looking at maybe the fishman powerbridge or graphtec ghost piezo bridges / saddles.

Aim is for easy access to faux-acoustic sounds for gigging. The band is a 5 piece, with keys/synth/pads and only 1 guitarist (me), so the acoustic sounds will be in the mix, rather than exposed (except for a few short places where the arrangements pare down to just acoustic strumming.)

It's for a regular tele and I've got no interest in driving midi stuff with them. I'll also probably want to keep it very simple: probably a stereo jack into a footswitch and the piezo side into my LR Baggs PADI then PA, magnets to amp as per normal.

Thoughts / experience / suggestions?

Many thanks.

Edited by Findo (18/11/11 07:47 PM)

I started using a Parker Dragonfly back in the summer. Fishman bridge into an acoustic combo for 'acoustic' sounds and mixed with mag into valve amp for 'semi' sounds or mag only for 'solid' sounds. Works fine in a mix although I'm thinking of simplifying the signal chain a little by dropping the ability to blend the two signals (done via a Boss LS-2 line switcher pedal).

I've also had good results in the past using a magnetic pickup into a Boss AC3 acoustic simulator pedal / acoustic amp which is probably a cheaper solution.

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http://www.random-thought.co.uk/

Personally, I would be happy with a replacement Powerbridge or a Ghost system, I like them both.

I've just double checked, and you can get Ghost saddles for tele's with individual saddles and with the paired saddles.

If you go for the Powerbridge I would suggest you consider getting the Powerchip to go with it. It Will give you a volume control for the Piezos and simplify the wiring.

Andy

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When the going gets weird, the Weird turn Pro.

I have a Tele with some Graphtec Ghost piezo saddles and built in Graphtec pre-amp (Acoustiphonic I think) but you really need to run it into an acoustic amp for it to sound its best, having said that i run it through a Yamaha magicstomp with the fabled AG stomp patches and into a normal guitar amp and it sounds fine.

What you have to bear in mind it that it is a fairly serious operation on your Tele, you need to enlarge the control cavity to accommodate the pre-amp/battery and do a little routing under the bridge plate for the piezo wiring etc. so you would have to add the cost of someone to do this properly for you.

To be honest for the price of all this you could pick up a Variax secondhand or even new that is purpose built for these very situations and an excuse for another guitar

HTH

Dan


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Two interesting facts about me: 1)My Knob is the length of two Argos pens 2)I'm banned from Argos

Trouble is none of the Variax guitars are very nice to play. I bought a 700 and have to admit it's not up to much, thinking of taking the innards out now and putting them into a Schecter. So try a Variax before you buy one or it may work out even more expensive. I'm not that sure how convincing the acoustic sounds are either.

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www.myspace.com/shambolic-charm


Edited by Shambolic Charm (19/11/11 10:27 AM)