Adding Piezo to my Custom 22

[Mvenuti1980]

I see that Graphtech sells the saddle pickups for PRS trems along with the pickup system. What kind of craziness would I be looking at to add piezo to my Custom 22? Have any of you done that?

Thanks!

 

[doublescale1]

you'll need to add a stereo output jack for use with a dual mono Y cord if you want to run the piezo to an acoustic amp and the passive pickups to your regular guitar amp, or you could just use an ABY box to the amps. Wire up a second 3-way selector switch to give you Passive Pickups only/Both/Peizo only (this would be in addition to the passive pickup selector switch you have in the orig. guitar). install a Vol & Tone knob (suggest a dual concentric pot to save hole drilling for this). I put a Graphtec Ghost system in a Partscaster back in the late 90's. That's the list of what all went into making it a 2-voiced guitar. Blending the Piezo with the Passive pickups is a fave thing for me, it adds some additional upper end sparkle to the passive pickups even through a regular guitar amp, helps cut through a dense live band mix. Here's a shot of my Partscaster w/the control plate to accommodate the above added controls. bare metal mini switch is the reg. Tele 3-way selector, Plastic tipped mini is the Passive Pickups only/Both/Peizo only selector, First Flat-top dual concentric Pot is Vol/tone for Neck HB, middle round top DC pot is Vol/tone Piezo, Second Flat-top DC pot is Vol/tone for Bridge Tele PU. I like the Stereo output jack and the dedicated Acoustic amp and reg. guitar amp, that gives you the best tone possible out of each pickup system and you can run them both at the same time to FOH for a very full sound. Even with an ABY box you need to to have that Stereo output jack to blend the signals to use both systems at the same time. Let us know how it turns out if you decide to go for it.

 

[Jazzedout]

I have done it to an old Custom 24.
If you want the cables from the saddles to be completely hidden you'll need to drill a hole on the trem base to run these through the trem and another one to take them to the pickup cavity.
Electronics all fit in there.
I removed the tone pot and replaced it with the piezo volume and left the mini toggle switch in the pickup cavity so you couldn't tell any mods but looking at the guitar.
I blended the signal using the 2 volumes.
I'll try and dig up some pics...

The white thing is the double sided tape under the piezo pcb board.
This could be glued to the backplate, but was also fine as is. The piezo volume also had a push pull mid/bass boost IIRC....

 

[Jazzedout]

And pic of the finished guitar:

 

[DISTORT6]

I have done it to an old Custom 24.
If you want the cables from the saddles to be completely hidden you'll need to drill a hole on the trem base to run these through the trem and another one to take them to the pickup cavity.
Electronics all fit in there.
I removed the tone pot and replaced it with the piezo volume and left the mini toggle switch in the pickup cavity so you couldn't tell any mods but looking at the guitar.
I blended the signal using the 2 volumes.
I'll try and dig up some pics...

The white thing is the double sided tape under the piezo pcb board.
This could be glued to the backplate, but was also fine as is. The piezo volume also had a push pull mid/bass boost IIRC....

And pic of the finished guitar:

Nice!
Very clean installation.

 

[Mvenuti1980]

After looking at the work done by y’all and adding up the cost of the parts, I bought a Boss AC2 to hold me over for now!

 

[Draconomics]

I want to do the same to my 35th. Drilling thru the bridge plate without gooching it looks like the toughest part.

 

[doublescale1]

Thanks Jazzedout for bringing the PRS Piezo addition to the convo - I only had my old Partscaster to talk about, if nothing else it was a decent parts list - the Trem component to your CU24 showed off an important part of the puzzle for a PRS/Trem install.