![]() The L R Baggs Para DI looks good, but my concern is that although it has a 10 meg ohm input impedance, it's too far away from the pickup. Resulting in some low frequency roll off. The Behringer DI boxes work quite well though they still only have a 1 meg input impedance. I will try to source some of these or maybe come up with a simple design.Īs should always be the case with Piezo pickups you really do require a high impedance preamp to get optimal sound. Making these pickups is quite time consuming however, If anyone would like one, I am prepared to make them without a Carpenter Jack. Good string balance, good output and great sound My carpenter style jack mount hand made from macassar ebony The adjustable fittings were from a standard chin rest. As the one fitted is made of plastic! The jack socket I used was a barrel type used on electric guitars ETC. I made a Carpenter style jack mount from some part seasoned macassar ebony I had left over from a tail piece I made for a Yamaha SB 200 electric upright bass. (Rough edges will actually help adhesion) I gave it 24 hours to cure then fitted the bridge. ![]() I then applied a bit more to seal the pickup in. Then I mixed up some epoxy and applied some to the channel and inserted the pickup until the epoxy oozed out ensuring a good fit. I marked out the routing pattern then carefully routed out the chanel using a mini drill. I decided to use one of the Aubert VB3 bridges I purchased from the very helpful ' Violin Man' Up in Dundee. Positioned to pick up mostly in the mode 1 plane. Following 20 minutes of low baking in the oven I removed the masking tape, then I covered the whole pickup in copper foil, then soldered the screen connection to the foil. I masked off the silvered top of the ceramic and then sprayed on several coats of clear Acrylic lacquer to insulate the hot connections. Next I soldered the hot inner wire to the board. I then used conductive adhesive to fix the tinned side of the piezo ceramic to the copper side of the board. Then I carefully sanded the board to the correct thickness and shape to accommodate the piezo ceramic remembering to leave a little copper exposed to make a soldered connection. As fibreglass copper clad board is fabricated in layers, I decided to split the board in half. This would need to be very thin 1 mm or so. Having contemplated this over several days I came up with the idea of using copper clad board for the positive electrode. Personally I believe that most piezo pickups sound very similar to each other and ironically, I don't much like the sound of any of them! I quickly realised that the most difficult stage would be making the electrical connections to the PZT ceramic. I decided on an embedded design although more versatile, under-the-wing and clamp-on designs seem a bit hit and miss regarding a consistent sound. Whilst waiting for the parts to arrive I worked out my design for the pickup. I can also make use of the screened cable. ![]() I will strip-down the the pickup to remove the six piezo elements (Being careful to note the correct polarisation). For the piezo ceramic element I decided to go with a cheap Artec undersaddle guitar pickup bought from Axes R Us in the UK for a very reasonable £8. I managed to order the conductive adhesive and foil tape from Ebay UK. The most difficult part of this project was sourcing the components: Ceramic PZT material, small diameter low capacitance braided cable, copper foil tape with conductive adhesive and conductive epoxy. Being horrified at the cost of commercial manufacturers piezo violin pickup systems, I decided to design my own.
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