Fitting Graph Tech Ghost System and Acousti-Phonic Kit to strat style guitar

[ChrisJordan]

Due to a very un-guitar related Christmas and stuff, I've decided to upgrage/mod my Melancon super-strat with a nifty set of piezo pickups so I can get those lovely acoustic type sounds out of it.

Has anyone on here performed this procedure or have any general words of advice?

[WezV]

its pretty straight forward as long as you are not going for the hexophonic options. biggest worry is always where to put the battery on strats

i personally like the clapton strat solution as it keeps the instrument looking a lot more stock once the back plate is on




other than that the graphtech stuff is pretty easy to work with

[John_P]

+1 the parts pretty just clip together.
The only thing I've had to think about is running the cables from the saddles through to the control cavity - I'm sure there's a neater way than I've managed when fitting these.

[ChrisJordan]

Well that has certainly answered the battery related question that was in the back of my head.

Did you have to do any extra "woodwork" to feed cables through?

[RolandG]

The Acoustiphone offers you the opportunity of mixing the piezo and magnetic signals, or running them separately to a stereo jack socket. It also autosenses whether there is a mono or stereo jack plug in the socket, and mixes the signals if it is a mono plug. If t'were me I'd fit a stereo socket so that you have the option of separating the signals.

[WezV]

I think the kit comes with a stereo jack socket :?

as for extra woodwork, strats are pretty much sorted anyway - you just need a way to get those wires under the edge of the scratch plate, then it can follow the normal pickup wires. the circuit board and wiring fits a strat cavity reasonably well, think there are diagrams in the manual


If its a rear routed strat style with pickup rings you may need to enlarge the hole from bridge pickup to control cavity, but not by too much

[mart]

I think the kit comes with a stereo jack socket :?

Isn't that so the battery gets disconnected when there's no lead plugged in? Or is there some other trick for avoiding battery drain?

[WezV]

yes and no - it comes with a stereo switched jack socket with 4 contacts so it does on/off and mono/stereo

[ICBM]

You may not want to read this, but what I would do is buy a good acoustic simulator pedal.

No modification to the guitar, you can upgrade as necessary as technology improves without having to do anything else to the guitar, you can use it with all your guitars, and you have none of the reliability problems of piezo bridge saddles and onboard electronics (which are not that rare). I don't think they sound any less acoustic, either - piezos on a solidbody, especially one with a trem, don't sound like an acoustic... they sound like an electric guitar with a piezo pickup. The only exceptions I can think of are ones with proper wooden acoustic guitar bridges, and possibly some of the more recent semi-hollow electrics.

This is just my opinion though, and I admit that as a repairer some of the most annoying and frustrating jobs are onboard active systems (both on electric guitars and normal electro-acoustics), so possibly that makes me less willing to give them a chance. But I really don't like the sound of piezos either. I don't think magnetics sound any less 'acoustic', they both sound wrong but in different ways.

[RolandG]

Personally I'd fit it, and then consider an acoustic simulator as well. The reason is that, and it's a personal opinion, a piezo gives more acoustic-like dynamics than a magnetic pickup. If you don't use a simulator then you can blend some magnetic signal, particularly neck single coil, into the piezo signal.