Piezo?

Take a look at this guitar.

If you don't do a thorough study of the guitar, you might just think, 'Oh, it's just another strat.' For those who are much sharper, you might have notice a toggle switch in place of a 'Tone' knob in a Fender. A kill-switch? Nope.

This is a Piezo toggle switch.

I first saw this guitar in the Swing's brochure. I was intrigued when I see that Swing Prism 250  is equipped with a Piezo and that it is an alder body. (YES~~!! Alder FTW) So I headed down to City Hall yesterday to try it out.

Piezo bridge is actually an active pickup at the bridge which has a very special role; to boost an acoustic sound. Why active? It runs on a 9v battery like all active pickups do. Piezo does its job rather well. I am amazed at the acoustic sound. While I would like the usual clean tone of pickups, Piezo does provide me with another alternative of 'clean' acoustic tone. Most of the songs I play consist of acoustic (not clean guitar) then followed by distortion. An example of such song? Take this as an example.

Alder is a wood which has very bright clean tone. This characteristic has boosted the function of Piezo even more. Of course, it still will sound different from a Martin, but if any of you want an simple acoustic guitar together with the electric, Piezo is for you. I'm not sure what pickups are in there but I think it is a Swing Heartbreaker at the bridge and the Bluesbreaker for neck and middle pickups.

Take note that while the Piezo is activated, the pickups on the guitar is not in function. So the toggle switch is a switch between the normal pickups and Piezo.

Now you don't need to switch guitars when you wish to play some rock when you are previously playing some acoustics!