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Sustainer Ideas


psw

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I'm building an homemade guitar with 3 low impendance singlecoil pickups (6.4K) and I want to wire it with 3 on/off and in/off phase switches for every pickup (as shown at http://www.brianmaycentral.net/wiring.gif).

...I've built 2 years ago a guitar (similar to kerroc intention's construction) with 4 low outout PUPs, wired this way

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r140/ra...pg?t=1168195082

How can I rewire it, inserting the sustainer, mantaining then a sustainer/pickup in the neck position?

look at the diagram that I altered for kerroc - yours is basically the same thing but with an extra pickup.

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I have been in the works developing a high end Flame/quilt korina 7 string LP guitar & have been wanting to incorporate a electro -acoustic style sustain system that has the driver built into the headstock & would appreciate any help in its development . I am shooting for a 07/07/07 completion date

kimble10@msn.com

Edited by flickoflash
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Welcome flickoflash and rambler

Thanks once more to col for his contributions.

Mikysk8

I think both col and I would agree that getting the correct wire is by far the better option. Even if it were to be practical, it would be a pain to wind and hard to pot. The 0.2mm wire is quite strong and easy to wind the hundred or so turns by hand that is required and has shown to work. Thicker and thinner guages that I tested did not work...simple as that...

It could work, and I will be thinking about if there would be any real advantages, but I suspect not and the cost would be more. Unwinding speakers and transformers is really not such a good idea. When you find the right wire you will find it pretty cheap and plenty on a small reel for a few drivers. I think I pay about A$7 for 25 metres. It is a matter of finding the supplier...you could try contacting motor rewinders to see if they can put you on to someone...otherwise, it is a mainstream electronics product. I can actually walk to a local shop here and buy the stuff...so go figure.

rambler

Yes a similar kind of situation and similar to my guitars, or any multipickup guitar. It does require a bit of switching power...4pdt seems to be typical. I may be misunderstanding your post too...are you considering adapting the neck pickup to be a driver, as on my guitar so it works as both...or...replace the neck pickup with a driver.

If you are adapting a pickup to also work as a driver, you may wish to post pictures of your pickups so that we can offer suggestions. This applies to Mikysk8 too...

flickoflash

Ahhh....now this is different and interesting. I did do a little work along these lines. For those that don't know...this is a sustainer like the Sustainiac Model C which works by vibrating the entire neck (an thus the strings) by a vibration transducer. As the driver is at the far end of the neck, the EMI coming out of it is far from the pickups and so does not cause EMI problems. The down side is that you have to have a lot of power and a transducer that can handle that power to shake the entire guitar. They can also be noisy (acoustically) and of course vibrate the instrument itself (particularly the neck) which may feel a little wierd...you will also have to have wiring coming from the neck driver to the off board amplifier to make it work...hmmm

I was attempting to do this kind of thing by trying to shake the tremolo system and mounting vibration devices into the trem cavity...with lower power like we use on our DIY model.

There are links to similar device back somewhere in the thread. Typically to make the driver, you cut the cone out of a small speaker and attach a small coin or washer to weigh the voice coil down...this helps to stop the voice coil going wild and overheating and burning out, and adds to the vibrational part of the device. You can cut away the surround of the cone support to make it smaller of course. The tricky part is to do this without cutting the voice coil wires that pass throught the paper and are usually glued in pretty well...best to leave the paper on and cut around it...

Anyway...once you have this...attach it to the neck and wire to an amplifier...send a signal from the guitars output to this and to an amplifier with some sort of splitter box that won't load down the signal...

Now I have heard of someone making their own in this fashion, but I can't vouch for how it worked. My experiments were a little different. I do not think this is an attractive option compared to a low powered onboard electromagnetic sustainer. I was not trying to vibrate the whole neck you understand, but the piviting bridge of a strat so I used small speakers...I'd think you'd need a few watts so a bigger speaker is probably in order...this will add quite a bit of wieght to the end of your guitar...

In the end, I decided that this approach had just too much going against it and didn't really work in the way I wanted it too. Certainly the Sustainiac Model C does work though, and it may be easier and cheaper to modify this to be more built in. Perhaps you could pick one up cheap on Ebay from people switching to string driveing units of something... You would have to do a fair bit of experimenting on your own to get it to work...this costs time and money to do and you do have to ask yourself is it worth it. May I ask why you wish to go with this type of device?

pete

PS What a lot of new people...I thought the thread was about to die out!!!

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rambler

...are you considering adapting the neck pickup to be a driver, as on my guitar so it works as both...or...replace the neck pickup with a driver.

If you are adapting a pickup to also work as a driver, you may wish to post pictures of your pickups so that we can offer suggestions.

My intention was to have the neck pick up that works as a pickup when I play my guitar "normally" (in series and in phase or out of phase with other Pups), and as a driver in "sustainer mode" (obviously with only the neck pickup activated).

This is a picture of my guitar http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r140/ra...pg?t=1168243436

..the pickups mounted are 4 Burns Trisonics V ( http://www.brianmayworld.com/image6.jpg )

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rambler

...are you considering adapting the neck pickup to be a driver, as on my guitar so it works as both...or...replace the neck pickup with a driver.

If you are adapting a pickup to also work as a driver, you may wish to post pictures of your pickups so that we can offer suggestions.

My intention was to have the neck pick up that works as a pickup when I play my guitar "normally" (in series and in phase or out of phase with other Pups), and as a driver in "sustainer mode" (obviously with only the neck pickup activated).

This is a picture of my guitar http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r140/ra...pg?t=1168243436

..the pickups mounted are 4 Burns Trisonics V ( http://www.brianmayworld.com/image6.jpg )

If you want the neck pickup to double as a sustainer, you will need to modify it !!

