amplifying a diddley bow with a rod piezo

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Permalink Reply by chevytrucking on October 10, 2012 at 4:21pm

I wonder what a rod piezo would sound like if you put say a 3 string rod under your one string, but put it inline with the string. It would be like 3 peizos on the same string. Seems like it would pick up even better, but I'm just guessing, never tried it.

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on October 10, 2012 at 6:01pm

You could always cut the rod down to fit a smaller saddle/bridge like i did on this 2 stringer. The rod was shorten down to 1" long. As far as running it length wise coming up with a saddle /bridge would be the hard part. You would have to shape the saddle to come to an edge for the right string break.

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on October 10, 2012 at 6:05pm

On my D-bow i used a disc on this one. I made the bridge out of bone with the disc in a carved out chamber and carve the saddle right into the top of the bone. Then added the spalted maple handrest.

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Permalink Reply by Sumner McLain on October 10, 2012 at 10:01pm

Randy that diddlestick is what's up! I love the natural, bark-on neck

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on October 10, 2012 at 11:07pm

It`s an old hoe handle for the neck, hollowed out poplar firewood log body and cedar wood top and bottom.

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Permalink Reply by SD Helfrich on October 12, 2012 at 6:29pm

That's amazing!

-SD-

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Permalink Reply by Sleepy Peejay on October 11, 2012 at 3:58am

I think the cutting down would be the way to go if I used a rod piezo. The questions remains whether this would sound better (on a diddley bow) than a simple disc piezo.

I interpreted the "directly affected by every string" part as meaning that the seperate wafers pick up the vibrations of each string individually, with no (or  minimal) interference from the other strings.  If this interpretation is correct, a disc piezo on a diddley bow would be "affected directly by every string"  anyway, since there's only one string to begin with (which implies the absence of interference from other strings). I might as well use a disc piezo then.

Is this the case, or did I get something wrong?

 

By the way: Randy, I really like your DB. Looks like a Flinstone edition. :-) 

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Permalink Reply by David L. on October 11, 2012 at 5:10am

Both will work and it is down to personal preference which sound better.  Both are cheap so it might be worth considering trying both and seeing what works best with your design.  Discs will feedback sooner then a rod when you crank up the volume and both will sound better preamped (although some prefer the raw sound without a preamp).  You can get flexible piezo cable pickups http://www.suntekstore.co.uk/product-15005697-bendable_piezo_cable_... which might be easier to fit under the saddle for the 1 string.

If you added a magnetic pickup as well you could increase the sound options and again help to reduce feedback.

Rods pickup noise from around them - I tried to build a bridge that had 2 rods with a split bridge that had a nylon string pressing via bone to one rod and a steel string pressing via a separate piece of bone to rod number 2 the concept being 2 distict sounds to 2 separate amps from the one guitar - a complete fail as both rods picked up the noise the other was supposed to be individually sensing.

Do you have a photo of the DB you want to amp up?

 

 

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Permalink Reply by Randy S. Bretz on October 13, 2012 at 6:29am

Even though it`s not a piezo pickup, this build i did has a custom Ted Crocker single pole pup in the nose cavity, i sent him a piece of ebony that i carved to fit in the cavity.

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