Piezo, what and why.

[kes7u]

Recently read a thread regarding Piezos. Still fairly new to guitars, and I'm considering a hollowbody. Most that I see come with a Piezo. Problem is, I don't know what a Piezo is!! If possible, could you fill me in on what is a Piezo, how does it work, and why I would or would not want one on my hollowbody? ??

Thanks in advance!

Kevin

 

[veinbuster]

It picks up the vibration of the string through contact rather than by the string disrupting a magnetic field like a typical pickup.
The piezo is pretty much invisible and has a very different sound than the pickups you see on an electric guitar.
The inclusion of a piezo gives the guitar a much wider range of sound.

 

[László]

The idea of a piezo is to emulate the sound of an acoustic guitar; it's also the most common pickups on acoustic-electrics.

How well a piezo succeeds in its attempt to emulate acoustic guitar sounds is the subject of debate, but the newer ones do sound good enough that if you were performing on stage and needed to switch to an acoustic guitar sound, most people would agree that they do it pretty well.

 

[kes7u]

Thank you both. Appreciate the input!

So, then, 1 of the pickups is a typical electric guitar pickup (neck) while the other (bridge) is the piezo? Sorry. Not trying to be obtuse. Just making sure I understand the concept correctly.

 

[Rusty Chops]

Thank you both. Appreciate the input!

So, then, 1 of the pickups is a typical electric guitar pickup (neck) while the other (bridge) is the piezo? Sorry. Not trying to be obtuse. Just making sure I understand the concept correctly.

No, from what I've seen the guitars (in the case of PRS models) have neck and bridge magnetic pickups (at least) PLUS a piezo equipped trem or non- trem bridge on the guitar as well.

 

[redmax61]

Yes, what Rusty says. The Piezo pickup is part of the bridge itself, and is separate from the magnetic pickups.

I have a Graphtech Ghost system in my CE22. I A/B'd it with a friend's HBII. It's different from the RMC system that PRS uses in their guitars. The RMC system is a bit warmer and the Ghost is more "in-yer-face", but both systems sound good, IMHO. Of course the fact that my CE is a solid body and the HB is hollow may make some of that difference.

 

[bird_droppings]

Most electric guitars have two standard, magnetic pickups on them. Here and there you'll find three and in odd cases there may be one or more than three, but these are fairly rare.

Most acoustic guitars these days come with a single piezo pickup that is generally part of the bridge. These pickups tend to capture much more high frequency information which is a lot of what you want out of an acoustic guitar. Piezo pickups have not always been that well-liked since many people found them "harsh" sounding. Lately they seem to be doing a better job of it. An acoustic guitar with a piezo pickup can be plugged into the PA to give you a pretty good amplified acoustic guitar sound

Here and there you will find an electric guitar that, in addition to the two standard pickups, also has a piezo pickup in the bridge. This creates a guitar with additional flexibility in that, in a pinch, you can switch to the piezo pickup and get a fair approximation to an acoustic guitar sound. Especially if you use a special amp more suited to acoustic guitars to do this.

I already have several electric guitars that I am quite fond of, and so when I saw the PRS electric with the additional piezo pickup, I considered getting one so I could have that acoustic guitar sound.

Then I came to my senses and realized that for less money, I could get a kick-ass, genuine acoustic guitar. Which I did.

If you are just beginning your guitar hoarder journey and only have a starter guitar, an electric guitar with a piezo might be an appealing option. The other big use case is a professional guitar player that doesn't want to carry around a bunch of guitars.

For the rest of us, a genuine acoustic guitar is probably the better choice.

 

[BrianC]

I you want to play a song that has elements of acoustic and electric tones, it is hard to switch guitars. The electrics with piezo allow you to get this done.

I have many electrics and two acoustics, one 6 one 12, both can be plugged in. I still want a p24 badly.

The piezo through a guitar amp is not good for me. I will use a DI box and run two lines, one to my gtr rig and the other to the PA. A Fishman Loud Box is also very nice.

 

[shinksma]

I you want to play a song that has elements of acoustic and electric tones, it is hard to switch guitars. The electrics with piezo allow you to get this done.

I have many electrics and two acoustics, one 6 one 12, both can be plugged in. I still want a p24 badly.

The piezo through a guitar amp is not good for me. I will use a DI box and run two lines, one to my gtr rig and the other to the PA. A Fishman Loud Box is also very nice.

Exactly. I play in a band that is mostly acoustic-based, but quite a few songs involve me soloing at some point or another, about half with some grunge/dirt (the other half clean), often going well above the 12th fret. So I use a HB with piezo. Being able to switch from that acoustic sound to a full on rock sound is really useful. I sometimes use the mag pups for those solos, other times just rock it out with the piezo (it works well, believe it or not).

I play the piezo through an acoustic simulator pedal into the PA for the acoustic sound (the combination really does a nice job, about as "acoustic" sounding as the other acoustic guitars plugged straight into the PA), and switch to a dirt loop (random dirt pedal, reverb/delay, and amp emulator) also straight into the PA. It does exactly the job I want for the gigs we play. The dirt "channel" isn't something I would use if I was playing rock'n'roll all night long, but works good enough as counterpoint to the acoustic stuff.

