I tried Catalog-Style Shots

[El Chiguete]

I think it would work, but just how good it's going to be up for grabs untill some one test its. Piezos go inder the saddels to get the best posible vibration from the strings, I would like to hear how your mod sounds like CharvelRocker since it's located under the pickguard I don't know how much vibration the pickguard takes out since its plastic.

[CharvelRocker]

I do not have any sound clips as I have nothing to record with.

wantthehairspray, I would imagine it would be it does not rate the decibel range. I would say if its about 90, it should work fine. Mine is about 110, which I think is too powerful. Also, I heard of it in Guitar Building & Customization. Another small correction; the center is ground, the outer is hot.

EC, it works pretty well actually. This is because the vibrations go through the Floyd, through the string and screws, an dback into the body (if you can picture that), so it has a fair amount of punch, but I have not compared it to a string thru guitar.

[El Chiguete]

How about this, I just had this ideas:

1st: How about if you would put a piezo like the one that wantthehairspray or one like it inside where the springs go in the back of the guitar? it would be agood place to hide it and still have good resonance (since all the body of the guitar vibrates).

2nd: This is just a wild card that i'm thinking, but, the one on the pickguard SHOULD sound diferent than the one on the body (the resonance on the plastic must be different than the one on the wood of the body). You ¨could¨ then have a switch for both of them and have different sounds...

I might try to do a mod if you guys approve this insane idea of puting a Radio Shack piezo on the back where the springs are... but I would meed and advice on what piezo to get.

What do you'll think of this?

[CharvelRocker]

I should clarify mine is not on the pickguard, but right under it on the wood above the trem springs though not int he trem cavity. An issue I could see with one in the trem cavity though is it would be more likely to pick up the noises of you moving the guitar and hitting it back there, as well as more likely to pick up the noises of the trem springs. Mine has minor issues picking up these noises as it is, but there is no way around it.

[wanthairspray]

I did some reading around on all this, and hope to buy components (piexo transducer and mayb some for a preamp/buffer thingie) tomorrow.

I like your idea, chiguete but as Charvelrocker sez, the piezos seem very sensitive, so you'd probably pick up spring noise, however:

a simple mod involves placing tubing of some sort inside the springs, as it is the contracting and bending that makes the spring noise I think...there was another way round the spring noise I read someplace too, but I forgot it, might have used foam.

Anyway, it seems that having two doesn't really chage the sound too much, (or so I read)...but I'd like to do a similar test as El C is thinking of.

There's a page some MIT dude made of a fairly in depth look at piezo modding, including frequnecy analysis...

http://web.mit.edu/kumpf/www/Acoustics/specs.html

He says foam makes it sound better anyway!

That might help you decide on what piezo type you want, El Chiguete.

[El Chiguete]

Well to be honest wright now I'm not going to be doing this experiment so if anyone wants to try it for the better of humanity it will be great.

[wanthairspray]

Well, I got my components.

I had intended to build a buffer, too, but the electronic place did not have one part, even though their website said they did...

Also, the piezo I got was not the one I wanted, it's one intended for speech and you can tell this. On the treble strings you can get a very vocal wah wahy noise, like a blues harp or telephone/sidetone noise.

Mounted into an abused Encore guitar just below the volume knob.

Here's two small (700kb or so) and poor samples.

http://www.speedyshare.com/156715454.html

piexonotweak is A POD 2.0 in clean mode, a touch of reverb, and the bass, mid and treble dialled at 12 strict.

Piexo tweak is me trying to get a better sound.

I think I will try and mount it on a bit of foam, as that improves freq response.

As you can tell, it's not great, but it really works!