Piezo/ Mag hybrid problems

[Matthew Orifice]

SO the project i am working with is being flown to California in april, not wanting to bring my acoustic on a plane, i added a Piezo loaded tune-o-matic and preamp to one of my solid bodies ( i play baritone tuned GDGDGA so finding a guitar that can handle that tuning without the G sounding floppy is a trick). I followed directions ( even read them first) now the piezo volume AND the mag volume act as a volume for all the pickups... part of the goal was to get a guitar that i could swap between mag and piezo.

anyone have any idea how this could have happened?

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

Are the two signals leaving the guitar separately? If they are tied together, the magnetic volume will turn everything off, like on a two pick up Gibson guitar. If the piezo volume is after the preamp (rather than controlling the output of the preamp), the piezo volume would do the same. You could try reversing the in and out of the volume controls so it is wired like a jazz bass. This may allow you to turn one pick up off.

[Matthew Orifice]

well you just summed it up, i think i am just going to go to dual outputs

[Joshua Levin-Epstein]

good guess, I guess.

If you wanted to get slick with your outputs, you could wire them like a stereo Rickenbacker, with two jacks. One jack is stereo (and powers the preamp). When you use both outputs, it sends piezo to one jack, magnetic to the other. This means you can use mono cords, allowing the gig to go on when you left your one stereo cord on the counter.

[Matthew Orifice]

LOL fortunately i have a wife who is incredibly supportive of my musical habit, and we check list all our chords, i figured on doing a straight up 2 1/4" output, wouldn't knwo how to wire a rick style out put. i may look into what it takes to make the piezo out an xlr though