The piezo needs to go direct to PA for maximum effect - if sent to an elec guitar amp it ends up sounding too "electric" - 'tis the nature of elec guitar amps, even their clean channels - they are not a flat EQ response! If it made sense and I had the room "on stage", I'd send the acoustic signal to the PA and the dirt/mag pups to a proper elec guitar amp, then mike the amp for the PA (if required), but we simply don't play venues where that would make sense - too small, too intimate, I suppose. Which says we don't exactly play to huge crowds, I suppose...

So yes, a piezo is very valuable to me. I used to play with mainly an acoustic guitar, swapping it out for either my CU24 or an Epi Casino for the songs with leads, but the HB with piezo just covers all of that territory ever so efficiently.

 

[gwardealy]

i agree .... I use it more for blending with the magnetic pickups. It can take a distorted sound that I would be using for lead, and clean it up a little. But not like turning down gain. It retains its edge and sustain.

Here is a sample of something I was playing around with.....the actually playing is a little suspect...but it was early in the morning and got into messing around with no pick and using the tremolo. But i had the Piezo on about half way. You can then select the magnetic pickups like you usually would, and they change the tone. So while this doesn't sound like an acoustic, I didn't want it to. But there are interesting tones and some acoustic like dynamics that comes through at times

 

[GLMvanderSchrieck]

It picks up the vibration of the string through contact rather than by the string disrupting a magnetic field like a typical pickup.
The piezo is pretty much invisible and has a very different sound than the pickups you see on an electric guitar.
The inclusion of a piezo gives the guitar a much wider range of sound.

I fully agree but I think you must also mention the main reason to use piezo elements anyway and that is because the strings of an acoustic guitar can be nylon strings which do not have any effect in a magnetic field.

 

[dogrocketp]

? On a PRS?

 

[rwandering]

A lot of great comments here. I am no professional musician, but did get a CU22 Piezo to play both electric and acoustic on stage. A semi-hollow might have been a better compromise, but I wanted the tremolo bridge. My main reason for going with the combo guitar is that I was constantly working to tame the feedback on the acoustic. The audience was hearing the piezo pickups in the acoustic anyway (and I was tired of dragging two guitars everywhere). If I am playing at an open mic, I bring my acoustic (generally).

I agree that the piezo through a guitar amp aren't great, and it is best to send that through to the PA directly.

Also, I agree that if you are new to guitar, don't worry about this. An acoustic guitar is really a different animal altogether and isn't covered by an electric with a piezo.

 

[doublescale1]

With a Piezo system built into a guitar, bring a small acoustic amp and get a Y-cord or ABY box to send the Piezo to the dedicated acoustic amp, passive HB's to the electric guitar amp and you get the best reproduction out of both pickup systems. If you mic to FOH it's the best way to go. Or get a Rivera Sedona amp with one channel that can be turned into an excellent acoustic guitar amp with/Tweeter and one channel dedicated to the passive guitar pickups; foot switch between the 2 channels in the one amp. Carry on.

 

[Maertl513]

A piezo is a crystal which provides electricity due to the impact of pressure.
I'm familiar of that as a reasion of my profession. There are fuzes with piezo as the switch, because they are very sensitive towards any pressure. In worst situation steps on the ground in vicinity of such equipped ammunition/explosive device could lead to ignition. Could be aswell wind in trees, when UXO has been caught by this vegetation.

Because of the structure borne noise sensitivity of piezos, they are fine for guitar amplification, too. As mentioned they could make a electric guitar sound like an acoustic. If the piezo offers a tone poti the sound could be from nylon string-ish (closed poti) to a crips steel string (fully open poti).
Most common in electric guitars is the integration of piezo elements in each bridge saddles. Rare is the integration in the last fret of the fretboard.

I do have two piezo equipped guitars.

Left: Linus Custom Thinline with a Fishman/Wilkinson VS-50P bridge.

Right: Parker Fly Deluxe with a Fishman bridge.

Although the construction of the guitars is obviously different, they doesn't sound different,
neither piezo only, nor blended with the magnetic pickups.

 

[Glide-bpm]

A piezo is a crystal with provides electricity due to the impact of pressure.
I'm familiar of that as a reasion of my profession. There are fuzes with piezo as the switch, because they are very sensitive towards any pressure. In worst situation steps on the ground in vicinity of such equipped ammunition/explosive device could lead to ignition. Could be aswell wind in trees, when UXO has been caught by this vegetation.

Because of the structure borne noise sensitivity of piezos, they are fine for guitar amplification, too. As mentioned they could make a electric guitar sound like an acoustic. If the piezo offers a tone poti the sound could be from nylon string-ish (closed poti) to a crips steel string (fully open poti).
Most common in electric guitars is the integration of piezo elements in each bridge saddles. Rare is the integration in the last fret of the fretboard.

I do have two piezo equipped guitars.

Left: Linus Custom Thinline with a Fishman/Wilkinson VS-50P bridge.

Right: Parker Fly Deluxe with a Fishman bridge.

Although the construction of the guitars is obviously different, they doesn't sound different,
neither piezo only, nor blended with the magnetic pickups.

Piezo in this one, too!!!

 

[DISTORT6]

Piezo in this one, too!!!

This reminds me - I really need to take some pics of my BMG.

 

[Prina]

Piezo in this one, too!!!

And this P245:

 

[Glide-bpm]

And this P245:

Whooop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!