I just finished my second CBG and love the sound of this one. I put the piezo on the base side were my first I put on the other side. I love the deep sound.
My only question is, I have to turn the volume knob all the way up on the CBG and on my amp to hear it, what could cause this? Once it's all the way up , it sounds great, well it sounds great without the amp. Is there something I need to be doing different, my first one I didn't have a knob and I don't have to turn my amp up past 6 or 7, this one I have to turn to 9 or 10.
Replies
tolerances are huge on cheap pots. ive seen 250k pots with resistance as high as 290k and as low as 210k. Did you use an audio or linear taper pot?
i doubt its your soldering, if it were either it would work or not, seems to me you just got a linear taper pot by mistake.
Normally, I give Dan's "check yer connections" talk ;-) I think he may be right, now that you've told us you added a vol pot.
Yeah,, I know, it's right there in the Frickin' pic; but that wouldn't mean his first one didn't have one.
Check your solder joint on the vol pot; sometimes, you have to scratch the coating off the back to get a proper solder joint for your ground. Check all your connections. 2-3 times.
Nice looking build!
Piezos even from the same batch can act differently. Also, piezos are really good at picking up high frequencies and sudden volume spikes (like knocking the box hard). They're not so good at picking up lower freqs. Location of the piezo on the bass side may be what's causing this.
Sounds like you might need a pre-amp with this one. It may also be that the impedance is slightly different on this piezo versus your first one. Anything else different? Jack? Cable? Any grounding issues? There are Pocket battery powered pre-amps on the market ranging from $29 cheapos to studio quality $600 models.
Thanks for the reply. The jacks, cable, piezo all came out of the same package as my first one, only thing different is I added a volume knob.
That might be what it is, I put it on the bass side so it's not picking up as much. I'm learning as I go. : )
I put all mine on the bass side and they all work just fine. I seriously doubt it is the location.
You may have a bad volume pot, or there may be a bad solder joint. You could also have a problem with the piezo making sufficient contact with the sound board (lid) to pick up the vibrations. I would double check all your connections first.