Sustainer Ideas

[onelastgoodbye]

I've just finished winding a second prototype, this time featuring a 6mm wide blade, I've also beefed up the coil to 4 ohms (seems from the tech notes the lm386 is happiest with 8 ohms; i'm not sure if I can build a small enough 8 ohm-er with 0.3mm wire though); 3-4 mm high since you said you had best results with flat coils.

I laminated the blade from 8 small strips of iron, with paper in between them and a lot of silicone. After testing with an ohmmeter they don't seem to be insulated from each other, so my efforts there went down the drain (blah). Next time I'll just laquer em before gluing I think.

The first prototype (thin blade) did work well to some extent. Epoxying pretty much solved the feedback issue. It still sqeals, until you move up to this certain 'spot' right where say...the 25th fret should be..and it goes dead quiet. Strangely enough it seems to be the perfect position for the driving the strings (without inducing lots of compression-distortion-feedback into the signal). If you hold it REAL close to the strings, you get quite a nice sustain going. The driver or amp isn't strong enough though, you need to pick the string, then it slowly starts getting caught by the magnetic field of the driver and gently sweeps into a controllable feedback. Works best on the g-string, the high e wouldn't budge.

Anyway I guess I have 'proven' (ahum) the principle works with a humbucker pickups, and an active one at it.

I also tamed the driver amp down with a 10 Ohm resistor between pin 1 and 8, which certainly sounds a lot better than pin1 and 8 bridged. there's still some distortion in the driver signal though, clearly audible when using the sustainer on clean patches.

I'm thinking I need more of a clean boost type amp instead of the compression the little gem gets when pushed. A higher output might also prove useful. Maybe the Ruby's the ticket.

2nd proto should be a big improvement,

Tim

P.S. I have no idea what the magnets are made of. They're bars I pulled from some junk single coils, so I'm guessing alnico or ceramic, any way to tell for sure?

P.S.S. Were do you get that pure iron powder from psw? that epoxy-thingie sounds yummie (yeah I'm an epoxy-junk...you should see my toaster )

[psw]

I'd love to see your toaster...in fact it's a cool name for your sustainer...The Toaster, It Cooks!

We'll, yes you've proved that it does work but you'll need to refine it. The fact that your laminated blades are in electrical contact does not really matter. The idea is that, like in a transformer, a laminated core is more efficient. With what we're dealing with, I shouldn't be too concerned. I only suggest it because you may have access to thinner material and it might be easier for people to cut. The real concern would be if there is any short from the core (blade) to the coil...that's bad.

It's not important what the magnet is made of...if it's the type thats glued to the bottom of a cheap single coil, it'll be ceramic...it's just important that the poles point up through the core not through the side of it.

It sounds like 0.3mm will be a bit thick for the kind of compact coils I've proposed. I tried 0.125 but it didn't work as well. It's got a higher resistance (thinner=more resistance) so there are less winds. The number of winds and core type etc effect the resonant frequency of the coil which detirmines where you get most efficiency. (perhaps around the G of the g string). Hence all my efforts of creating purpose drivers for each string...but let's not go there for a while!.

Pure iron powder is often used to demonstrate magnetic fields in schools. There are Magnet Shops that sell vials of the stuff...maybe educational toy or game supplies. It's not cheap though and I'm not necessary sure of it's benefits. I did make some veryefficient drivers that were compltely encased in a coating of the stuff and it was used in the making of my later model hex drivers as a kind of external core over the driver elements.

Anyway must run, but it looks like your getting there Tim, keep at it!

psw

[psw]

Well, you can tell I'm home again from the increase in posts....

Here's something that I've referred to but not shown before (file transfers to jpgs's etc are really difficult) but I did some quick and dirty flux density models of the drivers I've got running at the moment on the FEMM program.

Basically these models make the invisible fields visible. The blue square is Air, the cores are steel and the squares on either side of the core are non-magnetic copper coil. The closer the lines of flux the stronger the field is in these areas, really black areas then mean a high density of flux lines. If I were to enlarge the pics you'd see more of the color. Blue is neutral and the "hotter the color (yellows and reds) also the more magnetic field strength. Of course they are 2d looking side on to the

So lets look at some:

This one is a blade driver with a large ceramic magnet. You can see it creates a wide and diverse field splaying out in all directions and it's particularly "hot" in the steel core but the fields straying out everywhere.

