HAMERMAN Posted February 26, 2007 Posted February 26, 2007 A while back somebody here mentioned having bought several Ibanez floyds with piezo's built into the saddles. I would really like to get a hold of one of these but they seem to be pretty rare. Just curious who it was that had them and where you got them? Anbody have any interest in selling one?Note: Most (all?) Ibanez baseplates seem to have material in the right place to be drilled out for a left or right handed trem arm. I am counting on this since I would need to set it up lefty. I could live with the empty right handed trem hole.Minimal Hamer content: As I like the feel of an Ibanez floyd I would consider putting one of these on my sustainer chap if it would go in with minimal fuss. If not I would probably rather put it in my RG550.Edited to add: For a while it seemed like graphtech was going to offer retrofit piezo saddles but as far as I can tell they dropped the ball on this one after a small number of prototypes.
marcus2 Posted February 26, 2007 Posted February 26, 2007 I have one. It's a cool guitar.Try looking at these websites to get the trem:http://www.jemsite.com/orhttp://www.ibanezrules.com/index.htmThe second one is your best bet.Good luck,Marc
Brooks Posted February 27, 2007 Posted February 27, 2007 if you are going for an acoustic sound,the piezo's on a metal bridge solidbody will probably leave you disappointed. compared to a duotone, bobbymacks piezo equipped artist custom (that i owned for a few months) didn't measure up tonewise on the piezo output, and its a high end semihollow w/o a floyd.i'd try one before spending time & money on modifications.
HAMERMAN Posted February 27, 2007 Author Posted February 27, 2007 I am after two things in one Floyd equipped guitar:1) Piezos driving transplanted Variax electronics.2) Roland compatible 13 pin output for use with a guitar synth.I have already figured out how to derive the 13 pin output from the variax electronics so the thing grinding everything to a stop is finding a piezo floyd.Hopefully I will end up with a decent acoustic sound from the Variax electronics but that's really secondary to getting access to all of the different electric tones.
silentman Posted February 27, 2007 Posted February 27, 2007 I've gotta disagree with brooks. My Music Man Petrucci model has a piezo on a floating bridge and it sounds great. Having owned a duotone at the same time, I used them together at gigs and found no real difference in one over the other.
HAMERMAN Posted February 27, 2007 Author Posted February 27, 2007 The music man setup seems to get a lot of praise, perhaps they are doing some tone shaping before sending out the piezo signal. Piezo setups always need some buffering circuitry but I don't know how much tone shaping they normally do otherwise. I know high pass filters are pretty common to prevent low frequency "mechanical" sounds from making it out.
Brooks Posted February 27, 2007 Posted February 27, 2007 I've gotta disagree with brooks. My Music Man Petrucci model has a piezo on a floating bridge and it sounds great. Having owned a duotone at the same time, I used them together at gigs and found no real difference in one over the other. note to self: don't let lou mix my cd. JOKE!!!! who's the hot chick in your avatar?!?
sirDaniel Posted February 27, 2007 Posted February 27, 2007 if you are going for an acoustic sound,the piezo's on a metal bridge solidbody will probably leave you disappointed. compared to a duotone, bobbymacks piezo equipped artist custom (that i owned for a few months) didn't measure up tonewise on the piezo output, and its a high end semihollow w/o a floyd.i'd try one before spending time & money on modifications.HAHAHAHHAHAHAmy petrucci kicks SERIOUS ass piezo wise. Hence, I'm agreeing with the everwise SILENTMAN.As a bonus, the trem stays in tune like a ROCK even w/diving.
Brooks Posted February 27, 2007 Posted February 27, 2007 if you are going for an acoustic sound, the piezo's on a metal bridge solidbody will probably leave you disappointed. compared to a duotone, bobbymacks piezo equipped artist custom (that i owned for a few months) didn't measure up tonewise on the piezo output, and its a high end semihollow w/o a floyd. i'd try one before spending time & money on modifications. HAHAHAHHAHAHA my petrucci kicks SERIOUS ass piezo wise. Hence, I'm agreeing with the everwise SILENTMAN. As a bonus, the trem stays in tune like a ROCK even w/diving. aren't you the guy who plays thru a digitech and a powered monitor? bada-BING!!!!! i'm on fire! i kill me!!!! seriously, i would rather have piezo saddles to run a synth than the bulky roland hex pup.
Guest JackButler Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Ditto for the EBMM Petrucci piezo..the Ibby "Double Edge" floyd piezo sounds suprisingly good.. I'd put in almost on a par with the EBMM.
paults Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 FWIW, I used Graphtec Ghost saddles on a PRS import with tremelo for my Variax transplant. The whole guitar cost less than one of those Ibanez trems is likely to cost.
