Need advice with making an electric violin... :)

[till]

i went over to the workshop - build a piezo monocord. Piezo is from an old cheap piezo tweeter . At the scope i can make something that looks pretty like a sine. With the scope 10MOhm in get up to +-5Vpeak! i don´t know what input impedance opamps they use for the preamp inside the instruments, but high impedance with 9V block batterie may be a reason for bad sound.

[till]

and the spektrum with piezo into soundcard looks like. Soundcards impedance must be much lower as scope, not much left from the +-5V.

[Le Basseur]

Hi Till,
Thank you for sharing your experiment and it's results.
I had the same impression regarding the true reasons of a piezo's harshness.I remember the first generations of Ovation guitars fitted with piezo transducers (...apart from the initial spectacularity,on a second listen,they showed THAT caracter),and things being somewhat improved on the later versions.
Do you have an idea on how to build a "harsh-free" on-board piezo preamp for our beloved instruments?
...Maybe a hint?...Anything?
Thanks,

[till]

I think for a better in - instrument preamp the problem is we would need more voltage. Batterie power and low power design may be not the best way. An external powersupply providing real voltage and the opportunity to build something with discrets or opamps at +-18V and some more bias would be my way. I also wonder why mostly dynamik PUs and sometimes piezos are used, but i don´t know any case of build into instrument micophone capsule. I woudl really like to experiment with these, but i would need an instrumentalist for the testing and valuation.

[Le Basseur]

Sorry for not being in your proximity,but I'd gladly cooperate on this and I'm open for every idea you have!

[madfiddler]

We've got a number of people building electric violin on my fiddle forum so it may be worth you checking it out and chatting to people,

Cheers,

Mark.