make your OWN accoustic pickup!!!!

hi guys.....got any accoustics?? wannna turn them into electro accoustic but dont wanna spend a fortune on accoustic pickups?? you come to the right place.!!
well this is a well known technique but still i will do a little tut. for the people who doesnt know.

right what you need is:

a piezo element ( you can get it from electric shop or salvage your own from old alarm clocks, greeting cards or kids toys)
some shielded coaxial wire
solder (with the soldering wire)
and an accoustic guitar..(or electric i wont mind!)

first solder the coaxial wire on to the piezo element (see the img at the bottom) and then stick that piezo element on your guitar near the bridge (or reach inside the sound hole and stick it under the bridge) ..there, you are done.....
now its just the matter of connecting the other end of the coaxial cable to the amp or sound card or stereo..and way you go!!

(this is not my own thing, i read this many years ago at some website..i cant remember what website it was but anyway credits goes to that website)

i have tried this on my old battered chinese accoustic and it works!!!

 

hmmm....interesting.

 

hows the sound quality?

 

Cool post......i dunno if i'll go through all the trouble. Oh well, good post anyway.

 

sound quality is pretty good...i have seen piezo's been installed on electrics (in the tremolo spring cavities) to get a sound close to that of accoustic guitar....and the line6 variax uses only piezo as the main pickup!!

 

Shahrukh - good job. Reminds me of the time when I made myself a distortion pedal...I think it was 1990 or something

 

hmmm. now this is getting me interested.... how would a double piezo sound? as in two of them?? would it add to a slightly distorted crucnch tone or would it just sound reall really bad?

 

yeah...good idea @deathdr87...unfortunatley i dont have two piezos with me or i would have certainly tried it..but i think that the piezos will cancel out each other's signals...because in parallel one piezo will act as a pickup and the it will drive the other piezo which will act as the speaker..but in series it might just work!! who knows...

 

ive given away my acoustic to my cousin but i really want to try a double piezo

can someone explain to me how a piezo works (in physics, sound waves and electromagnetism terms)

 

the principle on which this thing works is very complex...no need to go in there ..but..only thing that sets a piezo from a humbucker or single coil apart is that an ordinary humbucker uses a vibrating conductor (string) in a magnetic field to produce signal where as the piezo uses the actual vibrations in the guitar to produce sound!...if you still need more do a search on google..or www.howstuffworks.com..

 

what we call peizo niormally i think i m cionfused tht what is a peizo

 

@shahrukh - i checked it out - it really isnt that complicated

im assuming u have as good of a cheimstry understanding as me -(*which is alsmot nothing)

when strains (forces that act on the molecules) are present on the piezo element, the intermolecular bonds gain potential enrgy and the material must lose potential energy - hence a current is formed - the process also works in reverse

 

good work @Death dr....it makes sense... actually when i said its very complex, i couldn't find easy simple words to explain why this molecular polarization occurs, but you explained it using P.E..thats really good...thanks!!!

 

what is a peizo man !!!

 

@zohaib piezo is a special crystal which responds to vibrations

 

i was just thinking about this post again - wouldnt u have to put them in parallel for it to work - in series, one will generaten the current and pass it on to the next one which will cancel it out, but in parallel, both will generate current and pass it on to the amp

i also thoguht of a funny magic trick - connect a piezo to the inside of the guitar, connect the other end to any recorded piece of acoustic muisc and the acoustic's sopund box should sound of the music -i doubt it would work - but it would be a very cool way of producing acoustic sounds along with electric sounds if it did (as in some sort of double sound)

 

good thread man.. i like it

 

Great job Shahrukh ... really ingenious ... did u really come up with this or did someone suggest it to u ??? but whatever the case great post ...

 

naaa...i read it somewhere on the internet...so all credit goes to the person who thought of it...thanks anyway!!
@death dr87.....u see that in parallel ..the voltage across each terminal is always equal (its a basic law)..but since the two piezo's in parallel (on a guitar) would never produce same voltage (becuase of resisitances and since they will be placed apart from each other therefore there is a good chance that they will pickup different amplitudes of vibrations)....to compensate this difference in voltage they will try to cancel out each others output until they get an equilibrium...this will diminish the output signal...but in series since the two will be connected to each other by only ONE wire..hence they won't interact with each other!!..but thats just what i think ...i amy be wrong!

 

ya - so theoreticlly - to get the 'crunch' sound - id need them to cancel each other out, in getting to an equilirium - theyd act like beats right?? - or would that happen in series??

sorry u seem to know ur stuff quite a bit better than me - but im very confused!