Now this one is using my little neodymium - Rare Earth Magnets under the blade. You can see the blade is "black" with flux density and the power of that large ceramic in the previous model is condensed in a small size and the field is radically different, much less diverse and focused (not necessarily better mind you as it seemed to work best with the ceramic!)

Now here is the same driver except that the lower pole is connected to a thin steel U-shaped channel that goes up the side of the coil. This makes the field very directional but the bulk of the field is now contained within the coil. This helps keep down interferance with other pickups for instance but also contains the field from working on the string.

In practice there seemed very little difference between the performance of the last two and the ceramic works even better. My theory is that the more diverse field works over a larger area of the string. Perhaps a wider blade then but with a more contained field would be optimum.

What these models don't show is the influence of nearby magnets such as the neck pickup on the shape and performance on the field. (Or in the case of my bridge mounted driver designs the influence of a sizable chunk of magnetic steel in the bridge itself that influences the field).

Also, it doesn't show the driver in operation. Usually I crudely model it by making the core material a hypothetical ceramic magnet whose poles change with the signal created by the coils electro-magnetic actions. This causes the field to lessen or strengthen and can be modeled by reversing the now "magnetic" cores polarity.

Of course all this directly relates to pickup design and magnetic field design but it's a fun learning tool if you've a mind to check it out (the software is free and there are user groups). Steven Kirsting from SKG guitars has some models of actual pickups on his website...I know I've provided links before so you'll just have to look for yourselves.

By the way, this took some doing to get up so hope it's of interest. Perhaps Tim, you could extrapolate the effect of the deep blade I was questioning you on your first driver. Similarly, imagine a driver where the neo-mags were inside the core, that hot spot would be really close to the strings and the whole thing only a few mm thick!

Anyway, enough for now

psw

[onelastgoodbye]

a wide blade is definately the way to go..I'm getting pretty impressive results with proto nr.2. The driver output actually needs to be turned back now, otherwise it's feedback galore. The driver also needs to be in this EXACT +/- 25th fret position to work properly and avoid feedback. It's easy to drive individual strings, and you can jump from string to string given proper string dampening technique; chords are a problem tho. Lots of phasing(?) issues here.

I'm not sure if it's the strings or the driver feedbacking. The driver is epoxied pretty tightly, but I guess I can do better.

Then there's the phasing. It seems like some strings are easier driven wihen the driver is flipped (rotated 180 degrees). Also, there's these situations where everything below the 12th fret sustains fine, but the notes above are just dead; sort of like the driver is inducing a negative signal and cancelling it out or something... Ill do some proper testing tomorow, might try to clean the driver amp up a bit too.

Working on those FEMM diagrams as well..

ears ringing,

Tim

[psw]

Sounds like your getting as hooked as I have been.

You may have to make a third prototype with the thinner wire. What you may be getting is a distinct resonant frequency from the coil construction. You realize of course that rotating the coil is the same as reversing the phase (transposing the wires), as is flipping the magnet over. That should bring out the harmonic (or the fundumental, depending). Basically, what you get is a suppression of the fundumental frequency and a drive of it's harmonics.

Holding the driver over the string is a valid test, and I'm sure you've found it has to be real close to the strings so a low action is required to get an even response, but there are some differences when it's placed under the string...mainly improvements in performance.

Also don't underestimate the influence of the neck pickups magnetic field on the working's on the driver. My later hex driver experiments as you'll recall used the pickups own magnetic field directly, even to the point of being built onto the pickup poles, without any pickups of it's own.

It certainly looks like you're making headway and I think I might try the broad blade idea myself. My next step thopugh, is to make a driver with the neo-mags within the core of the driver. That will put that intense hot spot directly under the string and take of 2-3mm in the driver height. The potential then, based on my blade coil is something between 3-4mm thick in total. With a shim under a bolt on neck guitar or cutting into the scratchplate (typically 3mm thick), there shouldn't be much required for installation of the driver itself.

