Pickup for a resonator

Ray

It's a cheap resonator and not a very good one so making holes in it hasnt broken my heart or anything. Total cost so far about 50 bucks ZAR maybe 70 not more. dont expand the pics you will have nightmares about the soldering.

The stuff:

The guitar:

Other stuff from the guitar that was in or on it:

The piezo which I will attach to the cone. I'm using the original cone which came with the guitar - it's really not a nice one. Anyway. I'm gonna stick the piezo on with double stick and see what happens.

And the holes I made and covered:

So, the pot will go in the hole on top. Mostly put together already just haven taken any photographs. Ag, when the energy catches I'll do it.

Further plans are to slap a little electret microphone into the mix. I bought a couple today and they are like really cheap. Also I think I am going to upgrade the thing a bit. I want to slap maybe 1 or 2 more disks - I'll wire them in parallel. I dont really know what I'm going to do with the microphone. Becasue I want to put on a 3-way switch as well. So that I can swith between just the piezos, just the microphone and then also both sending signal.

Also I'm not sure where the microphone should be positioned. Do you think between the cone and the cover plate? Maybe under the cone?

And now that I think of it maybe I should slap another volume pot in there as well so that I can mix it up a bit with different signals - you know from the different sources.

Gearhead

If I were you I'd make it easy to reverse polarity on each of the sources you mention. Interesting experiment ?

aja

You may like?

http://www.openmusiclabs.com/learning/sensors/piezos/

AlanRatcliffe

Mounting on the sides of the cone will essentially turn the whole cone into a microphone diaphragm and you will have major feedback issues. The piezo will also interfere with the cone's vibration.

Won't work with a disk like the one you have, but take a look at the Fishman or Schatten piezos for spider resonators - a disc with a built in "hot spot" style sensor and a hole that bolts on at the apex of the cone under the bridge (using the bolt from the bridge). The sensor needs to be positioned there as it is where it will interfere the least with the cone's vibration.

Piezos also work best with a preamp, which is essential to getting a decent tone (mostly because they sort out the huge impedance mismatch - especially true of the piezoceramic transducers like the disks, which can be as high as 5 meg). A decent pre will also have tone control, which I find pretty important for a resonator (they can get real harsh through some systems). Also because of the high impedance, your preamp needs to be as close to the pickup as possible to prevent cable noise and tone loss (which is why most preamps are internal).

Mics add another dimension of complexity completely - you'll need a mixer circuit to get it to work well with the piezo (that impedance bugbear again). Stereo output so you can impedance match the two and mix them. Positioning You'll have to experiment with, but I'd probably start outside the well to pick up some of the warmer body tones and very little directly from the cone. The little electret condensers built into goosenecks make positioning easier, but need phantom power (usually 1.5V). I think if I wanted to go dual source like that, I'd probably get one of the full Fishman Systems that have a mic mounted on the back of the preamp (battery access is also from outside - nice with a resonator ?) and just replace the UST with a resonator pickup.