piezo bridges for teles and strats...?

[acorkos]

anyone have any experience with the l.r. baggs x-bridge http://www.lrbaggs.com/html/products/pi ... idge.shtml for strats, or the fishman powerbridge system for teles http://www.fishman.com/products/details.asp?id=65 ????

-how do they sound?
-are they passable for a decent acoustic guitar sound?
-any reliability issues?
-any installation difficulties?

thanks for your input
aris

[thirdpole]

Got the LrBaggs on my strat.

Super easy to install. Did have to carve the jack pocket with a Dremel though cause the stereo jack was longer.

I picked the LR Baggs because it didn't require a battery ! 100% passive. On itself, it's pretty bland. But i got an aphex acoustic exciter pedal ... WOW ! It's not a Martin D-28, but i gig with it without shame and convincing enough for the crowd !

[LeonC]

I have a their traditional 6-screw bridge in my strat. I also have variants of it (e.g., their saddles & pre-amp and someone else's bridge) in most of my guitars. Excellent saddles in terms of wear; great sound for faking acoustic parts. I typically play them through an SWR California Blonde (live) for an extra big fat sound. Helps on old Stones tunes, stuff like that.

[LeonC]

Ah the other questions.

No reliability issues whatsoever.

Not hard, but not necessarily easy to install in all guitar; depends on room. I've done some nutty "customizations" in order to avoid drilling holes in some guitars.

I can do a recording if you'd like to hear them. Don't think I've tried that before...

[acorkos]

thanks guys...no need for the clips. i trust your opinions on the sound quality.

is this a possibility?...
- saddles/bridge/stereo jack only installed
- replace tone pot with a pull pot to switch between magnetic/piezo pickups
- y-cable tip connection to regular pedals/amp, ring connection (acoustic sim) to LR Baggs para acoustic DI to PA via xlr cable....would this work? i want to avoid putting a lot of parts into the guitar and avoid routing.

thanks again

[LeonC]

The only routing I did was in the jack cavity. I just used a dremel to carve out a bit deeper into body for larger stereo jack. Having built a number of your own amps, I'm going to assume you're *much* more knowledgable of electronics than I am. FWIW, I can tell you that I wouldn't feel comfortable using anything besides their jack as I recall it being quite a rat's nest of wires involved, particularly when you're doing the Ctrl-X onboard.

Speaking just for myself...I rarely play just the piezos...so the either/or switch on the tone pot wouldn't work for me. 90% of the time, I play them along with the electro mags, to some degree. When I do want just the piezos, I use the blend/vol pot to back the electro-mags out. So if I had to give one or the other up, I'd give up the toggle rather than the vol blend pot. I wired my strat so that the knobs go: master vol, piezo-vol/blend, master tone (for all three pups). If I were to do it again (and boy...I sure don't feel like messing with this), I'd have them go MV, MT, PV.

Best of luck. Let us know how it comes out!

[LeonC]

Oh BTW, one tip (you probably already know this...but for anyone else attempting something like this); Get a piece of cardboard and use it as a template for where you're going to place things. Cut your holes in it first and wiring things up (to the extent that it makes sense) with the parts mounted on the cardboard, and then move them to the actual guitar. Trying to wire some of this stuff while it's mounted on/in the guitar is a PITA. You're better able to mess with it while it's mounted to something that's wide open.

[thirdpole]

Good tip Leon,

What i do is wire the jack with a 3 pole connector (ground, mag, piezo), that way i can do all my work on the pickguard and then plug the jack connector before i screw the pickguard back on the guitar.

I discovered these king of plugs on my MusicMan Silhouette Special and thought it was a great idea. So i got more plugs and did all my guitars with pickguard.