As for the phasing, the early stages of the thread talked about it a lot and phasing issues feature in a lot of the electronics of the relavant patents. I still believe that by clever driver design, an adequate solution will be found. For instance your wide blade design, or my large ceramic diverse field driver, influences such a wide portion of the string that it must be able to influence the vibration of the string, as the nodes of it's vibration are in specific places for any particular note.

A note on phasing and the ebow. I believe the ebow gets away with being such a simple device is that the player can change the location of the driver manually to compensate for response. It can also draw on the magnetic energy of the pickups by being pushed over them creating a magnetic tunnel which is a very efficient system (but not practical for our sustainer purposes).

I don't think that the 25th fret location is really necessary though I get similar results. One could argue that for an open string this would be the ideal location (maximum string swing in it's fundumental mode) however it only really applies to the open strings. My experiments show that I can get just as strong a drive right up to the highest frets, as close as a cm from the driver, which itself defies the theory and lead to my bridge driving experiments. The reason it works best there, in my opinion, is it's as far away from the source pickup as it practically can.

Anyway, keep up the testing, your an inspiration

pete / psw

[psw]

Not directly related to your situation but I found  a place that might help you decide on where to position your pickup(s).  I'm still spending time trying to interpret the results, but its still interesting.

←

G'DAY SUSTAINERS....NO I'M NOT JUST TRYING TO KEEP THE THREAD ON THE FRONT PAGE...

The above post was made on another topic of mine (single pickup / multi tones) but the link that Southpa gave...CLICK ON THE WORDS "a place" IN THE ABOVE QUOTE...may have some interesting applications here so, I just wanted to keep anything of relavance to the sustainer project in one place.

Basically what it is, is a really neat applet that shows the frequency response of pickup placement. Slide the little pickup along the string and you'll see the graph change. Change the frequency and the graph changes, it will even show the effects of multiple pickups...pretty neat!

So why have I posted it here...well, if used in reverse it may aid in looking into driver placement, phasing issues and such that have been brought up. Most recently in onelastgoodbye's / Tim's recent driver experiments where some stings and notes have a better response than others.

Anyway...it looks like a fun thing to play around with so, there it is...thanks Southpa!

check you latter

psw

[psw]

Well I got to do a little playing today.

I think my thin coil design with the 3mm blade and a big ceramic magnet is just right. Now to build it into the guitar.

Mounted on the neck side of the neck pickup works for me and I'm getting a really good response now, even on the high e. The sensitivity control actually does give new expression to the sounds so you're looking at, at least an on/off switch, a harmonic switch and a sensitivity control. Another really cool effect is if you move the driver up and down (ie alternate it's power) you get this tremolo type effect.

The sensitivity control up a quarter gives a mild sustain. About a half a fairly constant sustain and full up you get those swell effects and can play without picking at all! In the normal mode on full bore the note quickly goes up an octave as well. In the harmonic mode the note is a little less predictable coming out at an octave or a fifth above.

Anyway, I got some supplies to build some more and will do a bit of a costing and pics and tips for building a duplicate model. The big magnet does mean some routing into the guitar but as we're also looking at internally mounting the circuit and battery, I'm not too fussed. The internal magnet version I'm sure will also work out fine if that's what people want to do. The coil itself is really only 3mm thick so you'll need lots of little mags to get the kind of response I'm getting with the big Mag (which by the way is cheaper anyway and easier to work with).

I'm really going to miss my neck pickup so my idea of a single pickup sustainer guitar...I don't know. One project is to make a combined neck pickup and sustainer on the one core (since I've got the driver coil down so small). Basically it would be like a stacked pickup with the top 3mm driver and the bottom half pickup.

Now you could'nt really expect them to be operational at the same time but if it worked out you could have a knew breed of sustainer pickup. My earlier experiments have shown that it is possible to drive the strings from the bridge end. Imagine then a two pickup guitar that alternates drivers with the opposing pickup when you change selection...of course you could'nt get the combined setting driving...doh! Still, just the combination of a good pickup and driver is neater than some ideas I've had!

psw

[r00key]

I wish i had the knowhow to do this stuff but this is way over my head... anyways, i'm still looking for a working sustainer for in my next guitar...

[psw]

If you ignore a lot of the last 45 pages and so....entertaining as they have been...I think you'd find it not so daunting!

