Hello everyone, new to the forum and really new to PRS guitars. 2022-2023 has been a resurgence for me and guitars. I started the year buying a used SE Silver Sky after watching so many videos and reviews and thinking, "man that sounds good on video, wonder how it is in person". Did not disappoint. I just traded an old Taylor T5 for a used SE HBII Piezo in Peacock Blue (hybrid for hybrid) and holy cow I am just as impressed with that guitar as the Silver Sky. PRS is truly special. A bit more of how I'm running the SE HBII Piezo as I've historically played acoustic and electric in church modern p&w:
I've been running the HBII through a Line 6 PodGo having the mag output into the input of the unit. The Piezo side is actually going into the return of the FX loop as an auxiliary input into the signal chain (more on that in a bit). My patches are pretty standard signal flow for the most part. Comp and drives going into Amp block, IR block (this is key), Preset EQ block, and wet effects Delay and Reverb. I used the jailbreak to remove the wah only. I'll duplicate this preset for two different scenarios:
Scenario A: FX loop set at 100% mix and placed between amp and IR block. I use 3SigmaAudio Acoustic IR and set one footswitch as the "Acoustic" switch where it engages the FX Loop essentially ignoring everything before it (mag input, comp, drives, amp) and gives me the piezo signal going through the 3SA IR. The IR block switches the IRs between the electric speaker cab and the acoustic IR and changes the DB output of the block to compensate for both. The footswitch will also change parameters of the EQ block to fit the acoustic as well and my wet effects work pretty good on both electirc and acoustic. This is great for simple switching of acoustic and electric sounds in one patch without fiddling with either knobs on the guitar.
Scenario B: FX loop set either right betore wet effects or very last with the Mix paramater mapped to the Expression Pedal 1 in reverse (100% at bottom and 0% at top) and the toe footswitch set to engage the FX loop. This is to effectively blend the piezo with the electric sounds similar to turning the piezo knob while using the mag/piezo output only. The idea is once I engage the toe switch, the pedal is already at the max setting and so setting the mix to be at 0% means no piezo is mixed in. As I rock the pedal lower, more of the piezo gets mixed in until at the bottom it's at 100% mixed with the electric signal. This is a cleaner mix because it allows my electric signal to be processed however through the chain and if I want the acoustic blended in at any point in the signal chain I can just move the FX block giving me a lot more flexibility.
I've been absolutely inspired playing and messing around with the signal chains in the PodGo but the 58/15 S pickups have been a blast to play and the acoustic piezo is incredible in it's own right. Reviewing this forum I've seen a lot of people talk about the changes to the guitar so I'm very interested in the future for me and this guitar. I think the biggest thing I'll need to do is lower the gain on the PCB for the Piezo a bit cause it is a bit harsh. The Lambertone Cremas have always had my attention so that could be down the line but I'm curious if anyone has considered/tried the Grinders instead. Lastly, I might just consider swapping Piezo volume knob with the Master Tone knob. I don't have any plans for coil splitting but the position of the tone knob in it's default seems a bit odd to me because of the location of the Piezo knob. I know the non Piezo Hollowbody models have the tone knob in the same place and so in that model the tone knob makes sense. Here when I look down I find myself reaching for the piezo to adjust the tone.
Thanks for listening and reading. Hope everyone is having fun with their gear.
I've been running the HBII through a Line 6 PodGo having the mag output into the input of the unit. The Piezo side is actually going into the return of the FX loop as an auxiliary input into the signal chain (more on that in a bit). My patches are pretty standard signal flow for the most part. Comp and drives going into Amp block, IR block (this is key), Preset EQ block, and wet effects Delay and Reverb. I used the jailbreak to remove the wah only. I'll duplicate this preset for two different scenarios:
Scenario A: FX loop set at 100% mix and placed between amp and IR block. I use 3SigmaAudio Acoustic IR and set one footswitch as the "Acoustic" switch where it engages the FX Loop essentially ignoring everything before it (mag input, comp, drives, amp) and gives me the piezo signal going through the 3SA IR. The IR block switches the IRs between the electric speaker cab and the acoustic IR and changes the DB output of the block to compensate for both. The footswitch will also change parameters of the EQ block to fit the acoustic as well and my wet effects work pretty good on both electirc and acoustic. This is great for simple switching of acoustic and electric sounds in one patch without fiddling with either knobs on the guitar.
Scenario B: FX loop set either right betore wet effects or very last with the Mix paramater mapped to the Expression Pedal 1 in reverse (100% at bottom and 0% at top) and the toe footswitch set to engage the FX loop. This is to effectively blend the piezo with the electric sounds similar to turning the piezo knob while using the mag/piezo output only. The idea is once I engage the toe switch, the pedal is already at the max setting and so setting the mix to be at 0% means no piezo is mixed in. As I rock the pedal lower, more of the piezo gets mixed in until at the bottom it's at 100% mixed with the electric signal. This is a cleaner mix because it allows my electric signal to be processed however through the chain and if I want the acoustic blended in at any point in the signal chain I can just move the FX block giving me a lot more flexibility.
I've been absolutely inspired playing and messing around with the signal chains in the PodGo but the 58/15 S pickups have been a blast to play and the acoustic piezo is incredible in it's own right. Reviewing this forum I've seen a lot of people talk about the changes to the guitar so I'm very interested in the future for me and this guitar. I think the biggest thing I'll need to do is lower the gain on the PCB for the Piezo a bit cause it is a bit harsh. The Lambertone Cremas have always had my attention so that could be down the line but I'm curious if anyone has considered/tried the Grinders instead. Lastly, I might just consider swapping Piezo volume knob with the Master Tone knob. I don't have any plans for coil splitting but the position of the tone knob in it's default seems a bit odd to me because of the location of the Piezo knob. I know the non Piezo Hollowbody models have the tone knob in the same place and so in that model the tone knob makes sense. Here when I look down I find myself reaching for the piezo to adjust the tone.
Thanks for listening and reading. Hope everyone is having fun with their gear.
