![]() ![]() I know.when you're live and feeling the music, the pick hand can get too happy. This leads to my above comment about players who are bashers. A Tak G series sounds better plugged than unplugged. The piezo doesn't get as confused from competing resonance, because those guitars tops aren't as lively to begin with. That's why people seem to be happy with the plugged sound from stiff Fenders/Takamines/Ovations/Epiphones, etc. Generally speaking, I've found that the more resonant (often more expensive) the guitar, the worse it takes to UST's. Some string types/materials can be lovely unplugged, but too zingy through the piezo. Bone is lovely, but not as consistent as TUSQ, so bone may cause certain strings/notes to be dominant. Saddle material and string type are considerations, too. Adequately tall saddle, 90 degrees in the slot, slightly rounded edges on the bottom contact surface (as per Baggs), not as snug in the slot as a non-piezo guitar, and any excess "hot" piezo strip or braided section tamed with electrical tape and suspended underneath.NOT secured to the soundboard/braces. Back off on the volume wheel/sliders on a UST. The output isn't jacked up with a 9V battery, and the EQ and gain structure are controlled at the board/amp, as it should be. One of the reasons people like K&K style pickups better is that there's no battery-boosted gain. Piezo UST's are inherently mid-humped to begin with. The majority of people have way too much treble/brightness in the preamp (tone wheels or sliders) leading to brittle treble and an even more huge hump in the mids. On a UST that has a tone control (either a wheel or sliders), the goal is to reach parity in tone between the unplugged and plugged high E (open) AFTER you've dialed in your sound chain. A lot of the offending quack/brittleness comes down to installation, a lack of understanding about gain and EQ (both pre-amp and final output) and player technique (hard bashers). Yes, under-saddle transducers are fairly horrible, but they were game-changers in the late 80's-early 90's. For now, digest and practice… pē-ā-zō… pē-ā-zō… pē-ā-zō.I install/repair/tweak a lot of acoustic pickup systems. I’ll get into some more detail later - properties of different types, problems, installation, etc. That’s the basics of how piezo pickups work and the important bit about how you say it. That’s nice long vowel sounds all ‘round. However, Merriam-Webster recommends the following (and most people seem to have settled there): I’ve heard (and used) a number of different pronunciations over the years. IMG The big question: How to pronounce ‘piezo’ The vibrations from the guitar top are transferred to the piezo element and turned into lovely electricity A thin piezoelectric element is glued to a thin metal (usually brass or similar) disc. The construction of these is pretty simple. Instead of getting those vibrations transferred through the saddle material, this pickup is fixed or adhered to the guitar soundboard/top. ![]() ![]() The principal is mostly the same as with other pickups - turn vibrations into electricity. We know about undersaddle transducers (pickups) so let’s take a whistle-stop tour of the other application of piezo technology that’s relevant to the musician: soundboard transducers. Which brings me to… Piezo soundboard transducers Likewise, a piezo pickup also converts vibrating string energy into electricity (the only difference is how that string energy gets transduced). So, for instance, a magnetic pickup in an electric guitar converts vibrating string energy into electricity. You might have seen undersaddle pickups called Undersaddle Transducers (abbreviated to UST).Ī transducer is any device that converts one form of energy into another. Again, more details in the future but, for now, I’ll point you at an article where I discuss one of the most important aspects - string break angle. The hugely important thing to remember about piezo undersaddle pickups is that they won’t function well without effective transfer of those string vibrations. There’s a separate piezo element for each string (although the signals from each all run ‘together’ - there’s only one signal path to the amp). The copper strip is the ‘positive’ conductor and the housing channel forms the negative conductor. Like I say, it’s pretty simplified but it does the trick. ![]()
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