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Permalink Reply by Reeds Taylor on October 20, 2013 at 4:18am

Here's a wiring diagram for what you want http://handmademusicclubhouse.com/photo/wiring-diagram-mag-pupvol

Yup, a pre-amp will make a big difference.

Tuners at a good value, and anything else you need you can find here. www.cbgitty.com

Hope this helps!

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on October 20, 2013 at 1:31pm

Yes definitely add a preamp, even the $5 Chinese ones are a huge improvement. If you choose not to then probably stick with a two position switch, because without a buffer amp the piezo will totally dominate the coil pickup, so much so that two of the positions on a three way switch will sound exactly the same as each other. Also, without a preamp it's very difficult to dial in a sound on your amp that will suit both pickups nicely, they just differ far too much in terms of impedance..

Mr gitty is the man for tuners, quite a bit cheaper than mr mac. They can be had even cheaper from china, eBay etc if you want to risk that, but really Ben Gitty is 100% reliable and makes a real effort to minimise your shipping costs (if you ever had a eight times as large as it needed to be box from stew mac then you know exactly what I'm talking about!)

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on October 20, 2013 at 11:27pm

The only gotcha I see there is a simple preamp, such as the JFET ones you can make yourself, invert the signal. This would cause your piezo and your standard pickup to be directly out of phase when played together. So you need a preamp, probably two stage, that leaves the signal as it came in.

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Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on October 21, 2013 at 12:14am

Uh.. IF phase is an issue..
it's pretty easy to flip the phase of a single coil...

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Permalink Reply by TruckDrivingFool on October 21, 2013 at 12:23am

Since I've been messing with the same preamps David is taking about and hadn't thought about phase I'll ask -

To flip the single coil phase you'd just switch your coil leads, +ve for -ve right? Or would you have to switch the magnet polarity?

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Permalink Reply by Dwight Sabo on October 21, 2013 at 11:37pm

Thanks everyone.  I'm on the look out for a decent pre-amp that'll fit. I'll order the tuners this week. The diagram was a definite help!

Dwight.

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on October 21, 2013 at 11:58pm

like The P Kid says,the cheapo chinese ones may not do everything they claim too,they Will process your piezo signal and improve it immensely.i would suggest that you isolate it so that it only effects the piezo circuit and process your mag pup via the amp,others may not agree,but that works for me

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on October 22, 2013 at 12:17am

just another thought Dwight ,the preamp doesn,t have to be in the guitar,if that,s awkward,just need it inline b4 amp

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on October 22, 2013 at 1:09am

That works nicely. I have one, in a cigar box of course, that I can use with all my piezo builds. Plug and play. When I get some time I want to do one specifically for disc piezos - really high impedance input, roughly standard pickup impedance output.

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