Now that I've got something working really well...just need to install it and play around with it some more...I'm planning to put together some more detailed instructions...or maybe some kind of DIY type kit.

Even though my design is working fine, it would be nice if I could get the circuit size down, particularly with the preamp section. One problem with that...apart from me really struggling with opamp preamps!...is that I don't intend to be making up my own circuit boards and the like...

A page back I posted this:

So don't get freaked out with the electronics and perhaps even scour about the electronics shops for something with the LM386 at the heart of it. I found something in Australia and a preamp kit that works for me. As I recall I found something from a place called Hobbytron, I'll just see if I can get some links for this...

pre-amp / LM380 Hobbytron Kit

More than enough power from this baby but I don't know what power consumption is going to be like. I'd give it a go but this Canadian Company won't export except to the USA!!!!!!!!!!

A-ha...this is more what I was looking for (perhaps someone with better eyesight can confirm if that is in fact a LM386 chip on there).

CANAKITS PRE-AMP/AMP KIT

This has got some kind of buffer/pre-amp and a power amp stage. If they've limited the gain with a resistor, replace it with a wire link or 10uF cap (if it's not already there) for max gain and all your electronics is there. If one of you kind fellows over there can work out a way to get me one (I'll pay...htere's some other stuff they have including a delay that looks interesting) I'd be really interested in hearing from you. If it's suitable it may help get the DIY sustainer down to a fine little gadget without having to fret about all that electronics crap. At $US10.50 you're getting the whole thing with the printed circuit board. Possibly there may be some simple substitution of a resistor here and there to get a better performance for our purposes, a better pot than the little trimmer that they've got and you don't need the socket if you hard wire it but I dare say it looks like just the ticket (why they won't sell it to me down here in Oz and I imagine elsewhere also, I've got no idea!?).

Of course I've been using something similar down here for my later projects with very minor changes and additional switches and control pot.

Anyway r00key, if your not up to it I believe Sustainiac is probably your best bet as they have good service and a good product.

If you want to go the DIY way, and especially if you've got what it takes to put together a guitar (for goodness sake) then don't be put off by this. I'm hoping that a few of these things will be made and working...maybe some sounds when you've got that happening...and it will be clearer from other's experiences how to get it to work for you.

I think the installation, deciding where to put the controls and getting the sustainer pickup in there is harder than making the device...well for myself at the moment!

Anyway, other plans afoot...and still some recovery to go...had a few setbacks...but I should really get the sustainer installed I guess.

psw

[Robert_the_damned]

**got to page 10 of this topic then skiped to the end**

I've been intrested by sustainers as a band I quite like (Type O Negative) uses the sustainer sound a lot (there guitarist curses the day he got some fernades sustainers....he can't play without them now!! ).

I was thinking if it were possible to do a 'all in one' block sustainer using one of the 'double humbucker' pickups that are available?

using the first coil as a detector for the sustainer and amplifying this signal with a simple op-amp circuit then use the other coil of this humbucker to drive the strings then use the remaining humbucker for sound pickup? or would this have the problems of the EM interferance that have been occuring with the other designs?

[psw]

Well Damn Rob...you got to page 10!!!!!!!!...well done...however you should try reading it backwards...there were some crazy ideas floating around...still could be!

So...are you thinking a normal humbucker? In which case you could have one bobbin wound to be a driver and the other to be a single coil. Or you could put a single coil humbucker next to it...that's what Sustainiac suggest or use the driver as an active pickup (the sustainiac is intrinsically humbucking) which is in their Stealth Plus model.

But NO...I don't believe at this time you could get the sound from a pickup right next to a driver.

Explanation of differences between Pickup's and Driver's coming up!

Basically a pickup senses changes in it's magnetic field. When the metal strings move in the pickup's magnetic field it creates a voltage in a very sensitive coil made of very fine insulated wire of 1000's of turns around a magnetised core.

Right ... so a driver is similar but in reverse. A coil creates an electro magnetic effect by a voltage signal applied to it which changes the magnetic field of the core and thus creates a vibration in the field that vibrates the string. As you are now applying a voltage to the coil though, the coil has to be suitable for the amplifier (say 4-8 ohm over a pickups 5000+ohms) and have sufficient ability in the wire to take the current you're now applying. Therefore...no you can't just use a pickup connected to an amplifier to achieve the effect. (you'll probably end up with a burn't out pickup coil).

