Piezoelectric bridge-type pickup for a stringed musical instrument
AssigneeKaman Music Corporation
InventorWilliam Hudak
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A bridge type piezoelectric pickup for guitars and other stringed instruments that has a flexible circuit board carrying a pair of transversely polarized piezoelectric crystals for each string, the two crystals of each string being closely spaced from one another along the length of the string and supporting a common saddle resting on both of the crystals and supportingly engaging the associated string.
Claims28
A piezoelectric bridge-type pickup for a stringed musical instrument having a top surface and a plurality of generally parallel strings spaced from one another and extending over said top surface, said pickup comprising:
- a plurality of sets of two discrete piezoelectric crystals, the number of said sets being equal to the number of said strings and each of the sets being intended to be associated with a respective one of the strings, each set being adapted to be located between said top surface of the instrument and the associated string with the two discrete piezoelectric crystals of the set at different closely spaced positions along the length of the string, and
- a plurality of discrete saddles equal in number to the number of said strings and each of which saddles is intended to be associated with a respective one of the strings, each saddle being adapted to be located between the string associated with the saddle and the set of two discrete piezoelectric crystals associated with the same string so that said associated string presses down on said saddle and said saddle in turn presses down on both of said two piezoelectric crystals.
A piezoelectric bridge-type pickup for a stringed musical instrument having a top surface and a stretched string extending over said top surface, said pickup comprising:
- a piezoelectric crystal adapted to be located between said top surface of the instrument and the string,
- a saddle adapted to be located between said piezoelectric crystal and said string so that said string presses down on said saddle and said saddle in turn presses down on the piezoelectric crystal,
- a circuit board adapted to be located between said piezoelectric crystal and said top surface of a stringed musical instrument and carrying said piezoelectric crystal, and
- a first electronic circuit carried by said circuit board and connected with said piezoelectric crystal, said active electronic circuit having a high impedance input terminal for an input electrical signal produced at least in part by said piezoelectric crystal and having a low impedance output terminal at which appears an output electrical signal related to said input electrical signal.
A piezoelectric bridge-type pickup for a stringed musical instrument having a top surface and a string extending over said top surface, said pickup comprising:
- a circuit board adapted to be located between said top surface and said string,
- a piezoelectric crystal on said circuit board, and
- a saddle adapted to be located between said crystal and said string so that said string presses down on said saddle and said saddle in turn presses down on said crystal,
- said circuit board having two terminal pads for said crystal,
- said crystal being a transversely polarized one having two signal faces extending vertically of said circuit board and soldered respectively to said two terminal pads of the circuit board.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.