Wiring piezos to a guitar jack

steveoath · 2016-12-17T19:40:42.468Z

I’m in the process of creating a tactile ambient/noise box inspired by folkteks illuminist garden.

I picked up some piezos pickups on eBay. But now realise I’m not sure whether I should wire them in series or parallel. Gut says parallel. Anyone offer any thoughts?

Rodrigo · 2016-12-18T02:17:00.779Z

From this page:

“In hooking up multiple piezos, you have a choice of whether to join them in series or in parallel. Because of the electrical nature of piezos, series connection yields poor results; parallel is the way to go. In practice this means: connect the hot lead from each of the piezos in the group to a common wire for the hot side of the output, and connect the ground from each peizo to a common ground wire.”

steveoath · 2016-12-18T09:25:32.520Z

Cool. I’ll give that a whirl. Thanks.

Simeon · 2016-12-18T12:20:09.598Z

Also, photos of the build, please!!

steveoath · 2016-12-18T13:23:59.696Z

Will do! For 20 characters.

steveoath · 2016-12-19T12:35:48.788Z

https://youtu.be/p_NqX_Bvfxs

This was the video that I watched that made me realise I could make one. I may just send it into my OP1 or perhaps into a delay then reverb and see what happens.

I also stumbled on a thread on MW (sh!) that someone claimed to have repaired one and its basically a peizo, wires and a butchered behringer delay with “shoddy” workmanship inside.

trppng · 2016-12-20T10:43:46.145Z

Nice!
You definitely gave me an idea about building my own ambient machine box during xmas holidays.
Just ordered some piezos…

How did you mount / tune the strings?
Are you using some kind of preamp for the piezos?
What are thos pots and switches on the box?

steveoath · 2016-12-20T12:45:29.093Z

The video isn’t mine, just one I stumbled upon in YouTube. I haven’t started yet! I’m not sure if I will copy the box in the video. Depends on the size of box I make I suppose. I’m going to try wiring the piezos directly to the jack then connect to my reverb and delay pedals. From there I’ll either plug into my amp, or use a virtual amp inside live.

fjna · 2018-01-10T04:45:49.283Z

@steveoath … any progress?

steveoath · 2018-01-10T09:09:58.661Z

@fjna

Oh yeah. I forgot to post here as I put it in he goals2017 thread. Found a wooded crafting box, attached a bunch of guitar strings, soldered to a guitar jack and job done. Very low output, so ran it through a 1W tube amp head I have, then through reverb and delay. Sounds nice. In the summer LCRP ( think) my samples were made using it.

I’ll try and dig out some sounds after work.

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