kenact

I wander in from time to time. There doesn't seem to be a lot of activity any more.

Back in the late 60s, Gretsch added a Floating Sound Unit to the White Falcon and the Viking. It was designed to add sustain. There is a space saver bridge that sits between the Bigsby and the FSU. The FSU is held suspended in air by the strings. It has a tuning fork screwed into the largest of 3 bars, and extends into the body of the guitar. Idea idea was, the initial vibration of the strings, would cause the tuning fork to vibrate, and the continued vibration of the tuning fork, would keep the strings vibrating. I've never done a test to see how long a string would vibrate on my 67 Viking, but I can absolutely attest to the fact the the tuning fork does vibrate when you pluck the strings. Once, the wiring came loose, and was resting on the tuning fork when I started playing the guitar, and it was the most horrendous noise I've ever heard coming out of a guitar. 🤮

I'll chime in with my humble opinion. I have both Parker & Godin guitars with piezo pickups. They're both very good, but you will generally get more bang for the buck with Godin. I haven 't played an LP, Strat or Tele with piezos, but I have played them without, and head to head comparisons, I find Godins every bit as good in both quality and sound, and lower cost. Just to be clear, I do not work for Godin, but I used to spend a great deal of time in a guitar store that was a Godin dealer. I got to play quite a few, and even bought several, including some synth guitars, and my favorite 12 string, the Godin A12.

Had 2 of mine stolen back in the 70's. Couldn't do that to someone else.