Bridges, piezos and stuff

[Oddkid]

After talking about building a prs-a-like les Paul a while back I went in to Guitar Guitar in Bitmingham (whom are excellent by the way) and bought a 245 SE. I love it. I'm incapable of leaving stuff alone though and although its definitely not broke and therefore doesn't need fixing I want to swap out the self intimating bridge for a fully adjustable one like the one fitted to my girlfriends Akkesson signature model. I figured that if I was going to switch it, why not get some piezo's to fit at the same time?

So why not, Sevenstring.org?

What parts should I look at? Is it much work? Am I going to need to take it to a pro to get done?

Cheers

Matt

 

[BigPhi84]

Depending on your skill level, it can be done at home. Fair warning, you will have to drill a hole into the face of the guitar under each saddle (or route the piezo cables under the bridge pickup, which I always think is ugly.) Also, grounding each string will be daunting chore (since systems like the Graphtech Ghost use non-magnetic saddle material). The biggest thing to check first is your guitar's bridge spacing and bridge post diameter. See if Graphtech has a compatible model.

 

[Aris_T]

Graphtech bridge is IMO the way to go. You just need to drill once to get all the cables to the control cavity, like this:

You should check if the cavity fit all the additional parts and the battery. If not, I routing for a battery box is really easy and will probably solve your problem.

Here's a list of the available bridges

Ghost Tune-O-Matic Bridges

 

[1b4n3z]

I put a Schaller TOM bridge with piezo saddles on my LP. Since Schaller made the original Nashville-style bridge, it was a drop-in replacement. I didn't want to drill the body, so I just filed a small notch on the bridge pickup ring and pulled the wire through the pickup cavity. By using the Schaller piezo I lose the individual saddle signal, but since it's just a gadget I like to use some of the time (not much), I thought it's well worth a try.

For preamplification I put in a booster circuit modeled after the Seymour Duncan Pickup Booster. The piezo circuit is completely independent of the magnetic pickup circuit, so if the battery ever runs out, the regular pickups work as normal. The piezo turns on by a push-pull pot. Easy and cheap, works great

(I did have to study some amplification electrics to find out how to deal with the impedance difference-related bass cut inherent with piezo systems, but it works now and I'm a bit wiser in that regard as well )