Do the covers come off those tri-sonics easily?

If they do, maybe the best bet would be to remove the cover, put the internals in a safe place, and experiment on a cheapo single coil that will fit inside the tri-sonic cover...

All this is assuming that you want to keep the Red Special look. If not, then its probably best to follow Petes instructions for modifying a single coil pickup.

Also bear in mind that the fancy AGC circuitry will possibly not work well with a single coil driver! It may not even work at all due to EMI feedback. For a single coil sized pickup/driver to be used with my AGC might be necessary to build a bilateral driver with a custom bi-lateral pickup underneath... There are just so many options that have not been tried and/or tested yet.

btw, why did you put a 4th pickup on your RS copy ?

cheers

Col

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Hmmm...interesting...

I have not been able to find out what is under that cover. I gather that it is a single coil...are those black "poles" on the cover holes or painted on? We need to know what is under the cover...can it come apart easily, or is it filled with wax for instance? I am nut sure if the cover would interfere with the workings of the sustainer...it may be that we need have some poles through the cover.

Basically...we would be seeking to add a single coil driver of about 3mm depth on top of the coil under the cover. When the cover is replaced it will not meet at the bottom, but this will be hidden under the scratch plate. There needs to be room to lower it that much and to be able to sit very close under the strings.

I would suggest if you are really keen to do this to make the fetzer/ruby circuit and a stand alone driver to start with. This can be tested by holding it above the strings. A stand alone driver would simply be an 8 ohm coil around some plain steel (3mm deep) with a magnet under it (pickup magnet is good)...you don't even need switches, just reverse the wires for the harmonic effect of flip the magnet.

This will test the device for you and your skills in making the thing before attempting to modify the pickup itself. Then, if you go ahead and modify the pickup, you'll know better what you need to do and watch out for. You will also know that your circuit is working properly and all is well. Doing this should be cheap and not risk the guitar at all.

If you or others haven't seen it yet...here is my Pictorial on making a single coil driver which should give you a very good idea of what things will need to be done to add driver to a pickup. Basically, it is just like making a stand alone driver as I am suggesting, but with the pickup underneath. You may find with your pickups that you need to add a thin blade or poles on top of the ones in there to get the extra 3mm for the coil to wrap around.

As I don't know what is inside these pickups, or the effect the cover might have on the driver, particularly how close you will be able to get it to the strings...it's a little tricky to know how well it is going to work out....hmmmm

I did look, but perhaps you could find a pic on the net of one of these Pickups taken apart before doing it to your own...

be seeing you... pete

PS...col, I am not sure that your circuit wouldn't work with a single coil driver...it should be putting out less power than mine...the dual coil things may be a lot better in many ways though, but if it works with the basic circuit, shouldn't it work at least as well with yours? Also...I have been thinkiang about the bi-lateral approach. To do this and modify a single coil pickup is going to be a major problem and cause more problems I suspect if the pickup itself were made bi-lateral and work with other conventional pickups (half of the strings could be out of phase when combined with another pickup for instance) so this is probably not an option for these types of applications... p

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The black "poles" on the cover are just 6 holes...I remove the cover pretty easily, there'a a little bit of wax below..I think that Trisonic picups use a bar magnet insead poles.

Ps The dimensions of trisonics are: Length- 3 InLength, Across Mounting Tabs- 3.65 In., Width- .93 In.

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PS...col, I am not sure that your circuit wouldn't work with a single coil driver...it should be putting out less power than mine...the dual coil things may be a lot better in many ways though, but if it works with the basic circuit, shouldn't it work at least as well with yours? Also...I have been thinkiang about the bi-lateral approach. To do this and modify a single coil pickup is going to be a major problem and cause more problems I suspect if the pickup itself were made bi-lateral and work with other conventional pickups (half of the strings could be out of phase when combined with another pickup for instance) so this is probably not an option for these types of applications... p

The potential problem with my (any) AGC circuit is that low level signals are boosted - this means that low level EMI that may not snowball into feedback with a non-AGC circuit could be amplified enough to reach the 'tipping point' and start squealing. This is my experience in practice as well.... with my LM13700 circuit I could get a low level 'controlled' squeal when not damping the strings... a bit of a boost to the gain, and there would be squeal even when damping.

The agc setup is a little more sensitive to EMI feedback (not fizz)... but it still should be possible to get a single coil driver to work assuming it is efficient and that the pickup is efficient and a reasonable distance from the driver... maybe with suitable shielding...

Really its all conjecture - we need experimental results.

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Hi Col, zfrittz6 has asked me to explain to that he intends installing his sustainer system on a new guitar, entirely from scratch, from building the coil and making the circuits to actually installing the system in the guitar; but the Ibanez RG370 he has ordered will probably not arrive before next Monday. From then on he intends to document and photograph each step in the process, which is likely to lengthen the time to complete the installation. He also explained that he is currently working two jobs, one from 8am to 3pm, and another from 5pm to 9pm, which does not leave him with much time. But he says that he is going to try and find the time to complete the project as quickly as possible, depending upon how much work he has to do.

God bless,

David

ŤŖŨŦĦ§ΣΣ₭ΣŖ

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May I ask why you wish to go with this type of device?

pete

PS What a lot of new people...I thought the thread was about to die out!!!