With me so far ? .... good ...so if the signal source (the pickup sensing the string) is too close to the driving source (the driver) what happens is that the pickup now senses the far more powerful fluctuations created by the drivers electromagnetic field than it does the strings causing severe oscillation (out of control squeeling).

Now if you have a two pickup guitar**...typically the signal is taken from the bridge pickup and fed into a neck mounted driver. This will hopefully provide sufficient distance between the two. The neck pickup however, whilst the sustainer is in use must be de-activated for the same reason as above...the pickup will sense the driving signal over the strings.

So I hope that helps a little...happy to try again if it's too confusing...

Now there's an interesting thing with that last point for you guys who have been following the thread for a while. Ignore this if it confuses you more...

In the above senario**, there is sufficient distance between the driver (neck) and the source (bridge) and the signal that the neck pickup is sensing is that of the driver which itself is the sound of the bridge pickup string signal...now I'm getting confused...anyway, What I found with my last series of hex driver experiments was that you can get an extremely loud boosted signal from the pickup next to or incorporated into the driver...as long as there is sufficient distance from the source signal pickup. Potentially, it creates an extremely efficient system as it combines the driver and the pickup to make a transformer and it would seem the amount of power required to run it is reduced and the signal out greatly increased.

I fear that to exploit this though would take quite a bit of development and a whole new set of rules about pickups/drivers...I've decided that a braver man than I can follow this course.

Meanwhile...I've got a driver that works that is smaller than half a humbucker and that's ...almost...enough for me. I would like to combine the neck pickup and driver into one at some point.

If I get back into pickup wiring and design soon...this will be high on the list of things to develop!

psw

[Robert_the_damned]

I know I should have read more but it was late at night!

I was thinking of using one of the 'quad rail' dual humbuckers. so you have a sensor, a driver and a hum canceling pickup all in one unit. would the hum cancelling not efffect the EM output of the driver?

but as you've said that'd probably mean re-winding one of the coils to make a driver (I've thought aboue making some pickups anyway so why not start now!)

I guess this would still have the oscilation problem of the driver and sensor being to close. I'm sure they's an electronic way arround that (some modification of a 90 degree phaser to make a 180 degree unit that would cancel the oscilation?) but that'd just make things more and more complicated.

I had a thought about the problems with single notes and chords: as long as you were playing something that wasn't dischordant shouldn't all the notes frequencies be harmonics (I know that's the wrong term but I can't rememeber the right word)?

guess I'll have to go back to the drawingboard!

[Robert_the_damned]

I had an idea today (never a good thing) for using a 180 phase shift to cancel the emitter pluses out of the detectors signal. ie. putting the signal going to the emitter through the 180 shift and then adding this into the detectors signal.

I thought I'd cracked it.

then I realised this will more than likely remove the string vibrations from the signal as well!! though there is at least some degree of phase differance (pun intended) between the strings vibrations and the pulses of the emitter. I did work it out but I think I screwed up somewhere and I'll re-do it when I can find the sheet of paper I had!

a second idea that was suggested to me was that the emitter pulses could be digital. A four or five level digital system wouldn't be to hard to make (a few voltage dividers and transistors) and the these pluses would be easier to filter out of the detectors signal (just some NOT gates with ground shunts so they have the correct output to take out the correct voltage level)

any comments on these ideas?

[psw]

Well Robert...yes and yet NO!

I know what you mean and to an extent it is true. What you mean is that if the "chord" relates to an underlying harmonic series of the notes being played they should still sustain right! Well in practice it's true...an octave will sustain and a unison (like an open string) will go crazy...a fifth (say a power chord) some hope but once you get to thirds and such (the defining maj/min notes of chords) your introuble...if not the least because the guitar...like most western instruments is inheriently out of tune....!

But wait...there's a more technical answer. Each note has it's own harmonic series. These additional notes may in no way really relate at all to another and it's harmonic series.

The thing is this...your taking a mono source from the strings and running it through a mono output and expecting six different vibrating elements (strings) to decipher which, of these combined frequencies, to resonate to! It's really not going to happen enormously effectively. In addition you have other resonances in the system...the wood of the guitar, the pickup and driver coils, even the circuitry has resonant frequencies and stray noise as well.

