Piezo Films

For those who want to wire up their own contact pickups, we offer these piezo films come in three sizes:

3/8" x 1"
1/2" x 2-1/2"
3/4" x 6"

The two larger sizes (2-1/2" and 6") come with 12" wires attached, and you can easily solder your lead wires to these wires (full instructions are included).

The small size (1") doesn't have the wires; instead it has a pair of small metal terminals. You can solder to these, but this requires great care to avoid overheating; alternatively you can attach to them using conductive epoxy (again, instructions included).

Piezo-electric film has several advantages over traditional rigid contact pickups: It shows an extraordinarily broad and flat frequency response; it is free of self-resonance; it mounts readily on all sorts of surfaces whether flat or curved without inhibiting vibration; it can extend over a larger portion of the vibrating body to give a more balanced response; and it is sensitive enough to capture some of the air resonance tone when mounted inside the soundboard of instruments with air chambers. The actual pieazo film is coated with a thin layer of tough, flexible polymer, so it makes for pickups that are lightweight yet durable. It can work on any instrument with a solid vibrating surface, such as string instruments with soundboards, drum heads, marimba bars, etc.

How to choose which size? You might be surprised at how well the small piezo tabs (5/8" x 1") can work, but larger films will usually produce a more balanced response. Some customers like to use the largest film that there's room for on the vibrating surface they intend to apply it to. However, in some cases you might prefer the sound of the 2.5 inch films even when there's room for the 6 inch, because you can expect the 2.5 inchers to have a slightly brighter sound than the 6 inchers. (The reasons for this have to do with the acoustics of short wavelengths over large surfaces.)

A 4-page information flyer will be included with your order with full instructions for wiring and shielding, as well as tips on using them with different instruments. Additional information sources include the following:

For more general information on different types of pickups, click here.

Piezos benefit from having a local preamplifier in cases where the cable run from the pickup will be long. For information on this question, click here.

For wiring up piezos, it's best to use a lightweight shielded cable. Such lightweight cable is hard to find at retail electronics outlets if you're not planning to get huge quantities. But you can get it from us here.

For information on hooking up multiple piezo films in a single installation, see this blog post

If you're not into doing your own soldering, consider the ready-to-use piezo film pickups we sell called SDT1. We also sell piezo material in cable form.

Quantity discounts are available for these items. Click here to see the quantity pricing schedule. We're unable to process quantity pricing online for these films, so to order or get more info, please call or (email.