Review of Schertler vs. Radio Schack hack

drolling

Great thread! An old issue of Frets magazine from the 80s (Bonnie Raitt on the cover) first steered me to Radio Shack for the piezo-electric crystal pickup. As has been stated, the bigger the pickup, the warmer the tone. I experimented with a variety of sizes and ended up going with a medium "door buzzer" I think it was called - $1.39 at the time. The most difficult thing was removing the plastic casing without cracking the crystaline coating on the metal disc.

At that time I was looking to amplify a resonator, after finding that traditional acoustic pickups could not capture that distinctive 'garbage can' tone. Placement seems to be everything with this type of pickup, and while I have no idea where I would mount one on a Selmac, the sweet spot on the reso was directly on the cone, high up close to the edge where the vibration is greatest. I used a blob of rubber cement for a permanent attachment with maximum contact.

The biggest problems were lack of volume and a very harsh trebley response. The solution was surprisingly simple. I ran the guitar into a BOSS GE-7 equalizer stomp box, allowing me to boost the volume and mids while simultaneously cutting the highs. Thing still sounds great to this day, especially when running thru an overheated funky old tube amp.

Thanks for the great post & sound clips! I think I'm still going to save up for a Stimer anyway

bellamira

Hello fellow gear geeks.
Thought i pass a long some related personal experience.
I want to make a Radio shack piezo, and even went down and bought all the gear i would need to do it.....then it dawned on me.
How well the pizeo works is partially dependent on where you place it on teh soundboard, and the quality of the pizeo itself, and lastly, why would I want to have a butt ugly pickup that looks like a blob of tar or a bottle cap stuck on to my good looking instrument. (I play a koa tenor uke I built).
Well, to make a longer story shorter, I did a lo of research and settled on returning the Radio shack gear and ordered a K&K Big Shot.
First it's VERY thin, as in about 1 mm thick. That makes it thin enough to put it where it needs to be, infront of the bridge and under the strings. The ugly bottle cap pizeos won't fit there.
And lastly, it sounds really good. In fact I reeally had to crank up the gain to start getting distortion or feedback.
Oh, did I say it only cost $38.

Next, I started realizing that I really didn't like the look of the cable draping off the edge of the instrument.
So...off to Radio Shack again. Bought the sodering iron again.
Bought an internal guirtar jack and yes you guessed it...got out the drill.
I relocated the pizeo inside the body (same location) and wired it up.
K&K makes an internal Big Shot.
Sweet! Very clean looking, no wires hanging around, and all for less than $45, including the soldering iron.
Oh it's really cool to be at a jam and plug in a tenor ukulele and start hitting it with Hotel California too.

Mark in Portland

Jack

bellamira wrote:

...why would I want to have a butt ugly pickup that looks like a blob of tar or a bottle cap stuck on to my good looking instrument. (I play a koa tenor uke I built).

To each his own, and all, but I thought the Welch's cap looked pretty damned good. Certainly no worse than all the tape, Metro tickets, etc. that have been spotted on gypsy guitars over the years. Plus, you can match that purple to your socks.

Best,
Jack.

V-dub

bellamira wrote:

... why would I want to have a butt ugly pickup that looks like a blob of tar or a bottle cap stuck on to my good looking instrument.

Look, no one asked you to try this. If you spend $40 on a pickup, you're probably going to get a better pickup. No one's going to argue there.

Part of the charm of this project is the DIY nature of it. If the point was to get professional pickup that looks nice, we'd all go out and buy the real thing. I think its more about using some elbow grease to build something that actually works well (having a conversation piece when someone sees a welch's bottle cap stuck to your guitar).

Also, It should be re-emphasized that the radioshack solution costs around $6 to build depending on what kind of parts you have lying around, in which case, it might not cost you a thing. Do you get something that looks like hell? Sure, but you built it yourself and it cost $6! What did you expect, a Schertler?

Also, it should be noted that the size of the pickup depends on how you house it. The actual piezo element is extremely small and fit anywhere you want. I just did the bottle cap thing to prove a point: you can make this out of things lying around the house.

No offense taken, but it does rattle a nerve when people call my creations "butt ugly"!

djangology

by saran wrap i meant that i think you can wrap a piezo in saran wrap and melt it with a hair dryer right?

guit_box

I noticed that several of the piezo pickup manufacterers are now using a film type element instead of what they were calling a ceramic element. They all claim it to be less harsh. I wonder what kind of element is used in the better sounding pickups such as Shertler or Schatten. I've made the radio shack pu's just like pictured above and I get the same result. If you wedge it under the feet of the bridge (using one for each foot is probably better) you can get a much louder output because it's under pressure and then no putty is required. However, then it sounds like a bigtone pickup--very quacky. I noticed that schatten glues two elements internally right onto the two cross braces that are directly under the bridge feet. Perhaps you could make two of these RS elements and super glue them internally, the trouble is making a little jig to get them thru the soundhole, and you'd also need a small miror.

Does anyone know what the shertler and Schatten are using for elements?

Here is a link to a place that sells the film type elements:

http://www.members.tripod.com/%7Etclutherie/page6.html

http://www.liutaiomottola.com/electronics/bassducer.htm

guit_box

This article shows you how to build an undersaddle pickup. I built a new bridge for my Selmer with a bone saddle, but obviously this won't help most people with the standard all-wood bridge. It is another option though, and making a new bridge with a saddle isn't that hard really. I found that a bone saddle Selmer sounded a little louder and brighter than the wood-only bridge.


http://www.liutaiomottola.com/PrevPubs/ ... sducer.htm

MichaelHorowitz

The Schertler doesn't use a peizo element at all...that's why is doesn't have the characteristic "brittle" sound that all peizo's have. The Schertler uses a magnetic coil to sense the motion of the guitar's top....very natural sounding.

'm

capilano-gypsy

well, i got around to building me one of these and i've noticed that the output is much louder and more strong in the mid-range when only part of the element make contact with the body. i've also noticed that on one of the links, it instructs to have only the piezo element in partial contact with the bridge.

what is the reason for the increased output and different characteristic? could it be that the piezo actually picks up the vibration of air, rather than wood?

scholzie

capilano-gypsy wrote:

what is the reason for the increased output and different characteristic? could it be that the piezo actually picks up the vibration of air, rather than wood?

Piezos work by deformation of the surface. Without getting too technical, there is an induced current in the conductive material, and the amp picks that up just like the string+magnet combo of a standard electric pickup.

If the element is pressed against the surface of the guitar, then it can't vibrate freely because the soundboard is going to dampen the vibrations. As a result, the only vibrations that can make it through are the high-frequency, lower amplitude waves. If you back off a little, the extra space will allow the pickup to vibrate more freely, and you should get a wider spectrum, and the sound board won't dampen the volume of the pickup.

Edit: It should also be noted that a lot of the harsh, brash tone from the piezo can be filtered with some basic passive electronics. I am currently on an internship, but when I'm back at school in about 2 months and I have my electronics gear I will experiment with some caps and resistors and see if I can smooth it out a bit. It shouldn't be too hard.