7stringinhanced.jpg

My 7 string Les Paul is going to feature lots of new grounds from a flame/quilt maple top to a korina body/neck with a Balsa core, extra thick Brazilian rosewood fingerboard (compound radius 9"- 14 "), compound neck from a large V to a slim C as you go up, real vintage celluloid inlays, compensated ivory nut, with a faded & aged Nitro finish ...So I am trying to keep the vintage 50's vibe but incorporate modern new aspects. The sustainiac Model C is a electro-acoustic enhancement device that puts the energy back into the guitar & lets you use your regular pickups , My thoughts is it possible to make a driver that is long & thin that can be built into the neck or headstock that can be stealth that vibrates the energy into the neck & strings & still use the Sustainiac out board pedal device to drive the driver

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... My thoughts is it possible to make a driver that is long & thin that can be built into the neck or headstock that can be stealth that vibrates the energy into the neck & strings & still use the Sustainiac out board pedal device to drive the driver

you might be inviting more problems than you need to here.

first, you'll need to get the signal TO the neck or headstock. (of course it CAN be done, but it does add complexity to the construction of the neck.)

second, the relationship between the origin of the mechanical energy and the string will change, depending on where the string is fretted, or if it is open. that will how well the system is coupled.

i THINK you will be better off, having your mechanical system return the energy near the bridge end of the string.

cheers,

unk

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... My thoughts is it possible to make a driver that is long & thin that can be built into the neck or headstock that can be stealth that vibrates the energy into the neck & strings & still use the Sustainiac out board pedal device to drive the driver

you might be inviting more problems than you need to here.

first, you'll need to get the signal TO the neck or headstock. (of course it CAN be done, but it does add complexity to the construction of the neck.)

second, the relationship between the origin of the mechanical energy and the string will change, depending on where the string is fretted, or if it is open. that will how well the system is coupled.

i THINK you will be better off, having your mechanical system return the energy near the bridge end of the string.

cheers,

unk

ACOUSTIC SUSTAINER ADVANTAGES: The acoustic type of Sustainiac Sustainer (MODEL C) produces the most natural feedback sustain. This means it is most like getting feedback from a big, loud amplifier. It puts sound energy into the guitar headstock, which then gets transferred to the strings. Feedback is very intense and instantaneous, unless you purposefully have the intensity controls turned down. Most played notes will change into a harmonic after a short time, like you get with natural amp feedback. However, the MODEL C sustain is not all fundamentals in one mode and all harmonics in another mode, like the magnetic sustainer (STEALTH & STEALTH PLUS) does. Furthermore, unlike the magnetic sustainer, all of your pickups will function normally when you use the of Sustainiac MODEL C

The acoustic transducer design vibrates the headstock of your guitar in response to the amplified played notes. You can feel it when playing. The intense neck vibration makes the strings vibrate very intensely. This makes the amplified signal stronger, and so on. Feedback builds up quickly.

You can but more energy back into the guitar thru the headstock end simply it's easier to move ( vibrate

Edited by flickoflash
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i THINK you will be better off, having your mechanical system return the energy near the bridge end of the string.
Not really...it will be harder to move and be far too close to the pickups...these are just as much electromagnetic devices as the string drivers so they can not be mounted too close to pickups...if anything, they put out more EMI.

flickoflash

... My thoughts is it possible to make a driver that is long & thin that can be built into the neck or headstock that can be stealth that vibrates the energy into the neck & strings & still use the Sustainiac out board pedal device to drive the driver

Now...it is not simply a coil of wire...it is just like a speaker...it moves a weighted voice coil thats enertia vibrates the neck. How you would make it long and thin I don't know. I did try to make such devices...basically solenoids, but with little success. I really don't think you will be able to make anything too stealthy...there is not much, if any room in a neck that isn't structural once the truss rod is considered.

There are other things to consider...there is significant phase problems makeing the response uneven across the neck and a hefty amount of power going to it. The leads for the driver signal must be kept well away from the electronics of the guitar. That means it can not be combined with the guitars lead nor go anywahere near the pickups or control cavity of the guitar. Think of the driver leads as speaker leads carrying a fair amount of current...these leads are really extentions of the coil they are connected to and so also emit EMI.

For those not familiar with the Acoustic-Sustainer concept here is a picture of the new "compact" model C driver...

xd1-1.jpgcordrout.gif

Non too stealthy I would suggest....

For more information check out this link

I hope I don't sound too negative. There are advantages to the acoustic sustainer...enough that I did quite a bit of research and experimentation into it. I tried industrial piezo vibration devices in the bridge saddles (too much string pressure), vibrating the tremolo in a strat, vibrating the body (worked to some extent)...you know if you connect a small speaker to the sustainer amp it will move back and forth at the frequency of the string (well at least try to, but it just can't react fast enough to the frequencies of high strings and notes...a good simple experiment to see what you are up against)...

Your guitar project itself sounds fantastic...(very much the kinds of things I have looked into)....and, I would think that a more conventional sustainer would be by far the better option...as it is a seven string, the DIY driver is the only way to go for this. Even if successful with the acoustic thing, you will have to do a hell of a lot of R&D into it (look at how much I have done for this project...hundreds of hours) and it will be expensive! If sustainiac could have made it more stealthy, believe me they would have too... Also, bear in mind that these things are not "silent" they make a noise as they vibrate, as they are mechanical devices and are also subject to wear and tear...so it will need to be accessable to replacement and repair.

I can see some advantages, the main one is the ability to select different pickups. The one they are really pushing is that the model C is portable from instrument to instrument. With a built in device, this advantage is gone and opens you up to future problems down the track. As for pickup selection, this would be nice, but not really necessarily all it is cracked up to be. If you consider that the device is another set of selections and opens up the guitar in so many ways (col has 4 modes, I have two....both of us can play notes well above the guitars normal range and have infinite sustain fairly evenly across the whole board, silently and very stealthy (the advantage of the DIY version, is that you could make it look exactly like a conventional pickup, and we have...

