Piezo sensors... "Pressure, pushing down on me"

[Steve Works]

If under the bridge were an option, is this the kind of sensor one might use?
1 Piece Sensitive Piezo Accoustic Classical Guitar Saddle Pickup Transducer Soft | eBay
Anyone?

EDIT:
Never mind; I found the info I wanted here:
Constructing an Under Saddle Transducer

Under the bridge works fine for me. I'll post pictures later today.

[Leo_Gnardo]

And there's this nugget of wisdom, direct from K&K's advice on feedback:

"We’ve done tests with our FanTaStick undersaddle pickup and the Pure Mini bridge plate pickup, and were able to achieve about the same gain-before-feedback with both systems. But of course, undersaddle pickups with their very “direct” and string driven tone cut better through a loud mix."

To add to this, there's the old sound guy's "NOM" advice - the larger the Number of Open Mics, the closer you get to system feedback. So adding more transducers (whether ordinary mics or strain-gage/accelerometer or piezo) works against you in trying to get gain before feedback. Read about NOM in Sound System Engineering by Don & Carolyn Davis. There ain't no free lunch, try as you might.

The evidence all leads to the same place - squeezed under the saddle. FWIW Rick Turner's "Highlander" pickups were not piezo, but electret capacitor technology, so they have a warmer, fuller tone without that annoying 5 KHz peak that's endemic to piezos. Still need a squeeze in the right place to make 'em work.

-edit-

Now I've had another look at the D-TAR DPU-3, it looks to be the only remaining solution for peskywinnets. "Can't mount pickup under saddle." - indeed, because the intended location is in the bridge pickup cavity of an electric guitar. Also with David Lindley as a satisfied customer, what else do we need to know. I'm sure with Lindley's collection of sazs, ouds, bouzukis, balalaikas & banjos there's no time to develop a different pickup system for each one. And he always sounds terrific. Sorry pesky, those brass "coin" pickups aren't going to get you much satisfaction. I'd look into the DPU-3.

If you insist on staying "low budget DIY" you could try a form of what you proposed in #12 - I'd find whatever sweet spot I could and use a trio of screws to hold the brass piezo pickup at the edge while pressing one side into the guitar wood.

[copperheadroads]

I have a bunch of Piezo discs & I experimented with them a little bit ,They work good on the headstock of an electric ....& not so good on a thick poly coated body

[big_teee]

If you Google Piezo guitar Pickups, this is what you get.
piezo guitar pickups - Google Search
Lots of variations looks like!
T

[Leo_Gnardo]

I'm confused.
Sez here "The system consists of a soundhole condenser mic, an under-saddle piezo and -- the star of the show -- the Pure, a three-element body sensor pickup that attaches to the bridge plate inside the guitar"

Confused indeed, me too. If they're not piezo, then what are/is the Pure, trio of coin-shape body sensors?

And the K&K FanTaStik part of the kit - another "matchstick" piezo. You know where that goes.

FWIW Taylor's "expression" system has included non piezo "body sensors" for a dozen years now. Some sort of low-impedance coil, also in a coin-shaped container about the size of a nickel. Taylor puts 'em on the back side of the sound board, near but not directly under the bridge where K&K shows theirs. Early (@2003) expression systems had 2 body sensors plus a miniature magnetic pickup buried under the last inch of fretboard, and these 3 were wired in series (!) and sent to the onboard preamp. Since then, they've gone to one body sensor. And all of that still doesn't explain piezo anything.

[rjb]

K&K trinity systems seem to work pretty good, even without a preamp and they look like all the other brass piezo transducers.

I'm confused.
Sez here "The system consists of a soundhole condenser mic, an under-saddle piezo and -- the star of the show -- the Pure, a three-element body sensor pickup that attaches to the bridge plate inside the guitar"
Product Reviews | K&K Sound

[Achiles]

I´m after to make experinces based on this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVLX2_4AUpw

[the great waldo]

K&K trinity systems seem to work pretty good, even without a preamp and they look like all the other brass piezo transducers.