The solution my friend ,was explored up until a few months ago, ad infinitum with the infamous hex driver concept...to some success...but not enough.

The Hex system took a signal from the pickup and drove it through six miniture drivers. But, although you could optimise each of these drivers for the frequencies of a given string...it still only goes part way there. What you really need is a hex pickup as well! Now I tried making undersaddle piezos and such....but then you need six amps, pre-amps, filters and enough power to run them all. And...each pickup and driver has to be no wider than 10mm to fit between the strings and... far enough apart to stop the EMI...! To be fair...I was able to approach this with my miniture hex drivers...but for now...and the forseeable...I give up. Effectively this would be six Ebows which sounds fine...unless you also want to bend strings...doh!

SO...to save you getting a headache reading all this thread (though there are some fantastic concept drawings in the (mid 30 pages)...I've cut my losses and have presented details of how to make a similar if not improved sustainer of the conventional sort. If your thinking of doing some pickup winding, this is much easier as you don't need to have any machines or anything. I have machines but can wind the thing easier and quicker by hand than it takes to set up the winder.

I'm not familiar with the quad rail but I assume it's two single coil sized humbuckers. No you can't run them that close.

What I'm suggesting is that you make a driver that will take it's signal from the bridge pickup directly and also only work with that pickup. I would make some variation on my small design and fit it as far away from the bridge pickup as is possible on your guitar. I've got my design down to a coil thats only 3mm thick plus magnet. With a little more work, I'm sure I could get that down to maybe 5mm all up. This would make it small enough to fit on my Les Paul on the bridge side of the neck pickup. But you still got to find a place for a knob and two switches, a 9 volt battery that's accessable and a reasonable sized circuit.

On my test strat there really isn't a problem...the driver can go up by the neck and the pickguard can cover a whole lot of sins. Take out a spring and there's room in the back for the battery. While all this seems a lot it's exactly what's required with the Sustainiac system and the Fernandes system takes too batteries. Their drivers are considerably larger too.

The phase thing by the way is also no answer...if the signal is not in phase with the physical vibration of the string it may even be trying to stop the vibration. If you get up close to a pickup (believe me I tried it) you can actually silence the guitar completely by cancelling out the pickups input frequencies!

One use for the phase thing though is the harmonic switch. Basically, this reverses the phase of the driver (or pickup) which tries to stop the fundumental of the note from vibrating. What vibrates are the notes higher order harmonics...typically the octave, fifth fourth and sometimes third...of the note...everything but the note played. Very cool effect.

There are also phase differences that occur between the physical vibration of the string and the response of the driver and pickups (as well as the wood...). This is why, amp feedback is controllable by moving around in a room. At a certain point the phase will be perfect and out will pop infinite sustain...and quite possibly your eardrum! It's also easier with distortion as this compresses and brings out those harmonics that resonate with the strings more.

For me the real beauty of the sound of the sustainer is that it provides really controllable clean feedback sustain. This is virtually impossible to achieve without such devices (ebow, etc) and is a really beautiful and powerful sound. There are lots of other neat techniques that arise from it too and a lot more to be discovered I'm sure.

Anyway...enough from me...go back a few pages and check out the pics of my latest driver's and what you need to get them to go...and see if it's for you!

pete

[Robert_the_damned]

thanks Pete

I don't think I explained my phase idea properly but nevermind! I'm just sure there's got to be a way of getting everying into one pickup

oh and here's a pickture of a quad rail type:

they're 8 conductor wired plus screens

I see what you mean about the whole idea of the mono input -output and the six differant strings....I'd be more than likely to be only using this on solos rather than chords.

I might just stick with having huge amounts of distortion and just get by with reverb for clean......I just think there has to be a way of getting everything to work in one unit.

[psw]

Well I know what you mean...believe me...you get this feeling...

For instance...the ebow alway's puzzled me...how could they make the device so small and still maintain the required distance between it's internal pickup and driver?

I think that the answer in that lies in the fact that an ebow only has to vibrate one string, only sensors one string and can be moved along the string to find the best string vibration to signal phase relationships.