I would like to be able to select between neck and bridge pickups...hence I'd like to be able to make a device that could fit between the two pickups. I have found my sustaining device (with no AGC) to be very feedback like but also predictable and totally silent (acoustically) so ideal for recording through headphones for instance. Shawn here is a big supporter of the offboard approach, and there is some merit in it, but then you need to have a mains powered secondary amp on the floor as well as a special guitar and leads and an annoying buzz at the end of your neck to get a very similar effect...

The more conventional sustainer works directly upon the strings and does take a lot (not all) of the guitar's natural resonances out of the equation...the acoustic sustainer, like "real feedback" does not. The electromagnetic string driver is a far more realized tehnology and so success is far more likely...

Anyway...since the thin driver, I really have abandoned this type of system. I can see a possibility for a more remote system or one with less modifications required, but as you are planning a purpose build type of instrument, such considerations are mute...

I, as would others here I am sure, will help and encourage you if you do choose to experiment with this type of device, but from my experience, I would suggest that you consider it very carefully...remember, I spent a whole year on the hex driver stuff...

rambler

OK...so this is encouraging...

The black "poles" on the cover are just 6 holes...I remove the cover pretty easily, there'a a little bit of wax below..I think that Trisonic picups use a bar magnet insead poles.

In essence they are very similar to my pickups. I think you will want to make some kind of blade that can sit under those holes...maybe even protrude just above the cover through the holes (it can be painted black so it will be hardly noticable) and wind a coil exactly as I did and replace the cover. If you are clever, you could make the driver separate and glue it on in case you want to remove it later, so no harm will be done.

I take col's point about his circuitry...this will require a little more testing...but, I am very happy with mine so the simple system is still very worth while. You will need to put some consideration into how you will access the battery. I understand most "red specials" to be heavily chambered so you should have room...but you will need to replace (or possibly recharge) the battery more often than most stompbox batteries.

Again...I would encourage you to make the simple circuit and driver and test yourself and it out before getting to far down the track of installation. Most people will find that the second driver coil will be a lot easier to make and more successful than the first.

psw

Oh...that's me... I will be moving this week (this time for sure) and all kinds of stuff will be happening in the next short while. Much of it may leave me disconnected for a bit. I am sure that the others here will continue to support all those interested and look forward to seeing lot's more posts, maybe even pages when I get back...

This will be a big change (for the better) as times have been very tough of late. It will be the start of being able to do things, one of which will be to play around with this project I am sure. I have a new guitar and plans to make this project more accessable, perhaps fixing some of the supply problems or even making modified pickups available. It is heartening to see this upsurge in interest and perhaps if enough interest is expressed in this type of thing, I will find some time to pursue these things. At the very least, I will be redoing the project with the benefit of your experiences as well as my own and this will refine things still further for everyone else

So...Again....thanks to everyone here for all the enjoyable posts and for letting me share what I have learned in all these conversations... pete

by the way...a few have suggested MSN messaging and such...perhaps we could do a live chat session some time in the near future if this thread isn't enough for you all. Could be entertaining, especially given the time differences. I once had a conversation with Brian (or was it Kevin) and Southpa as I recall on the teamspeak thing....after midnight in the states on a saturday night, Sunday arvo here. Was interesting to here them and their playing, but it is more likely to be a text thing on MSN. If that is of interest, let me know and we will try to set something up... p

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EBA224_A.jpgEBA224_B.jpg

The Mini Tube Amp Circuit runs on a single 9 volt battery, and battery life is excellent. This is not the 1/10th watt or 1/5th watt amps that are used in so many tiny amps and onboard, all-in-one guitars- this is a full fire-breathing 2.5 watts of power!. The trim pot is basically a Preamp control- low for clean jazzy "woody" tone, jack it up for a bit of tube-like overdrive.

seen these on ebay not sure if it may be helpful for these type of projects

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i THINK you will be better off, having your mechanical system return the energy near the bridge end of the string.
Not really...it will be harder to move and be far too close to the pickups...these are just as much electromagnetic devices as the string drivers so they can not be mounted too close to pickups...if anything, they put out more EMI....

thanks Pete, that clears up a lot.

i didn't know that much about the Sustainiac system before. but, substantially more, after your post.

one would think that if we're capable of making a properly sheilded loudspeaker, that can be placed right next to a CRT, then Sustainiac could have taken reasonable measures to limit the EMI from their transducer, but apparently not.

whether using a piezo, or a properly shielded dynamic unit, IMHO a pressure unit (sandwiched between structure in a cavity, in the tail of an LP) would still seem a logical approach.

first of all, there is much unused real-estate available there.

second, you wouldn't need to have all that nasty mess of cables going to the headstock (who actually would sign on to that?)

third, as i mentioned before, since the bridge end termination doesn't move, the correct amount of energy (just a bit more than equal to the string losses) to return to the system, would remain fairly constant.

...Most played notes will change into a harmonic after a short time, like you get with natural amp feedback. However, the MODEL C sustain is not all fundamentals in one mode and all harmonics in another mode, like the magnetic sustainer (STEALTH & STEALTH PLUS) does.

...The intense neck vibration makes the strings vibrate very intensely. This makes the amplified signal stronger, and so on. Feedback builds up quickly....

