Schwiftaaay Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 Hey everyone, Hope you could be so kind to help me please. So I'm interested in the Schaller Hannes Piezo, Schaller claim you don't need a preamp for it. So if I dont have a preamp, how would I wire it in? I'm ideally going to want a 3 way pickup switch for 2 pickups. I was debating about adding either a hidden switch or tear drop switch to active the piezo bridge, however I'm debating whether I want its volume control to be a blend. So 0 is pickups only and 10 being full piezo, if you get my drift? Any other ideas and I'd be open minded. The only thing is I dont want two Jack sockets, I want it all to go via one socket only. Thanks in advance Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 First of all . Our very own @Andyjr1515 builds all sorts of guitars, this is one of his acoustic builds... I imagine he would be able to answer your question. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted May 15, 2020 Share Posted May 15, 2020 Hi, @Schwiftaaay and also welcome! Hmmm...I might be wrong, but I pretty sure that, while they are right that there is a strong enough signal from the piezos to make it perfectly possible to take a jack output straight into an amp or DAW without a pre-amp, nevertheless mixing that signal with the output from magnetic pickups is quite another thing. To do that, while it isn't actually a pre-amp as such, you do need something electronically similar to balance the impedance difference of the two types of output. I fitted a Hannes Piezo bridge to this: But I installed a Schaller Flagship blend unit in it to enable the two outputs to be balanced. There are a number of onboard blender/mixer units on the market but I think something like this is probably essential if you want both signals to be routed through a single jack. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwiftaaay Posted May 16, 2020 Author Share Posted May 16, 2020 Hi guys, thanks so much for the responses. Sorry I havent been in touch sooner! So ultimately, I need the preamp to make this piezo worth while. Thanks for letting me know, was curious if I could avoid it to save a cost lol! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted May 17, 2020 Share Posted May 17, 2020 Yeah definitely get a buffer preamp. Even if the signal is loud enough the impedance issues may make it sound trebley. The buffer pre's aren't expensive on Ebay and a cheap one should do the job. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Schwiftaaay Posted May 17, 2020 Author Share Posted May 17, 2020 Other than the Schaller Flagship Preamp, are there any others you would recommend? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kiwi Posted May 18, 2020 Share Posted May 18, 2020 For guitar maybe look at the Graphtec Ghost acoustiphonic. But there maybe cheaper options on eBay, they're not hard to build from scratch, either for an experienced tinkerer. https://graphtech.com/pages/ghost-pickup-systems Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andyjr1515 Posted May 19, 2020 Share Posted May 19, 2020 I've used a John East unit something like this: https://www.east-uk.com/index.php/all-products/mpm-01.html There is also an Artec 'Master Blender' (I think MB-2 is the simpler and therefore better one) that does much the same job. There may be others. Search for 'Magnetic and Piezo Mixer' - should pull up most of the options Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