Much as I like surf guitar...reverb is nothing like sustain. And this is not quite the same as a loud distorted guitar either. The type of sustain created with these devices is far more like that created by a violin bow or a wind instrument. Of course, even clean it sounds like Hendrix, but you don't get the squashed down sound of saturated distortion. It's far more expressive in terms of tone and dynamics. Also, techniques that traditionaly distortion enhances (like tapping and legato, sustain, harmonics, etc) are all there at any volume with any sound. And, it will attempt to play chords, it's just that one note typically wins out over the others. But often the note that blooms out of a chord is controlable with a touch of vibrato. For instance, the old hendrix chord (E7#9 - think foxy lady, purple haze, etc.) that top g on the b string tends to win out for me with a bit of a wiggle of the little finger.

Anyway...it's a bit of a commitment to actually stick one into your guitar. I've got in mind a purpose built guitar especially for it. One thing about having access to this type of sustain, it changes what you want the guitar to be like. In my days...sustain was the holy grail and the Les Paul was the King of that...it was built to sustain. Now that I can have any amount of sustain, I'm looking towards a guitar with a more percussive character with tonal detail...something more dynamically responsive. In fact, a lot more acoustic in touch (not sound).

But then maybe I've OD'd on sustain lately!

psw

[Robert_the_damned]

this 48 page long topic might be a tribute to that OD'ing

I just had a thought that if you were fixing this to a strat type guitar you could infact mount it under the pickguard and no one would know the differance! unless its a sheilded pickguard of course!

plus you could then have the neck pickup working (as long as the sustainer is off)

just some thoughts.

I think the only way I can test my idea's is to make some prototypes. and I don't have the time for it at the moment so I'll have to wait for the summer!

I already get a lot of sustain in most of my guitars anyway! (being a Les Paul player) I just want to get some of those 'infinate note' sounds that can just bring a solo to life

[psw]

Well actually...the driver needs to be really close to the strings so under the pickguard isn't an option. If you were generating that much electromagnetic energy you'd need a lot more power and the EMI would be ridiculous...also a low action is best for consistant results.

On a Les Paul you may be able to make a driver small enough to fit between the pickups up against the neck Pup, the switches and knob onto a plate attached to the pickguard, and there's plenty of room in the back for batteries and circuitry.

Yes...this is the thread that will not die, isnt it!

psw

[ansil]

just a quick thought have you thought of utilizing a seperate power source and powering it via a foot switch on the ground. but run the power through the standard guitar cable simply apply voltage and a couple of caps large enough not to fool with the audio signal. thats what i am doing with my unit right now. i have it preset at max gain, but i put a voltage control pot on the floor box,[which is a mxr style box] it has an led a control pot in and out jacks stomp switch and a wall wart. since all of my electronics are in my strat i just added the extra cap, so far i haven't gotten any ripple off of it.

[psw]

Ansil...tell me more!

LK told me that he could run power to the guitar (is that what you're talking about) to run the device through a stereo cable...I can't see how you could do that with a standard cable...but if you could that would open up a lot of possibilities.

If you mean you've got the driver's amplified signal coming through the same lead, then I don't see how that signal doesn't go to the amp as well.

If you mean a second cable to the driver....I've seen that done...but...you still have the problem of pickup selection. That's why I haven't gone into it as a remote system. If the neck pickup is selected at the same time as the neck placed driver the two are too close and you'll get uncontrolled oscillation.

What may be of interest is something that came out of the last Hex Driver Experiments where the driver is actually on top of the pickup and sharing the same magnetic field. Here the pickup and the driver act like a transformer to provide massive gain to the signal. There are still problems with it, and I'm not sure of it's potential.

My latest work on this I posted in the Homemade ebow thread...

"Anyway, I'll leave you to ponder these thoughts...with a plug for the sustainer thread. I have made a driver that works pretty damn well (a few of them recently, so it's no fluke!), but the next one will actually be a part of the neck pickup. I've found a single coil pickup that can be fitted with a blade (an unusual bobbin design as it originally had poles!) and I'll be mounting the driver on top of this.

Hopefully what will be achieved is a normally functioning passive neck pickup (for use without the sustainer) and the sustainer all in one package. The thing will look identical (except for the blade) to a normal single coil. I may even set the thing in black epoxy for an EMG kind of look."