Cheers

Andrew

Not to knock your inquiring mind pesky, but lots of engineers have been through this one before and your 1. seems to be the solution that can be counted on. Without some background pressure on it, the piezo crystal seems to make a lousy transducer. Who knows maybe you'll be the one with the breakthrough.

[rjb]

Sidetrack

many settle on squeezing a sensor somewhere under their bridge - not an option for me.

If under the bridge were an option, is this the kind of sensor one might use?
1 Piece Sensitive Piezo Accoustic Classical Guitar Saddle Pickup Transducer Soft | eBay
Anyone?

EDIT:
Never mind; I found the info I wanted here:
http://liutaiomottola.com/PrevPubs/P...Transducer.htm

[rjb]

Another goose to chase

There seems to be two strands of piezo sensor info on the net...

FWIW, the D-TAR (Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research) Perfect Timbre(TM) soundboard pickup is referred to as a "piezo accelerometer".
D-TAR Duncan-Turner Acoustic Research [www.d-tar.com] /SoundSpots

Also, some shmoe on some acoustic guitar board says the LR Baggs iBeam pickup (which attaches to an acoustic guitar's bridgeplate with double-sided tape) is also a piezo accelerometer design.

Maybe you can rig up something with a weight and spring, or two piezos mounted at either end of a mercury-filled tube...
Piezoelectric accelerometer - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Leo_Gnardo]

There seems to be two strands of piezo sensor info on the net...

1. those who do it properly (& put piezo material in the bridge/bridgle saddle etc)

2. Those who want to do it either cheaply or can't locate in the bridge saddle.

For the second category, there's a lot of poor info about!

Not to knock your inquiring mind pesky, but lots of engineers have been through this one before and your 1. seems to be the solution that can be counted on. Without some background pressure on it, the piezo crystal seems to make a lousy transducer. Who knows maybe you'll be the one with the breakthrough.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Not trying to Jack this, but on the LEDs I think John Paul Jones plays a bass with LED fret markers.
That would be pretty cool.
T

As if - a musician of JPJ's stature - and ability - would need such a gimmick. But late 70's Alembic & others offered this sort of thing. I wouldn't put it out of the realm of possibility he might have one, or more.

Late 90's late night TV infomercials had an affordable LED light-up neck guitar & what a salesman - no less than Peter Frampton. All sorts of ways to make a buck I s'pose...

Everybody sing along now, "You - - - light up my neck - - -"

[peskywinnets]

There seems to be two strands of piezo sensor info on the net...

1. those who do it properly (& put piezo material in the bridge/bridgle saddle etc)

2. Those who want to do it either cheaply or can't locate in the bridge saddle.

For the second category, there's a lot of poor info about!

Just thinking this through a little...if the piezo disc sensor works as an output device by making piezo material expand/contract & then using this movement to make brass disc flex back & forth (which amplifies the original movement) .......then the reverse is probably going to have the best results if wishing to use the same thing as an input device.

Therefore I guess I need to think about fashioning a solution where the brass disc can flex in the same way as it's meant to...so perhaps an O ring around the brass disc perimeter - this would see the brass sensor flex in/out (albeit very little) in sympathy with the incoming sound pressure?

[Leo_Gnardo]

If they were in the headstock, how would you cable that to the output jack?
I bet that never took off as a trend!

Wired through grooves behind the fretboard I'm guessin'. Then again some of that may have made it to record. There are lots of doinky guitar tones on FZ's "Shut up and play your guitar" and other recordings, that may or may not be piezos in weird places.

There have also been guitars with "light up" fret markers & others that use strings & frets as "crossbar switches" for electronic triggering. So far none of that has proved to be a trend, mostly they are one-off's or experiments. Thank goodness! I gots enough little wires to figure out what to do with. Including a prototype Pedulla bass that looks like an explosion in a pysychedlic spaghetti factory inside. Someday I'll get to that...

[big_teee]

If they were in the headstock, how would you cable that to the output jack?