Hi. I wonder if anybody here knows how to simply combine the outputs of a piezo and a magnetic pickup in the same guitar. No fancy controls required.

Thanks.

You pretty much need some form of 'fancy controls'. The outputs of a magnetic pickup and a piezo pickup are very different (as in 'not even in the same ballpark') - the piezo will have a much higher impedance, and lower output, compared to the magnetic pickup. I don't think it would be a good idea to try to 'passively sum' them - they're too far into being 'two different animals' level- and impedance-wise to do without a bit of electronic intervention.

You'll typically need some sort of preamp/mixer (internal, or external, depending on what you're doing).

Is this for an electric guitar with piezo 'saddle' pickups, like the Fishman or Ghost systems, or is it an 'acoustic' guitar?

I know they are very different. It is on an acoustic that I have a piezo in and I want to combine a soundhole magnetic with it so that I don't have to use up two mixer channels. I just thought that maybe they could be isolated using just a resister or something. I guess you are right that the piezo output is way lower. I just want a little bit of that "airy" piezo sound on top of the magnetic. It's a Fishman Rare Earth and sounds OK, but just slightly too "electric". If what I ask is not possible, I can just use a stereo Y cord, I guess, and use two channels.

Fishman used to make a preamp for this, but it seems to be discontinued.

Thanks for the response.

John

If you're not against the idea of an outboard preamp for this, I've had a Boss AD-5 for years and it's been fantastic. It's designed specificly for this and has a some other great features as well.

Lance

Thanks. I'll look that one up.

For what it's worth, I forgot to add that I use the AD-5 with a passive Martin thinline and a Rare Earth.

Lance

Is it safe to assume you want an 'external' solution and are opposed to cutting a large, rectangular hole in the side of your guitar to permanently install one of those preamp/control blocks?

Combining the magnetic and piezo signals is fine, I'm just under the impression that the ultra high impedance / very low output of the raw piezo signal will make that difficult unless the piezo gets run though a piezo-specific preamp before the combining (or in a purpose-built box, the piezo and magnetic preamping and summing could be in the same box).

The LR Baggs Para-Acoustic DI is a popular option for the 'piezo impedance and level' preamp/DI part. There are a couple other external units I'm familiar with (more from the world of violin/cello/standup bass pickups) that are multi-input preamps that mix piezo, magnetic, and sometimes also internal mini-mic, but they tend to get pretty expensive pretty fast.

I was hoping to do it simply, cheaply, internally. Looks like at least two of those are not possible.

That's usually the case. I did "cheaply, internally' to an electric violin (using stuff intended for guitar applications) recently that I was pretty happy with, but it was a weekend-long surgery project that wouldn't qualify as 'simply'.