used to drive IR-based modelling or guitar synthesisers.

Although, they still do have reliability problems.