Flick, that sounds like a great salesmanship job on the part of Sustainiac.

i'll speculate with the tranducer at the headstock, if one WERE to set the amplitude "just right" with the Sustainiac C (rather than rediculous overkill level), then some notes wouldn't sustain, some would sustain (but remain as fundamentals), and others would sustain (but break into harmonics).

but i'll re-iterate, that's just speculation. i'll wait for Pete or one of the other sustain experts to illuminate further.

cheers,

unk

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The Mini Tube Amp Circuit ....

seen these on ebay not sure if it may be helpful for these type of projects

Yes...these have been linked before and are interesting. It shows how small our circuits could be (the fetzer ruby the size of a switch probably)... Beware of the advertising hype, it is a small amplifier and the battery life depends a lot on how hard it is driven and the power supplied to it. A sustainer would draw a reasonable amount of current which flattens a battery....an acoustic sustainer considerably more. If sustainiac thought they could run an acoustic sustainer on such an amp instead of their floor, mains powered unit, I am sure they would (could be clipped to a guitar strap)...they obviously felt it wasn't too practical.

This is an interesting board though for the sustainer but considerably more power than we need. The power needs to be adjusted to have just enough to sustain the strings without causing so much EMI to be unusable. Efficiencies in the driver design allow that to be achieved and one reason why DIY attempts have failed before. An acoustic sustainer has vastly more power requirements (it is vibrating the whole instrument, not just the strings) and has considerably more mechanical losses.

There are also losses in phase. There is a delay between the vibration of the signal and the instrument even in our conventional systems...the amount of phase difference is frequency dependant. The companies have addressed this with compensation circuits...I addressed it by the Thin Driver in an attempt to make the device fast enough to not require such complicated circuitry. It is the driver design that is unique to this thread and at the heart of it's success, simple as it may seem. If not convinced...make one then try out other designs (eg deep narrow coils) and see how you go...I did!!!!

Anyway...if the mechanical vibration is out of phase with the physical vibration of the string it can cause the string to be dampened...so you'd have an anti-sustainer...completely out of phase, and you have harmonic mode. This is what I mean about the speed of the driver...the ability to react as closely to the resonant frequency of the string, in the same phase as the string is vibrating. To do this mechanically can only make such losses and phase delays more crucial...IMHO

unklmickey

whether using a piezo, or a properly shielded dynamic unit, IMHO a pressure unit (sandwiched between structure in a cavity, in the tail of an LP) would still seem a logical approach.

first of all, there is much unused real-estate available there.

second, you wouldn't need to have all that nasty mess of cables going to the headstock (who actually would sign on to that?)

third, as i mentioned before, since the bridge end termination doesn't move, the correct amount of energy (just a bit more than equal to the string losses) to return to the system, would remain fairly constant.

Similar thoughts as to what I was thinking...but alas. The considerations above still apply. I did think that the best chance was with a strat tremolo...room in the spring cavity and the bridge already set up to vibrate (hinged and sprung). I really don't know how this kind of sheilding of loudspeakers works, with enough magnetic shielding (surrounded in steel) it could work...but not for a reasonable weight and size perhaps.

My best result was with a small speaker and amp with the speaker pressed to the surface (cone down and not modified) of the guitar body a little behind the jack plate on a strat that is significantly hollowed (resonant) The placement made a big difference but high strings suffered and there were significant dead spots in response.

With our sustainers...you have to allow the EMI out, because it is the EM radiation that is causing the metal strings to vibrate...catch 22. Once the magnetic signal is induced in the metal strings it is a matter of how little power and distance you can make it so that these don't travel down and be picked up by the pickup itself.

The sustainer (or whatever we can come up to call our device) is very simple in principle but hard in execution. In a perfect world with perfect sync between the vibration of the string and the sustaining system, you would require very little to keep the string going (as unk intimated) but this is not a perfect world (far from it, don't get me started down that road) and other factors and can have a significant effect on things. Consider the power of resonant frequencies...you can break a crystal glass with a voice if you get it just right...Mythbusters Linkyou can get a guitar to sustain with harmoniclly rich amplification (distortion) if you are in just the right place and position in relation to the speaker...with sufficient volume, you can even force the strings into the mode of vibration of the system to overcome the phase problems. Sustainer technology takes a lot of the hit and miss out of this but the issues are still there to be dealth with. The acoustic sustainer adds more considerations, many unique to each different instrument, and thus requriers more power to overcome them, our sustainers attempt to do it by greater efficiency and take much of the mechanical losses out of the equation (working directly upon the strings themselves)....

Ok...so enough from me, I procrastinating....got to run...things to do... pete

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Ok...this is it...it is moving time...last night on the net for a while. Hope I miss out on lots of new cool stuff, it is looking like it could be a few weeks (no physical phone line at all yet) so I will be cut off from the world...should be interesting....

When I come back, I hope to catch up on some interesting discussions and thoughts for furthering this project.

As a parting gift, I have added the main sustainer links to my signiture, so where ever I have posted, you will now have an instant link on every post to the four main sustainer threads on PG...pretty cool...why didn't I do this before I don't know...

Anyhow...see you later... pete

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Hey - can anyone here help me out in my thread? So far it's unsolvable it seems.

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.ph...c=25882&hl=

Need to know how to set the driver-only option up for a single bridge pickup with NO tone, NO volume, and NO pickup selector - allowing the harmonic portion of the circuit board to still work - (I know how to set it up so it would sustain properly, but the harmonic won't work)

Thanks, I appreciate it.

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Can anybody suggest me a where can I find a pre built amp like Fetzer/ruby?

The next example can work right?

http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.33/.f ---> http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id...amp;category=33

http://cgi.ebay.it/Audio-Power-Amplifier-I...VQQcmdZViewItem

http://www.oatleyelectronics.com/kits/k064.html

...and what about the "mini tube amp circuit"?

