{"id":23,"date":"2007-06-18T20:48:13","date_gmt":"2007-06-19T02:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/?p=23"},"modified":"2016-01-05T13:02:12","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T19:02:12","slug":"piezo-pickups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/piezo-pickups\/","title":{"rendered":"Piezo Pickups"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/images\/piezo1.gif\" title=\"Piezo Pickup\" alt=\"Piezo Pickup\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" height=\"147\" hspace=\"7\" vspace=\"1\" width=\"121\" \/><br \/>\nA piezo pickup as used on guitar can be thought of as a voltage source in series with a small value capacitor, as shown here. The capacitance of a typical piezo pickup is in the range of 500pF to 800pF.<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\" \/><br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/images\/piezo2.gif\" title=\"Piezo Pickup\" alt=\"Piezo Pickup\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" height=\"145\" hspace=\"7\" vspace=\"1\" width=\"153\" \/><br \/>\nLet&#8217;s add the input impedance (Zin) of the circuit to which the piezo is connected. It becomes apparent that the capacitance of the pickup into the following circuit will form a high pass filter.  If the Zin impedance is too low, then the bottom end of the signal range will be lost. Example: with a 1M impedance and a 500pF pickup, the corner frequency is about 318Hz&#8230; the bass frequencies below that will be cut and the sound will be thin and weak.<\/p>\n<p>It will take an 8M input impedance or greater to pass the full range of a guitar. Very few pedals have this kind of input and they will all suffer from low frequency attenuation.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/pcb.htm\">AMZ Mosfet Booster<\/a> has a 10M input impedance and will interface nicely with a piezo pickup. It will have a full rich sound with no bass loss.<\/p>\n<p>Another advantage is that the Mosfet Boost has variable gain and since a piezo can have a large output signal, the gain can be adjusted to eliminate distortion that would be present in boosters that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/lab\/boost.htm\">always run in full gain mode<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/images\/buff3.gif\" title=\"Piezo Pickup\" alt=\"Piezo Pickup\" align=\"left\" border=\"0\" height=\"236\" hspace=\"7\" vspace=\"1\" width=\"229\" \/><br \/>\nAlternately, if you just want to buffer the piezo signal to interface with other pedals, the jfet buffer design that was shown previously can be modified slightly for the task. Here I have eliminated R1 and changed the values of R2 and R3 to 22M.  The circuit can still be built on the stripboard layout I have posted and will be a good companion to any piezo device.<br \/>\n<br clear=\"all\" \/><br \/>\nYou can also build this circuit with my <a href=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/schem\/multi.htm\">Multi-Purpose transistor pcb<\/a>. Complete instructions are included with purchase.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A piezo pickup as used on guitar can be thought of as a voltage source in series with a small value capacitor, as shown here. The capacitance of a typical piezo pickup is in the range of 500pF to 800pF.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-diy"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Piezo Pickups - AMZ-FX Guitar Effects Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/piezo-pickups\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Piezo Pickups - AMZ-FX Guitar Effects Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A piezo pickup as used on guitar can be thought of as a voltage source in series with a small value capacitor, as shown here. The capacitance of a typical piezo pickup is in the range of 500pF to 800pF.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/piezo-pickups\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AMZ-FX Guitar Effects Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-06-19T02:48:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-05T19:02:12+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.muzique.com\/news\/images\/piezo1.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AmzFx\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AmzFx\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/piezo-pickups\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/piezo-pickups\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/2ff886e309b4cfdd0bc718b43770df73\"},\"headline\":\"Piezo Pickups\",\"datePublished\":\"2007-06-19T02:48:13+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2016-01-05T19:02:12+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/piezo-pickups\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":313,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/piezo-pickups\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/images\\\/piezo1.gif\",\"articleSection\":[\"DIY\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/piezo-pickups\\\/\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.muzique.com\\\/news\\\/piezo-pickups\\\/\",\"name\":\"Piezo Pickups - 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