I got an Artec SE-2A to replace the preamp/eq in a Hadean solid body uke that had a wonky preamp. Seemed like a simple enough install but this stuff is obviously not my forte : / Signal passes but no controls have any affect on it, and the ground buzz is the most prominent feature but I can't lessen it no matter what I do with the grounds.
What tripped me up is connecting the piezo to the Artec. It's a stacked tone pot, a volume pot and a balance pot between two pickups. Although the bass only has the one pickup I decided to abandon my original desire to skip the balance pot as it attaches to the preamp with a connector, and removing the mount from the circuit board to directly solder the piezo seemed like a worse idea in my hands. So I soldered it to the balance knob knowing if I botched it badly then removing and going directly on the preamp would be an option.
My problem: The piezo's braided wire had originally ended in a simple plug, which would insert into the stock preamp. However the SE-2A needs for the piezo to be soldered on, so I did and it's not right.
How does the braided piezo wire properly get connected? I assumed the wire goes to the pickup connection and the braid is soldered to ground. But there's tons of buzz now and not much pickup signal and unaffected by controls, which leads me to believe it's simply sending out a passive signal not going through the preamp. There's also a ground wire soldered to the back if the volume pot, which I can't figure out how to incorporate. Googling is inconclusive. Some think the wire is for the second non-piezo pickup, to forget about it, others have ideas where to attach it but none are fixing me.
Attaching the only doc Artec has on their site, which shows the solder locations for the pickup in question, but leaves out much else. (There are famously no docs sent with the preamp) Any direction here would be graciously appreciated! : )
Thanks.
What tripped me up is connecting the piezo to the Artec. It's a stacked tone pot, a volume pot and a balance pot between two pickups. Although the bass only has the one pickup I decided to abandon my original desire to skip the balance pot as it attaches to the preamp with a connector, and removing the mount from the circuit board to directly solder the piezo seemed like a worse idea in my hands. So I soldered it to the balance knob knowing if I botched it badly then removing and going directly on the preamp would be an option.
My problem: The piezo's braided wire had originally ended in a simple plug, which would insert into the stock preamp. However the SE-2A needs for the piezo to be soldered on, so I did and it's not right.
How does the braided piezo wire properly get connected? I assumed the wire goes to the pickup connection and the braid is soldered to ground. But there's tons of buzz now and not much pickup signal and unaffected by controls, which leads me to believe it's simply sending out a passive signal not going through the preamp. There's also a ground wire soldered to the back if the volume pot, which I can't figure out how to incorporate. Googling is inconclusive. Some think the wire is for the second non-piezo pickup, to forget about it, others have ideas where to attach it but none are fixing me.
Attaching the only doc Artec has on their site, which shows the solder locations for the pickup in question, but leaves out much else. (There are famously no docs sent with the preamp) Any direction here would be graciously appreciated! : )
Thanks.
Instead of soldering to the Blend pot, remove the blend hook up wire and splice your piezo cable directly to it. Plug it on to the preamp and you're done. I'd still fit the dummy blend for visuals.