Edited by rambler
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Hi Col,

In Pete's absence I was not sure who to address this to nor exactly where to post it within the thread. As you might know I am looking into various possibilities for putting together my project guitar....I was looking into possible pickup replacements, when I happened upon an SOS article praising this Australian company for their stacked humbuckers:

http://www.kinman.com/html/myProducts/strats.htm#NoSolder

If you scroll down past the stock pickup models, you will come to some photos of the assembly, and parts used. It got me thinking - could the Sustainer driver be used to 'buck the hum' of a single coil pickup in the same way as a stacked humbucker?

You might also appreciate the engineering that has gone into the design of Kinman's pickups, I was impressed, but then I know relatively little about the industry - as a guitarist I know enough to get by, but not even enough to really make an informed choice of what pickups to use in order to achieve this or that sound for example....

I know that you are working on various projects mounting your thin drivers directly on top of an existing single coil pickup. Well, if it were possible to replace the stacked upper coil with the driver in order to simultaneously kill the RMF hum, then this would produce a very useful device, don't you think? It would effectively kill two birds with one stone - a humbucking sustainer! Well even if it did work, that would only affect one pickup, leaving two more noisy pickups, unless you went out and bought a couple of Kinman's pickups (which I might anyway if the price is reasonable).

Hum and noise with single coils are definitely fairly major issues, and given the fact that these pickups seem to live up to the manufacturer's claims of maintaining the authentic Vintage Strat sounds, I am seriously considering using them in my project guitar (which will become my only electric, as I will have to sell my Ibanez Prestige US Custom in order to finance it!).

But in fact this project I intend to build should surpass the Ibanez in just about every way. I used to love the tone of the humbuckers in a mahogany body, but like Scott Henderson, I am beginning to appreciate the crystalline pure quality of a Strat with single coils. The other thing is that my Tokai based Strat (which has the disadvantage of being extremely heavy compared with the Ibanez) has already been pretty heavily customised with an RMC piezzo/MIDI bridge system, and is thus also active, and according to Roger McLish of RMC, the circuitry will readily share its 9v battery with other components, such as the Sustainer circuitry. I intend using a prototype of Zfrittz6's circuit first of all and with some help from you guys, hopefully remount the RMC saddles in a Gotoh Wilkinson trem system and connect the RMC circuit to the prototype sustain circuit (not to interract, just to share the same power source). The present RMC electronics include push pull switches and momentary MIDI switches that are almost redundant, so I was thinking of using them in order to provide for switching between the harmonic modes of the Sustainer, but I don't want to clutter the guitar up too much, so I will try and keep it simple. On the Warmoth site there are also combined vol/tone pots which could presumably be substituted for the present separate ones, thus saving space.

Also, I have lost my reference points in the forum to various photos of the thin driver mounted on a single coil, and other variations, would you please post some links?

Zfrittz6 has very kindly agreed to make a driver for me, but I am not at all sure how I am going to be able to mount it on my project guitar, as I doubt that it will be a thin driver as such, and I cannot be too demanding for something that is being offered to me gratis (he only wanted me to send him the driver magnet wire).

The point is that I would like to be able to go for a Warmoth hollow bodied Strat with rear routing and three single pickups routed on top. And the neck is a custom Fender USA 22 fret (reprofiled to be even thinner than the Ibanez S), and the extra fret makes for even less space between the neck and neck pickup cavity, so the only other way I could fit the driver would presumably have the cavity routed for a humbucker and fit the driver and pickup side by side in the cavity. My intention, partially, in opting for the rear routing (apart from aesthetics) is to mount the pickups directly into the pickup cavities, so that they will be less prone to vibration caused by the sustain driver. But aesthetically I really dislike the idea of having what amounts to a HSS configuration in reverse. HSH would be better balanced, but it does not work for me, as I find it robs me of picking space - I hate it when I find myself slamming the plectrum into the middle pickup, or having to consciously manoeuvre between pickups to find a clear picking space! The other question that arises is that of the overall pickup height. Kinman's pickups are designed to retrofit a Strat, and fit inside a standard Strat pickup cover, but even so, they are a little deeper. Also, the further away the sustainer is physically from the string, the more energy is necessary to drive the string vibration, hence the battery consumption would go up - so if a sustainer thin driver is mounted inside a strat pickup cover, this will increase that distance from the string - how did you get around that?

I already have problems with my present Tokai body, in getting the cheapo standard pickups low enough in the body (without having to rout the cavity), and I don't know how deeply Warmoth rout their pickup cavities. So if I were to attempt to mount a thin driver sustainer over a standard sized single coil pickup, I want to be sure that I am not going to run into problems with the height or depth within the routed cavity - especially as this is going to be a hollow (chambered body, similar the the Allan Holdsworth Carvins). So I would appreciate your help with this.

Thanks,

God bless,

David

Edited by Truth_David
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Can anybody suggest me a where can I find a pre built amp like Fetzer/ruby?

The next example can work right?

http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/sc.8/category.33/.f ---> http://www.electronics123.com/s.nl/it.A/id...amp;category=33

http://cgi.ebay.it/Audio-Power-Amplifier-I...VQQcmdZViewItem

http://www.oatleyelectronics.com/kits/k064.html

...and what about the "mini tube amp circuit"?

They will all work, but it seems some of these are purely power-amp modules, you'll need a preamp module for best results.A preamp is used to ''condition'' the signal from the pickup, so it can drive the poweramp more efficiently. A preamp is usually only a few capacitors and resistors though, so you can easily add them if necessary ( they could already be there, but I'm not much of an electronics guru, so you might want to wait for others to chime in). The mini tube amp circuit is nice, but a little too much power than needed. the driver needs about 0.5 watts/ 1 watt max. You won't damage anything by using (a little) more power, but the batteries will probably drain faster.

