Piezo pickup at the head

[jayedgar]

Hi, has anybody tried to put an piezo pickup under the nut or otherwise at the head?
Maybe it sounds like a weird question, but if you put your ear to the nut there is a lot of vibration. Could be worth investigating.

Regards

[JohnH]

the trouble might be that the strings at the nut are only vibrating if they are not fretted

[jayedgar]

You have a valid point there, I thought so myself......
But try it by putting your ear to the nut, and you will find that fretting does not affect the volume very much.

Regards

[4real]

No, but the length of string behind the fretted note to the nut (and the nut to tuner sympathetic vibrations) are rarely consonant with the note you actually want to be playing. Hence there are often benefits to dampening behind the nut vibrations and acoustically, one can get weird sounds using a 'tapping technique' that vibrates both sides of the 'tapped note' equally...again string damping behind the tapped notes can greatly improve things...(players like Jennifer Battern for instance employ string dampers)...

I've experiemented as have others with piezo's in the neck pocket of strats, the tone can be quite good (and woody), but at higher frets you will often pick up the sounds of the fretted fingers themselves...

Anything that is mounted at the 'head end' electronically (such a sustainers and the like) all suffer from the need to send wires to the headstock as well, so something to consider in any such proposal...

[jayedgar]

Thanks for your input.
Playing acoustically and mostly simple chords, it might be worth a try anyway. So I´ll order a piezo pup and try it under the nut on my experimental Guimanjo (www.aspe.se/Fars/Gitarrbygge.html).
Will report in due time.

Regards