is there enough resonance in a solid body uke to be able to use a piezo pickup?

dave the slave · Feb 13, 2014

i have been told by some people that a piezo pick up wont work in a solid body (one block of wood with holes in it only to fit the electronics) ukulele, do to the fact that it picks up the sound that is bounced around inside the body of the instrument and since a solid body doesn't have that, there wont be anything to pick up and it therefore wont work. any opinions on the matter?

jcalkin · Feb 13, 2014

Under-saddle piezos don't care and will work fine. They work from down-pressure from the strings. Getting enough down-pressure may be a problem with a uke. I designed a bridge for this that worked fine. I'll post a picture after I find it.

jcalkin · Feb 13, 2014

Found it. This was a solidbody poplar uke I made about 20 years ago.

DanielHulbert · Feb 13, 2014

I used a rod piezo for this ukulele:

It works great.

dave the slave · Feb 14, 2014

jcalkin said:
Found it. This was a solidbody poplar uke I made about 20 years ago.

can you explain whats going on in that picture. cant really figure out what you did. thanks for the reply

dave the slave · Feb 14, 2014

DanielHulbert said:
I used a rod piezo for this ukulele:

It works great.

i have already seen this video. i follow your projects you are awesome and your creativity is incredible. do you have a step by step on this build? if not can you at least tell me what whoes products you used to make it? thanks!

jcalkin · Feb 14, 2014

dave the slave said:
can you explain whats going on in that picture. cant really figure out what you did. thanks for the reply

The strings tie on the back of the bridge as normal. Then the screws lower the back bar to force the strings below the level of the saddle, increasing the down pressure of the saddle on the Thinline Fishman pickup. Then the strings are tuned to pitch. I called Fishman to ask if I could cut two strings-worth off the length of the six-string pickup, and they said "Why don't we just make you a four-string pickup?" Doh! They made me three. I still have one after all these years.

DanielHulbert · Feb 14, 2014

dave the slave said:
i do you have a step by step on this build? if not can you at least tell me what whoes products you used to make it? thanks!

I didn't make a step by step for this build. But the pickup is an inexpensive piezo rod is connected to a basic 500K ohm potentiometer then to a 1/4 inch mono jack. It looks like diagram #2. http://www.cbgitty.com/?p=87
The jack is mounted to an upside down strat jack plate.

dave the slave · Feb 15, 2014

i left a bunch of questions for you as a reply to this post on ukeland.co.uk if you could answer them that wouuld be great. thanks

DanielHulbert · Feb 16, 2014

I responded.

Good luck with your project.

is there enough resonance in a solid body uke to be able to use a piezo pickup?

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