In particular, blending piezo and magnetic signals, especially played through an acoustic amp or with an acoustic modeling pedal, can give some really cool sounds.
Now.if you are already familiar with electric guitars, you will probably find the expanded tonal options of the piezo pickup and active electronics fun to play with. I think for a first electric, you just stick with regular passive electronics and magnetic pickups. If it's your first electric guitar, all of these things add up to a rather confusing, dizzying array of tonal options. Not the same, just closer to that sound than what you get with magnetic pickups.Īctive electronics refers to the presence of a powered preamp within the _guitar_ which allows you to boost the signal output of a magnetic pickup, and to actively change the eq profile of the tone, by either boosting or cutting high or low frequencies.Ī Carvin guitar with piezo and active electronics has BOTH magnetic pickups and the piezo pickup, AND the capability to engage the active circuit and change the eq of the tone. The tonal quality in the output is different between the two piezo pickup output sounds closer to what an acoustic guitar sounds like unplugged. This kind of pickup generates a signal based on physical vibration, whereas a regular electric guitar pickup is measuring only the change in the magnetic field induced by string vibration. Piezo pickups on a solid body electric guitar give you a pickup which is embedded in the saddle of the bridge. If this is your first electric guitar, I'd recommend you not get these options.