Official Luthiers Forum!

The guitar is some sort of Ibanez....Artist, or something like that. Cheap acoustic. The guitar is owned by a friend. It's really in need of a neck reset. I told him I would do it, but if we went down that road I would have to charge him for it and it's just not worth it. I told him I would just do what I could quickly do at the bridge, so I brought the saddle down to where I could get a reasonably good playing guitar, and dragged the string slots forwards, 1/4" in some places, to get a reasonable break angle. It's not perfect, but it's playing and it didn't cost him anything. I figure if I ever end up doing a neck reset for him, I'll just replace the bridge at that point for him too...that would be a minor expense at that point.

Now we're looking at adding a cheap pickup. I don't do much with acoustic electronics, so I don't really know what's out there and what's reasonable. The other thing I'm a little concerned about is if I have enough of a break angle to drive a piezo under the saddle. I have about 10 degrees or so. This isn't a gigging musician....he just plays a couple of times a year at his family farm....waits until 1:00am to sing...that kind of guy, so this just really needs to work, not be the voice of the gods. I don't want junk, though.

So just looking for recommendations.

I have made them out of Radio Shak buzzers kind of like this

http://www.cigarboxnation.com/profiles/ ... ezo-pickup

But I replace the wires with a shielded one like they did here

http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-f ... p005.shtml

I also cover the wire side of the piezo with hot glue, it seems to improve the sound s little.

These are passive so don't expect a lot of sound, but they work okay for coffee shop settings I think a pre amp helps a lot.

_________________
Say what you do, Do what you say.

K & K make reasonably priced excellent pickups

JJB Electronics makes inexpensive piezo pickups already wired with a jack to plug right in.
Here is a link to one of their pickups:

http://www.jjb-electronics.com/PPS-200.html



Their top of the line model is $80.00 with volume and tone controls.

Never used them, but I have heard good things.

_________________
http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Try Shatten. Made in Canada. Easy to put in and they sound pretty great too.

(Thanks for the help in the Electric forum by the way)

Neil