Thruth David

The kinman pickups have been mentioned before, they are indeed very interesting designs. The sustainer driver *could *might *maybe *possibly* be used to cancel hum from a single coil, but I imagine it won't be that easy. Surely Kinman themselves have invested a few years in perfecting the design...maybe we should make a ''to do'' list :D .

If you want to go for the kinman pickups, by all means do so, it should be possible to mount a thin driver on top. My latest driver is only 2mm thick and would be able to just slide over the pole pieces, so that would solve your pickup height worries, and it looks pretty neat too. Are you in Spain? I might be able to send you one; or I could write up some detailed instructions for Zfrittz to build one. Let me know.

Using the piezos to drive the sustainer would actually solve some of the problems with switching and emi we're experiencing, as they are non-magnetic and thus can't be influenced by the driver's magnetic field; so you might want to consider that.

oh, and the build thread is here http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=16984

greetz, Tim

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Hello all, a few days ago I found this topic and some other howto's about the sustainer. I was very interested in it so yesterday I built my own. It's far from optimal because I don't know if I got the right gauge of wire (I got it from an old coil, it's quiet thick but I don't know if it's really 0.2 mm) and it's resistance is about 5.9 ohm. The magnets I used are small magnets from Lego, they aren't very strong but it works (kind of...).

sustainer.jpg

As you can see I used M3 bolts as a core. At first I wanted to use a 'solid' core like in the example, but I couldn't find anything suitable. Now with these bolts, I can adjust the 'power' for each separate string which might be an advantage. So as I said, my sustainer could be a lot better but it works for now (at least on the E-A-D strings)

But now the problem, I want to place the sustainer in my Ibanez RG270 which has a H-S-H configuration. I removed the single coil (don't use it much anyway) but when I put in the sustainer it just gives a long squeal (I can use the volume- and tone pots to change the frequency, cool :D) so there's quiet some interference... When I hold the sustainer above the strings (so not IN the guitar but above it, at the same position (between the humbuckers)) it works alright.

So I hope we can work out a nice solution for the mid-position sustainer. I'm interested in Zfritzz' solution with the soft drink can. I already tried wrapping the thing in aluminium (of aluminum, don't know how you guys call it :D ) foil, but that made totally no difference.

By the way, at some tests I heard totally nothing when I turned on the sustainer, not even the normal hum out of the guitar. Then I found out that it was just creating a very high frequency that was unaudible by me B) The dogs in the neighbourhood shouldn't have enjoyed that :D

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...this Australian company for their stacked humbuckers:

http://www.kinman.com/html/myProducts/strats.htm#NoSolder

If you scroll down past the stock pickup models, you will come to some photos of the assembly, and parts used. It got me thinking - could the Sustainer driver be used to 'buck the hum' of a single coil pickup in the same way as a stacked humbucker?

You might also appreciate the engineering that has gone into the design of Kinman's pickups, I was impressed, but then I know relatively little about the industry - as a guitarist I know enough to get by, but not even enough to really make an informed choice of what pickups to use in order to achieve this or that sound for example....

I've mentioned these a few times in the thread :D. They look like a great piece of engineering as you suggest. My reason for posting them to the thread was related to using a similar combination of asymetric coils and shielding in an attempt to combat EMI. If you search the thread for kinman, you should find the posts. As far as using the driver coil as a humbucking coil when not in sustainer mode, I guess its might work ok. I suppose the question would be which do you tune it for ? sustaining or humbucking ?. For the stacked humbuckers to work, the pickup coil must be the one closest to the strings, so the driver coil would be much further from the strings... Pete has suggested that the driver coil must be closest to the strings... Tim (I think?) has experimented with this and found that it doesn't really matter how close the driver coil is to the strings as long as the core is close... I would guess however that putting a pickup coil between the driver coil and the strings would mess this up somewhat... So the answer is probably you Can have a combo kinman style pickup / sustainer driver. however, it wont work well as a driver if at all ?

Of course, the only way you'll really know is to do some experimenting.

Hum and noise with single coils are definitely fairly major issues, and given the fact that these pickups seem to live up to the manufacturer's claims of maintaining the authentic Vintage Strat sounds, I am seriously considering using them in my project guitar (which will become my only electric, as I will have to sell my Ibanez Prestige US Custom in order to finance it!).

might be as well to stick a thin driver on top of a kinman pickup rather than trying to make a multi-purpose device.

...the circuitry will readily share its 9v battery with other components, such as the Sustainer circuitry.

There is a major downside to using sharing a battery. The sustainer drains batteries fast - if you are sharing a battery, and it runs out, your guitar is useless until you replace the battery - no fun if it happens mid song. Best to either have seperate batteries for sustainer and pre-amp, or use passive pickups.

There is another potential issue sharing a battery. The sustainer draws a LOT of current, this loads down the battery and may cause unwanted noise (Sustainiac call this grunge) in the pre-amp. I suppose that this can be dealt with through careful circuit design and layout.

I intend using a prototype of Zfrittz6's circuit first of all and with some help from you guys...

It would probably be best to make something simple like the fetzer ruby.

Have you heard/used Zfrittz6's circuit ? makes sense to start with something tried and tested - or at least proven through demonstration.

good luck

Col

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Hello all, a few days ago I found this topic and some other howto's about the sustainer. I was very interested in it so yesterday I built my own. It's far from optimal because I don't know if I got the right gauge of wire (I got it from an old coil, it's quiet thick but I don't know if it's really 0.2 mm) and it's resistance is about 5.9 ohm. The magnets I used are small magnets from Lego, they aren't very strong but it works (kind of...).

