Piezo Bridge on an Electric

[BeZo]

Anyone install a piezoelectric bridge on their electric guitar for acoustic tones? I've been looking at the Fishman Powerbridge to install on my guitar. The Jarrett Forza already has a route in it for the wiring, and it seems like an easy install. Anyone compare any of them, like the L.R. Baggs, Fishman, or Ghost Fret? How did you wire it up? Did you use a preamp or direct? How did it work?

 

[BeZo]

Nobody?

 

[RevDrucifer]

I’ve been watching a bunch of these vids recently while debating installing one on my Orville. They’re all a bit different as far as what they’re made up of, some require some extra space for a little pre-amp/circuit board, some have everything mounted on pots, you’ll have to dig around for the exact one you want. There are some vids on YouTube but not a shitload.

The one idea I did like that had the least amount of work done on the guitar was this Kaish ToM-style piezo, the guy only installed a volume pot for it and kept all the pre-amp stuff on the floor so he didn’t have to worry about fitting it into the guitar or routing anything.



It sounds pretty damn good, too. He does an A/B with a D-28 at the end it doesn’t sound like trash in comparison. Not bad for a $30 bridge.

What kind of guitar are you thinking of adding it to?

 

[BeZo]

I’ve been watching a bunch of these vids recently while debating installing one on my Orville. They’re all a bit different as far as what they’re made up of, some require some extra space for a little pre-amp/circuit board, some have everything mounted on pots, you’ll have to dig around for the exact one you want. There are some vids on YouTube but not a shitload.

The one idea I did like that had the least amount of work done on the guitar was this Kaish ToM-style piezo, the guy only installed a volume pot for it and kept all the pre-amp stuff on the floor so he didn’t have to worry about fitting it into the guitar or routing anything.



It sounds pretty damn good, too. He does an A/B with a D-28 at the end it doesn’t sound like trash in comparison. Not bad for a $30 bridge.

What kind of guitar are you thinking of adding it to?

It's a Jarret Forza. It looks like a build by numbers guitar kit that was assembled in the US by a real luthier for cheap. The mahogany body was routed out inside and the maple cap was routed before they were joined, so I have an access channel to the cavities. There is a route hole under the bridge already, so I just gotta feed the wire through and solder it up.

The previous owner complained about the aftermarket pickups to the original owner, and got the original pickups to put back in it when he got it. Well, he butchered the wiring job, but the pickups suck anyways. I have a JB/59 set coming for it, so I'm going to wire it up anyways. I'm just not sure how I should wire it up.

I am leaning towards the Fishman though. I liked that in the shootouts I've heard so far

 

[RevDrucifer]

It's a Jarret Forza. It looks like a build by numbers guitar kit that was assembled in the US by a real luthier for cheap. The mahogany body was routed out inside and the maple cap was routed before they were joined, so I have an access channel to the cavities. There is a route hole under the bridge already, so I just gotta feed the wire through and solder it up.

The previous owner complained about the aftermarket pickups to the original owner, and got the original pickups to put back in it when he got it. Well, he butchered the wiring job, but the pickups suck anyways. I have a JB/59 set coming for it, so I'm going to wire it up anyways. I'm just not sure how I should wire it up.

I am leaning towards the Fishman though. I liked that in the shootouts I've heard so far

Might not be of use to you, but I’m a huge fan of Mad Hatter’s solderless kits. I’m not sure what kind of options he has for a 3-way switch but he does some really cool shit with coil tapping and phase reversal, so if you want to do the split coil thing, you can have it set up on a push/pull (or push/push) to split the coils and drop to a 250k pot instead of 500k as well as series/parallel switching.

MadHatterGuitarProducts.com the owner is really great to hit up with questions, so if you want to plan it all out ahead of time, shoot him an e-mail with what you’re looking to do and he can probably give you a few options or put together a kit that’ll do exactly what you want. All high quality switches/pots. I’ve installed 4 of them so far and they’re a breeze, unlike that Obsidian solderless junk.

IE- if you wanted to switch to split coils/250K pot/piezo all at the same time, he can most certainly tell you how to do it.