Piezo pickup system for a solid body bass

[ampetrosillo]

Hi, I have a bass guitar that has a magnetic pickup and an undersaddle piezo pickup. Unfortunately the bridge is no good and I'm about to have one made custom. The bass has a plastic top (!) and a mahogany body, it is on paper a semi acoustic but it's closer to being a solid body, considering that the top doesn't basically contribute to the tone.

Anyway, the bridge I'm going to have made is essentially a bone saddle into a block of rosewood screwed right into the mahogany body. I'd like to have the piezo functioning, although it won't be a tone I'm likely going to use alone (most probably mixed in with the magnetic pickup).

There are some ready-made undersaddle or body resonance piezos by some manufacturers (eg. Shadow, Fishman) but they cost quite a lot. I suspect that they simply package some run-of-the-mill piezos without any special design, so I could either buy an unbranded one for a fraction of the price or use some off-the-shelf parts not necessarily intended for a musical instrument pickup (there are a few that have a variety of purposes, while specifically declaring their parts to be suitable for instrument pickups).

Could you give me a hand?

 

[EERecordist]

I would do a search for "diy" barcus berry bass pickup. I think the company went out of business, but they were popular with professional musicians in their day. You could also search for low frequency mems contact microphone, find one that covers your bass frequencies by studying the data sheet, and look them up on Mouser or similar suppliers. You would need a DIY preamp which takes into consideration the design needs of that particular mems. Sensibel is an interesting startup in Norway with a mems microphone, no idea on price.

 

[DVDdoug]

I'm not a guitar or bass player, or a luthier..

A piezo can act like a microphone, picking-up sound from the air, or it can pick-up vibrations. More-often they are used to pick-up vibrations. Neither would work well with a solid-body guitar/bass.

If you make changes that affect the top resonance/vibration you are likely to change the tone (from the piezo) and if you make it "more solid" you'll likely reduce the output.

 

[ampetrosillo]

I was looking more at the following kind of piezo sensors:

This:

https://www.te.com/commerce/Document...%7F11026275-00

Or this, with the polymer coating (I have no idea what this does, apart from maybe protection?):

https://www.te.com/commerce/Document...%7F11029806-00

to the fancier, shielded version:

https://www.te.com/commerce/Document...%7F11031263-00

These should all be usable as contact microphones (in a pair, located on the rosewood block, each sensing two strings) right?

Otherwise, I could go with a piezo cable, and fit it under the saddle, like the Baggs Element (which costs €150 complete with the preamp, but I can find just the piezo element at much lower prices):

https://www.cbgitty.com/guitar-instr...rument-pickup/