Nice to hear from you again and that your still cooking with this project

pete

[onelastgoodbye]

Some pics...

prototypes 1,2 and 3

close up of 2nd one notice the wide laminated core

Little Gem PTP wired!

The first prototype has a narrow blade and didn't perform too wel, the second has a wide laminated iron blade, 4 ohm coil, and worked better than expected but is pretty big. The third one (4 ohms) is a bit less powerful than the 2nd, but it's only 5 mm high, because I've wound the coil directly round the ceramic magnet(It's a lot less work too,so I'll stick with this one). I used some scrap plastic for the bobbins, and potted the coil with PVA glue while winding. I can drive all 6 strings in fundamental mode and more or less in harmonic mode; save some dead frets, but that's probably my shitty fretjob. The high e needs to be really close though. Low e (which is actually d) and a act a bit weird, as if they can't decide between fundamental and harmonic mode.

i'm gonna build one using 0.2 mm wire and beef it up to 8 ohms, then I'm gonna start fiddling with the amp circuit. It really needs more clean volume, so the ruby circuit will most likely perform better. The ebow circuit looks interesting too.

So peeps, start winding and experimenting, it's pretty easy really (to get started, but then it doesn't stop )

Tim

[psw]

A-ha...now I see...

Yeah go with the smaller wire and you'll find it easier to get a tight compact coil.

What are you using for bobbin material there. I used really thin plastic which helped keep the mm's down.

If you go back to the last post on the previous page, you'll see I''m about to build a combination neck pickup/driver. I found the perfect crappy pickup to convert...my three mm steel blade will fit perfectly...just need to cut to length...and wind the driver coil onto the top of the blade.

I've got some powerful new neo-mags...in case I want/need more power (as the magnet will be further away. Should give more output to the pickup too....

Standby

pete

[Bonfire]

Where can I buy these magnetics by internet?

This summer I'm going to try to do one but first I need the magnetics.

[ansil]

well its quite simple as long as you are not running your sustainers power supply in the audio.

look at it this way.

if you treat the guitar cable as a dc connecter adn an audio connector. it has two wires and it shares a ground. thats how the stereo cable works. but what you do is simply run the audio cable straight into the sustainer power supply in.. and then think tube amp. and decouple it to the guitar jack. let me draw something.

the only real problem with this is an extra converter box to have the dc signal accept a guitar jack and then get converted to a small dc plug. when you stomp the switch it sends battery or wall wart regulated dc down the guitar cord to the guitar and the sustainor simultaniously so thats where the blocking cap comes in to block out the dc. i use a 1mfd film on both ends. as it lets my guitar sound come trhough decentlywhen you bypsass the box on the floor it cuts off the led.. not shown. and it bypasses the dc supply so your unit you are powering is effectively off. this is a great way to power emg's or active pickups. you can also do another trick and add xlr input and make it accept phantom power and use a 9v regulator that can handle it. probally need a voltage divider there but again thats a neat trick if you dont' need to source alot of current. most of my gear i build delivers around an amp for phantom power. but thats straight out max.

[psw]

Wow Ansil...so what you're saying is that with this box you can send phantom power to the guitar through a standard lead. Excuse my electronics knowledge...it's full of holes. Sot these caps block the DC signal but allow the AC guitar signal to be sent through to the amp...is that the idea?

I'll need to study it a little further to get the gist.

So, other applications could include powering any active electronics within the guitar...EMG's, effects, LED's, etc...not just a sustainer. I can just see with the price of digital modelling getting cheaper, that you could have something like your amp and effects sims right on board...if that were your thing.

I may have to ask you for more details when I get a chance to try this out as it may open yet a few more doors....hmmmm

Bonfire...I almost missed your little post. Where can you buy magnets...or are you talking winding wire and everything. I'm in Australia so I just shop around. You can often find winding wire and magnets at places like radio shack. Even craft shops sometimes have suitable ceramic magnets for making things to stick to your fridge. You can use a few if you cant find one big one...some of the other guy's here may be able to offer some more suggestions. There are magnet shops on the internet. I even found some suitable mags at a local hardware shop once!

Great stuff Ansil...my next post will I hope give people a better idea of what I'm up to for all those sustainoholics...plenty of pics!

psw