Hi, I'm a new member to this forum. I'm not strictly a guitarist (although I do have a crap but cute Eko Ranger VI), I joined because you acoustic guitarists might actually be better informed on this matter.
I bought a quirky bass guitar which is nominally semi acoustic and it has a magnetic pickup + a piezo at the bridge.
It's this one, by the way:
https://www.italiaguitarsusa.com/wp-...***_ICR_01.jpg
The piezo actually sounds quite nice, if only the E string weren't much lower in volume. The piezo is encased in epoxy inside the arch-top style bridge so it can't be moved or replaced.
So, I'm having a new bridge built for it. The original was just too flimsy anyway and I suspect it is the main culprit for the weak sounding E string, even with the magnetic pickup. (The bridge never stays in place and it is held in place by two tiny screws which are a bit bent). The new bridge will be a full rosewood block, screwed into the mahogany body (it's a plastic top with a mahogany frame + centre block underneath) and with an acoustic-style bone saddle. Action won't be easily adjustable but I don't really need it to be.
Anyway, piezo pickups come in two varieties + two materials:
- undersaddle piezos, which have lots of "volume" but often pick up a lot of string noise
- contact microphones, which I would stick to the rosewood block
Likewise, you can get
- ceramic piezos, which have a high output and are really inexpensive, but tend to have a very coloured response apparently
- metal foil piezos, which have lower output and cost a lot more, but should be much higher quality
Also, you can get piezos in shielded and unshielded varieties.
FWIW, the current piezo preamp has huge volume compared to the magnetic pickup. Having lower volume would not be a problem at all. Also, I could build a probably better preamp if I want (the only challenge is finding an opamp that consumes a low enough current - let's say 3mA for a dual - yet has low-ish noise, especially if I want to implement a charge amplifier that should essentially sidestep around the issue of shielded vs unshielded, assuming it's a problem at all).
Could you help me out?