piezo pick up for 12 string electric guitar

Hi folks

my lad bought a cheap tanglewood twin neck ie 6 & 12 string ,i fancy having an experiment in the shed over the winter,fitting a piezo pick up to the bridge on the 12 string,just wondered if any of you folks had done this befor and wich would be the best pick up to use to get a nice 12 string acuistic sound (ish )

thanks

Steve

The piezo strip thet fits under the saddle are fairly simple to install and fairly inexpensive.

You can buy one here very cheap. http://guitarfuel.com/Acoustic_Products.php

You will likely have to lower file down the bottom of the saddle to account for the increased height the piezo creates.

You also have to drill a small hole through the top on the high E end below the saddle to drop the wire through to the interior.

I usually tack the wire in place inside the body with a dab or two of hot glue which could be removed fairly easily at a later time if nessasary.

The wire goes back to the tail pin that gets replaced with a tail pin guitar jack which also needs to be drilled and installed.

The biggest key in a piezo setup is the preamp. If you dont have a quality preamp a piezo pickup sounds like garbage. its noth the right impedance

for plugging into a guitar amp direct. You can mount a preamp in the guitar or use one extrenally. having a Trebble, Mid, Bass, Presence, Volume and

even a tuner is pretty standard stuff on many acoustics now. You could get by with a volume bass and trebble, but that mid knob is real handy adjusting

the guitar to a guitar amp which usually has too much mids. plus if you switch from an electric to an acoustic you'll likely want that EQ so you dont have

to mess up the amps EQ settings when you play acoustic, so a three way EQ preamp would be my advice.

http://www.lmii.com/

has some great piezos

also available at

Grizzly!

http://www.grizzly.com/search/search.aspx?q=piezo

ok folks many thanks for the info,im going to read the links info you have given and then il be back,thanks Steve