How to integrate my Piezo into my Rig?

[beej]

Guys ... chill.

Willith, welcome to the forum. You can't just come in here and fly off the handle. Keep the derogatory comments to a minimum, they do not fly here. And be nice to Canucks ... some of them are moderators after all

Please- this stops now.

 

[leftyguitarblue]

sooooooo.....heard any good lefty jokes lately?



sorry, just trying to break up the tension.

 

[bkrumme]

As far as the piezo goes, here's my .02...

You can get good tones with the piezo and a regular guitar amp...as long as it's clean tones. This isn't my preference, but it can be done. Beware the dirty channel of your amp. It won't play nice with the piezo.

If you're going for an acoustic sound, either a dedicated acoustic amp, or a DI box into the PA is going to give you the best results. I'm speaking from a tone perspective here. The piezo WILL sound better using one of these methods. This is due to the design of the amplification systems.

As far as cabling/switching, my preference is a stereo/trs cable running into a splitter and I switch between mag/piezo with the switch on the guitar. If you don't have a switch on the guitar, an A/B/Y box would come in handy, or you can use an EB stereo volume/blend pedal to blend between the two tones. I think Spudmurphy uses the blend pedal and gets good results.

You can pick up a splitter and stereo cable from your EBMM dealer. Mr. DuBaldo can surely hook you up with the splitter: Ernie Ball Splitter Box He can also probably get you the trs cable.

So the chain look like this: Guitar > Stereo/TRS cable > splitter. Then one side of the splitter goes to your amp for magnetic signal, and the other side goes to your acoustic amp or DI/PA. Then you use the piezo/mag switch on the guitar to switch between them. If you have a guitar without a piezo/mag switch, your best bet is probably a blend pedal instead of the splitter.

 

[bkrumme]

I forgot to mention.

On the JP guitars, there are 2 outputs. One is Stereo/Mag only. The other is Mono/Piezo only. I'm not sure about the other EBMM guitars with piezo so this does NOT cover them.

This means you have 4 options:

1. Magnetic pickups only. Here, you would use a mono guitar cable from the stereo/mag output. You get ONLY the magnetic pups this way. Switching the piezo/mag switch to piezo will mute the guitar.

2. Mag & Piezo with 2 cables. Here you would use 2 separate cables (one from each output). The Stereo/Mag would go to your guitar amp. The mono/piezo would go to your acoustic amp or DI/PA.

3. Mag & Piezo with 1 MONO cable. Here you would use one mono cable from the Mono/Piezo output. Both the magnetic and piezo signals are output to the same place with this method. You would have to use an A/B box to split them to separate locations, or use them both with one amp.

4. Mag & Piezo with 1 STEREO cable. This is what I described in my previous post. You use the splitter or stereo blend pedal as I described and have the signals going to separate amplification systems. Alternatively, you could use a Y cable instead of the splitter, but the concept is the same.

 

[Spudmurphy]

The silo/Piezo is a similar set up to my Al/Piezo.
My JP/piezo on the other hand has a toggle switch.

I can recommend the type of set up that I use:-
Stereo out into an EB 6165 Stereo pedal. _ This splits the signal to send the mags to my tube amp and the Piezo to my AER. The pedal will give you all the control you need.

Without wishing to stir up a hornets nest - many years ago, the thought of buying a dedicated acoustic amp was anathema to me.
After hearing the sound of a piezo through an acoustic amp I completely changed my opinion and I have to say that back in 2005 when I was buying my first EB, on hearing the piezo it was like being punched in the stomach !!

I just had to get one. The piezo will sound "allright" through a tube amp but it just comes alive through an acoustic amp.

 

[Jerry Jim]

thanks for finally going back to topic!

Well, all in all: I should do it like this:

Silo Stereo Output (Magnetic/Piezo) -> stereo cable -> EBMM splitter -> Y-Switch -> guitar amp (with magnetic) and DI/PA (with piezo)

But THEN I have it like this:

Clean, Crunch and Lead PLUS Piezo
So I only can switch between piezo and magnetic, but i can NOT choose what EXACT channel of the guitar amp i wanna use. Know what I mean?
I want the piezo to be just like an additional channel, but I guess I have to work with midi, then, right?

another cool option would be to have actually 5 "channels" so it's just like this:

Piezo, Piezo combined with Clean, Clean, Crunch, Lead.
Any ideas how to realize this one?


thanks so much,
Jerry

 

[bkrumme]

thanks for finally going back to topic!

Well, all in all: I should do it like this:

Silo Stereo Output (Magnetic/Piezo) -> stereo cable -> EBMM splitter -> Y-Switch -> guitar amp (with magnetic) and DI/PA (with piezo)

But THEN I have it like this:

Clean, Crunch and Lead PLUS Piezo
So I only can switch between piezo and magnetic, but i can NOT choose what EXACT channel of the guitar amp i wanna use. Know what I mean?
I want the piezo to be just like an additional channel, but I guess I have to work with midi, then, right?

another cool option would be to have actually 5 "channels" so it's just like this:

Piezo, Piezo combined with Clean, Clean, Crunch, Lead.
Any ideas how to realize this one?


thanks so much,
Jerry

OK, I think you may be making this too complex. YOu don't need the splitter AND the Y switch, just the splitter. So your signal chain would look like this:

Silo Stereo Output (Magnetic/Piezo) -> stereo cable -> EBMM splitter -> guitar amp (with magnetic) and DI/PA (with piezo).

You could add the Y switch and have it set up like a mute for the Piezo, but that adds another footswitch and it's a bit more complex. For a Silo, I would suggest the blend pedal like Spud mentioned. That way, you can control the amount of each signal going to their destinations.

Then all you need is a footswitch for your amp to switch between clean, crunch, and lead.

 

[Jerry Jim]

hey,

alright. I guess that sounds plausible.

And you would definitely suggest a EB blend pedal?!
I mean, they're obviously great, but at least here in germany pretty expensive...




PS: My problem was that i didn't get the blend pedal idea. I thought that it's just to fade the piezo signal addiotanally in, but it actually works kinda like a switch. Sorry dudes!

 

[Spudmurphy]

^

I can't promise but tomorrow I'll try and video my set up - that way it should clear everything up?