If you stick them in series, then the voltages add. So 4 elements in parallel cuts the signal by 4x. The thing is, when you parallel elements, they load each other, and act as an attenuator. Although it does depend a bit on the preamp input impedance. Ok not a music person, so this might be the wrong advice (since it's a guess and not from practical experience).īut if the number of piezo elements is really large, then I would want to bank them. Hence my question of 'how many piezo pickups can I safely connect in parallel to my DIY preamplifier.' If I want to experiment with 20 pickups simultaneously, it will take me a long time to build 20 preamps AND I do not have the resources to gain access to a multichannel recording interface with that many inputs. Just looking for ideas during the Coronavirus downtime, and if anyone has done this before and had results, I'd like to start with something that's been tried before.ĮDIT to add: if I try and experiment with 2-3 preamps, I can manage that. What if I had 6 piezos, or 10? I assume I could connect them in parallel through resistors, but what is a good resistor value to use, will it change based on how many pickups I use? I assume I'd connect the piezo elements in parallel to my preamp - that's what I've seen people do when they have more than one piezo pickup in an instrument. My question is, what will happen if I want to use multiple pickups at once - say, if I wanted to electrify a piano in multiple spots, or each individual wooden bar of a xylophone - has anyone done this before? I have built this guy's preamp for piezoelectric pickups:

Piezo disc in series or paralell