[Adrianw]

Well.... I've got an old Yamaha FG-75 from the 70's that has just been gathering dust. I dug it out, cleaned it up, added new strings and it actually has a cool funky sound that I kind of like. I had a few parts lying around... a K&K Pure Western wired knockoff with output jack and three huge piezos I picked up on Amazon for 10 bucks along with some cheap piezo transducers, about 30 cents a piece. I swapped out the big 27mm transducers for three 15mm's, added some heat shrink and sealed the wires to the discs with a dab from a glue gun and after checking everything with a meter put 'em in.

First, these guitars have a ridiculously small and uneven bridgeplate so it took some finesse to get the transducers as close as possible to where they belong. Usually I use an old modified I-Beam jig to pop in all three transducers at once with superglue. These had to go in one at a time. While I was at it I custom made a bone saddle from a blank to replace the old plastic. Put it all together and it sounded pretty good, different than my other K&K installs but those all went in good, solid wood guitars instead of a Korean piece of plywood more suited for bar fights. Plugged in it was loud but pretty bassy. Out of curiosity I put back the original plastic saddle and that fixed it. I guess there's a lesson in that. So... for around $12 I ended up with a beater that actually sounds pretty decent plugged in with very little EQ and without a preamp. Especially good on fingerpicked blues. I wouldn't hesitate playing it out.