HAMERMAN Posted February 28, 2007 Author Posted February 28, 2007 The whole guitar cost less than one of those Ibanez trems is likely to cost.That's a definite bummer.Once it's done my main gigging axe will be a steinberger spirit with variax electronics and a hex out. I also swapped out the wood neck for a graphite one. It should be a great guitar for the tiny spaces my band always seems to have gigs in.When the spirit is done my hope was to make a Floyd based variax/hex backup using one of my existing guitars. If there are no reasonable piezo options I will have to figure something else out. I have had the urge to try out a lefty MIM strat for a while now so maybe that would be the way to go since there are plenty of piezo options. I haven't liked the neck on any strat I have tried but I suppose if I am willing to route out a body to take some electronics I shouldn't be scared off by having to reshape a neck! :-)
silentman Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Ibanez is a pain in the ass for replacement parts.
darc Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 I have already figured out how to derive the 13 pin output from the variax electronics Wow! Can you elaborate at all? Did you need to use any additional electronics to buffer/ amplify the piezo out between the Variax ins and the GK circuit ins? Or are there safely isolated points to tap on one or the other? I love the Lo-Pro Edge myself, and have been wanting one of the piezo-equipped ones for years, but they cost an arm and a leg when you do see them. What are you using for piezos on the Spirit's bridge? Also, we'll need pictures.
HAMERMAN Posted February 28, 2007 Author Posted February 28, 2007 >>I have already figured out how to derive the 13 pin output from the variax electronics >Wow! Can you elaborate at all? Did you need to use any additional electronics to buffer/ amplify the piezo out between the Variax ins and the GK circuit ins? Or are there safely isolated points to tap on one or the other? If you grab the signals after Line6's buffering circuitry where the signals are going to the AtoD's all you need is isolation resistors to make them compatible with the Roland gear. The signals have a +2.5VDC offset that normal GK ouptuts don't have but the Roland gear has caps on the inputs that handle that. I haven't made mention of this over at ION because I don't have any idea if any of the non Roland gear also has the appropriate caps on the inputs. It would also be nice to be the first one to get this working on a transplant. :-) >What are you using for piezos on the Spirit's bridge? My original plan was to put the L.R. Baggs piezos into modified R-trem saddles but I may try getting a set of pre made saddles from graphtech. My R-trem saddles all have the round insert so they can't just be milled for the peizo's like the older ones can. I emailed Lea at graphtech about this but havent heard back yet. I'm not sure how that will work out since he had asked me last year some time if I wanted to be a beta tester for their upcoming piezo floyd saddles. At some point that seemed like it had fizzled away only to see one of the prototypes pop up on Jeff Millers site. When I emailed him about buying saddles Lea acted like he had never correspeonded with me before. It wouldn't have botherd me so much if he hadn't been the one that asked me if I wanted to be a beta tester. >I love the Lo-Pro Edge myself, and have been wanting one of the piezo-equipped ones for years, but they cost an arm and a leg when you do see them. I like the Ibanez floyd too. >Also, we'll need pictures. As soon as it's done I will defintely let you know and send some pics. Your Parker experiments defintely inspired me.
Guest JackButler Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 Ibanez is a pain in the ass for replacement parts.Not so bad anymore. They actually started a replacement parts stock division just for the U.S. now. For once, like the first time in never, they seem to be wanting to do customer service.. where as before you were just s.o.l.
darc Posted February 28, 2007 Posted February 28, 2007 If you grab the signals after Line6's buffering circuitry where the signals are going to the AtoD's all you need is isolation resistors to make them compatible with the Roland gear. The signals have a +2.5VDC offset that normal GK ouptuts don't have but the Roland gear has caps on the inputs that handle that. Interesting. By isolation resistor, do you literally mean resistor (and if so, what value) or do you mean a diode? I'll take a look at the Variax tonight (just scored a new donor V300 for $149!!!) I'm actually aiming to couple this with the MIDIAxe electronics in one of my MIDIFly's, so it's not exactly apples to apples. Also, there's no replacing the MIDIAxe parts if I fry them, so I've got to be very, very careful. (In fact, step 1 is the hardest: deciding whether it's really worth it.) I haven't made mention of this over at ION because I don't have any idea if any of the non Roland gear also has the appropriate caps on the inputs. It would also be nice to be the first one to get this working on a transplant. :-) I can appreciate that and will definitely not spill the beans. But please keep me posted on your progress! My original plan was to put the L.R. Baggs piezos into modified R-trem saddles but I may try getting a set of pre made saddles from graphtech. My R-trem saddles all have the round insert so they can't just be milled for the peizo's like the older ones can. I emailed Lea at graphtech about this but havent heard back yet. I'm not sure how that will work out since he had asked me last year some time if I wanted to be a beta tester for their upcoming piezo floyd saddles. At some point that seemed like it had fizzled away only to see one of the prototypes pop up on Jeff Millers site. When I emailed him about buying saddles Lea acted like he had never correspeonded with me before. It wouldn't have botherd me so much if he hadn't been the one that asked me if I wanted to be a beta tester. LOL that sounds par for the course. Oh well at least that prototype wound up in good hands, I guess - Jeff's guitars are amazing. Your Parker experiments defintely inspired me. Thanks, man. I should say again that Nathan Shane from ION helped me out with that quite a lot.
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