P90 & Piezo Wiring

[ToneMonkey]

Alright gents.  Had a few days to sort a couple of axes out and I've now (finally) finished the wifes uncles guitar which needed a complete rewire.  Also, under all the gunk, there was a very nice guitar.

Just finished having a look at my mates and the switch is shagged, so putting a new one on order.  Once this is in all I need to do is string them and set them up.

However, while I have the evening to myself, I was thinking of wiring my cigar box guitar (which should be SCG as it's made out of a suitcase).  The guitar currently has a P90 sitting in it and I've glues a piezo to the underside of the lid.  Ideally I would like a volume for the P90 and volume for the pickup and nothing else.  Would I just wire the P90 and piezo to spearate pots and then wire them both to the jack socket?  If so what size pots would you recommend for the pups?

Cheers dudes.

[WezV]

 you will need a pre-amp to match the impedance of the piezo and P-90

check these out:
http://liutaiomottola.com/PrevPubs/Piezo/CoaxTransducer.htm
http://scotthelmke.com/Mint-box-buffer.html
http://www.diyguitarist.com/Guitars/PiezoBuffer.htm

you can build a simple pre-amp into the instrument somewhere and then have the output from that going to a volume control for the piezo... but go for a stereo jack so you can turn the pre-amp on and off with it

[ToneMonkey]

Good man, cheers Wez.  Thought that might be the case.

Think I'll just wire up the P90 for the time being.  The house is turning back into The Chelsea Hotel next month and I want to get it sorted for when the rockstars move in.  There were quite a few people who wanted to play the last CBG live so who knows, this one might even see the stage.

[WezV]

wire it up anyway as it is - worst case is its incredibly bad sounding ... but  you will get a sound out of it

[ToneMonkey]

They're supposed to sound bad  :lol:

Got to wait for the switch to arrive before I break out the soldering iron again (by then wife and kiddywink will be back), but hopefully I'll get chance to do it soon.  I'll let you know how bad it sounds.

Just need to sort out a bridge really.  I've actually agreed to going to car boots on a sunday morning to look out for something.  Tried a bullet of a spitfire (browning 50mm I think) but that just doesn't look right, so back to the drawing board  :(

[ToneMonkey]

Decided to just wire up the P90 as I was running short of time.  It's nearly all done now all I need is a little bit of leather to cover the headstock and for a bit of trim (there's a nice cushion upstairs which i might try to cut up). 

Might resand the neck as well as it could be a little sweeter and then it's just the bridge to sort out.  Trying to resist sticking some strings on it to see what it looks like.