Hi Jer00N

A lego sustainer - COOL :-D

But now the problem, I want to place the sustainer in my Ibanez RG270 which has a H-S-H configuration. I removed the single coil (don't use it much anyway) but when I put in the sustainer it just gives a long squeal (I can use the volume- and tone pots to change the frequency, cool :D) so there's quiet some interference... When I hold the sustainer above the strings (so not IN the guitar but above it, at the same position (between the humbuckers)) it works alright.

If you read the thread (not reccomended, it's too huge), you will discover that a simple repeatable 'mid position driver' is still a target. getting one to work with humbuckers in bridge and neck position would be even harder due to the closer proximity of pickups and driver. Most of the succesfull DIY sustainers when in sustainer mode are using just a bridge pickup and neck driver. It would probably be best to start with that configuration until you get it working before attempting to get a mid driver working.

So I hope we can work out a nice solution for the mid-position sustainer. I'm interested in Zfritzz' solution with the soft drink can. I already tried wrapping the thing in aluminium (of aluminum, don't know how you guys call it :D ) foil, but that made totally no difference.

Aluminium would not work because it has very poor magnetic qualities. A 'shield' (really a flux conduit) needs to be made of a material with very good 'soft' magnetic properties e.g. some sort of non-stainless steel.. or better still one of the purpose made magnetic shielding foils or sheets available like this or this. Unfortunately these seem really expensive - we need to find some sort of cheap consumer product that uses this stuff - cellphone shields have been suggested, but these look to me to be a bit too small to be useful for experimenting.

cheers

Col

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Hi Tim, thanks for your reply :D

Truth David

The kinman pickups have been mentioned before, they are indeed very interesting designs. The sustainer driver *could *might *maybe *possibly* be used to cancel hum from a single coil, but I imagine it won't be that easy. Surely Kinman themselves have invested a few years in perfecting the design...maybe we should make a ''to do'' list :D .

*Sounds like a good idea!

If you want to go for the kinman pickups, by all means do so, it should be possible to mount a thin driver on top. My latest driver is only 2mm thick and would be able to just slide over the pole pieces, so that would solve your pickup height worries, and it looks pretty neat too. Are you in Spain? I might be able to send you one; or I could write up some detailed instructions for Zfrittz to build one. Let me know.

*Yes, like Juán I live in Spain, but he beat you to the post, he just developed a 2mm driver too a couple of days ago - he is making several models for me to try in order to see which works best!

Tim I really appreciate your offer to build me a driver, thank you.

But even with a height of only 2mm, I am worried that there might be a need to rout out the pickup cavity of the Strat. I say that because even now with my Tokai Strat I am having problems with the pickup height of the neck pickup, because it really needs to be routed to allow for lowering the pickup further. So even without the extra 2mm or whatever needed to fit the driver, it is already a tight fit! It might help to remove the pickup covers, but that would expose the delicate coil windings to possible damage. But the thickness of the Strat body at the neck is no more than 4.5mm. At present the neck pickup measured with the bass E fretted at the 22nd fret from the top of the magnet is about 0.4mm. With the open E string it is 0.6mm (yes, it is a fairly low action) approximately. And the pickup cannot be dropped any further without routing the cavity deeper.

If I decide to go for the Warmoth hollow Strat body with the rear routing option, the obvious way to go would be to screw the pickups directly into the body, which would also stop them from being vibrated by the Sustainer driver. And that might provide a sufficient proximity to the base of the neck pickup cavity to allow for the extra 2mm+ required by the Driver.....but that is if I get lucky!

The problem is that I neither know the exact dimensions of the combined normal Strat single coil pickup, + the 2mm of the driver + the necessary gap between the driver and the strings, nor the exact dimensions of the Warmoth body and routing depth etc., - and the Warmoth body is hollow (chambered) and so might not allow deeper routing of the pickup cavity without risking weakening the back of the instrument...I am waiting for someone from Warmoth to get back to me with an answer about that, but this project is starting to get really exciting!

Using the piezos to drive the sustainer would actually solve some of the problems with switching and emi we're experiencing, as they are non-magnetic and thus can't be influenced by the driver's magnetic field; so you might want to consider that.

*Would this just be a matter of switching on the Sustain Driver and selecting only the Piezzo pickup, or would there need to be some other configuration necessary? Again, this sounds really exciting, because I imagine that the sound would be more akin to that produced by an e-bow on an acoustic, which I actually prefer greatly over the sound of electric pickups in combination with the e-bow. And if I get lucky, using the piezzos, I should not have the same problem with delay before the sustainer causes the strings to vibrate, as is the case with an e-bow on an acoustic guitar with bronze wound strings. But as I say, the sound is totally different, much more like a violin, and much more subtle. The only thing is that when using the e-bow, it is possible to achieve so many subtle variations and nuances in pitch and timbre just by sliding it further towards the bridge or neck (or nut :D ). And so far, I don't see any way of even approximating that unless the driver can be made to work with the other pickups. So far, I believe success has only been achieved with the bridge pickup? But with some more brainstorming, I am sure something could be invented.

Speaking of which, what about having a sliding Sustain Driver, that could move along a pair of rails (like the Dan Armstrong sliding pickup guitar, but with the idea of free movement) with some sort of ball bearing mechanism to allow for very easy movement? Obviously, it would be a problem to insulate the Driver from the radiation from the pickups, and the connecting wiring could be easily damaged. But if it did work, it would be an entirely new concept for a mounted Sustainer. I can imagine in some way fixing it to one's hand, so that you could continue to pick whilst sliding the hand forwards or backwards in order to change the nodes along the strings. It would be like having an e-bow that worked on all the strings at once, but without having to worry about holding it or balancing it on the string tracks.....

Probably just another crazy idea of mine B)

oh, and the build thread is here http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=16984

greetz, Tim

Thanks

God bless,

David

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