Piezoelectric Pickup Mod

I added a piezoelectric pickup inside the thinline hollowbody, for an acoustic sound. This is mixed with the humbucker output with a simple passive arrangement of potentiometers.

Piezo/Magnetic Pickup Wiring

Years ago I attached a Radio Shack piezoelectric buzzer element on a fretless electric bass, wired to pickup rather than create sound. I think this use of a piezo buzzer was mentioned in Guitar Player magazine(?). More recently, a construction article appeared on USENET. This is an inexpensive and effective alternative to commercial "acoustic transducers".

I used the $4 Radio Shack piezoelectric speaker element, #273-091. This is larger and more delicate than their piezo buzzers, and has more efficiency and a broader frequency response. Pry it open and carefully remove the piezo element. Used as a pickup, it provides a very nice acoustic effect, nothing at all like the sound of a magnetic pickup. I positioned it inside the body, underneath the bridge, using double-stick tape.

Be very careful soldering shielded wires to the buzzer. You need a low-wattage soldering iron, applied very briefly. (It's safer to leave a short length of the original wires on it, and solder to these wires instead.) The output is much lower than that of the humbucker. If you don't have a very high-gain amp, you'll need a fx box or a preamp to add gain.

Mixing a tiny amount of humbucking signal into the piezo signal gives added sustain. With the humbucker turned all the way up, the piezo signal is too small to contribute. As a bonus, however, the piezo's large capacitance (.055 uF) makes it act like a secondary tone control with a very different and interesting effect. Of course you can turn down the piezo pot to remove its effect.

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