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Sustainer Ideas


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OK...this thread has gotten so big I can just reference to other pages :D

@ Radiotrib

Click here and here for the humbucking version of your idea. It's a cool concept and definately has a lot of potential. You're right about the flux thing. sadly enough, the coils are in the least favorable orientation for an efficient manipulation of the fixed magnetic field...perpendicular to it. Basically the shape of the permanent magnetic field is very good, but the coils (which are supposed to induce variations in this field via their own electromagnetic field) don't have much "pull" on it. Well, something like that. Please prove us all wrong..this thread started out as 'ideas for a sustaining device' so anything goes, really.

There's a good free 2d field modeling tool called FEMM which has been used a lot quite a bit throughout the thread. i have ANSYS Multiphysics (3d analysis tool) as well, but it's waaay too difficult for me.

@ Samuel McBrian- Brian

So you want to manually switch each individual driver on and off while playing depending on which string you are?

What I meant with the six amps is that you'd need those for OPTIMAL performance...just six separate coils won't make a big difference versus one big coil, because your feeding them with the same signal.

For optimal efficiency you'd want each driver to be 'tuned' for it's corresponding string. You could do this by using less or more wire, different gauge, different magnet, etc.. for even better performance you want to feed each driver with it's own 'tuned' signal, which means you need six dedicated amps...then ofcourse you need to feed those with six separate input signals. You can't just use a simple crossover circuit to split those signals from the pickup signal, as a lot of the notes (thus frequencies) on the six strings overlap. So it would be easier to use six separate sensors.

Don't let this hold you back though, I would love to see a return of the hexaphonic driver!

greetz, Tim

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OK...this thread has gotten so big I can just reference to other pages :D

@ Radiotrib

@ Samuel McBrian- Brian

So you want to manually switch each individual driver on and off while playing depending on which string you are?

What I meant with the six amps is that you'd need those for OPTIMAL performance...just six separate coils won't make a big difference versus one big coil, because your feeding them with the same signal.

For optimal efficiency you'd want each driver to be 'tuned' for it's corresponding string. You could do this by using less or more wire, different gauge, different magnet, etc.. for even better performance you want to feed each driver with it's own 'tuned' signal, which means you need six dedicated amps...then ofcourse you need to feed those with six separate input signals. You can't just use a simple crossover circuit to split those signals from the pickup signal, as a lot of the notes (thus frequencies) on the six strings overlap. So it would be easier to use six separate sensors.

Lets say the G string has the coil turned on, and you play an open D and the open G at the same time. Surely the magnetic field will produce resonance in the G string because there is a G frequency in the signal, and surely the D frequency in the signal would just not do much at all because it'd have to be very powerful magnetic field with a frequency of D to get the G string resonating.

Does that make sense at all or am I just being optimistic?

Love From Samuel.

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I don't believe you'd need six sensors and six amps. If the six coils are in parallel they could easily be turned off by an on/off switch. I realise that they may have to be staggered, perhaps a humbucker kind of thing with three coils in each single coil.

The driver I have made is from an old single coil pickup, and bending was sustained just as well as the single notes. I think this is because the poles are fairly close together and its not like its a beam of magnetic energy shooting out from the pole.

Thats it, I'm going to make a triphonic coil and if thats a success I'll consider making a hexaphonic one.

Didn't you all find that you had strings being magnetically induced into vibrating that you didn't want to when you were playing on some other strings?

One of the best features of the Sustainer idea is its ability to simulate the sound and feel of a guitar played loud. A characteristic of this is that any undamped strings will tend to bloom into feedback and harmonics. This is a good thing. A hexophonic system would probably have some unique features, but the 'LOUD guitar' effect is done better (I would imagine) by a monophonic system.

having said that, one thing I've always wanted to try is a hexaphonic gutar with each string through its own overdrive... adding a hexaphonic sustainer to this would increase the flexibility for orchestration and multi-tracked sounding styles...

I do think that the massive extra complexity is probably not worth it.

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Anyway, that isn't really the idea I was putting forward. My suggestion was based something I vaguely remember, that a ferro-magnetic plate with a large area to thickness ratio, in close proximity to a magnet, confines the magnetic field (i.e. shields) by sort of "sucking" the flux in towards it, but one which is actually in contact with the magnet causes the flux to stay within the plate, and exit only(ish) via its edges. If this was actually the case, my idea would work something like this (cross section) ...

focusing and containing the field, but producing a strong flux between the edges of the plates, and very little stray field except that transmitted by induction in the guitar string. (which is also an iron core inside a coil ...)

That looks very interesting. If you think about it, it is actually very similar to the bi-longitudinal driver setup. think of the two coil cores as your iron plates, with the magnet between. The only major difference is in the positioning of the coil(s).

You are correct in thinking that this configuration helps to contain the flux, however it's no magic bullet.

I wonder if having the coil around the magnet as in your diagram will be more effective, less effective or about the same as putting half of it on each 'plate' as in the bi-longitudinal driver...

If it is more efficient, then it would be an excellent alternative, because it would alow the driver to be much more compact, this may help us towards the holy grail of a fizz free mid position driver...

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having said that, one thing I've always wanted to try is a hexaphonic gutar with each string through its own overdrive... adding a hexaphonic sustainer to this would increase the flexibility for orchestration and multi-tracked sounding styles...

I do think that the massive extra complexity is probably not worth it.

Hi....that just about fits the description of the Roland VG-8, using the hex or piezzo MIDI bridge, it effectively processes the signals of each string separately. Unfortunately mine stopped working soon after moving to Spain - I think it has something to do with the bad energy supply we have - constantly fluctuating and power cuts almost every day during the winter. It still works, but the screen is unreadable, as though it is not getting enough current to complete. But anyway, I digress, the idea is that I would like to try seeing how my Sustainer which Juán is building at the moment would work through the VG-8. The VG-8 itself is rather weak in terms of sustain, and almost laughable alongside my Pod XT. But it is capable of some pretty unique detuning and synth like FX. But as the signal from the piezzos passes through the VG-8 first, before it gets to the outputs, I am not sure the Sustainer would affect the processed sound of the VG-8?

Has anyone done anything like using Piezzo saddle based systems with the Sustainer driver?

God bless,

David

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Has anyone done anything like using Piezzo saddle based systems with the Sustainer driver?

I tried using the sustainer unit with my acoustic which has a piezo pickup and preamp in the bridge some time back when I was first experimenting with this project. It worked perfectly as I recall, and you could position the driver as close as you liked to the piezo without any feedback or fizz whatsoever. The only drawback was that having the driver too close to the bridge reduced the amount of sustain you could get out of the strings (harder to "move" the strings closer to the bridge), and generally speaking the only strings that worked particularly well were the plain unwound high E and B - the bronze-wound G, D, A and E probably don't have enough magnetic material in them to sustain as well as the plain steel strings.

*sigh* I really want to get back into experimenting with the DIY sustainer, but I've just got too many other DIY projects on the go at the moment to fit it all in! :D After my initial success with the neck position sustainer I kinda lost momentum on the project!

Cheers,

Curtis.

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Let's hear it for Kenji Tumura ... Yaay !!! I just felt it that someone had done it before I thought of it ...

OLG - Thanks for the links, on those two pages alone you can see that the big difference between sandwiched coils and humbuckers is the lateral (leakage) field. In a humbucker, each of the virtual magnets are oriented vertically, and radiate like two bar magnets in proximity. There is a strong field between the poles, but a siginficant (and unwanted) field looping around to the other pole on the same magnet (i.e. out into EMI land). On the other hand, the sandwiched coil is analogous to one bar magnet, with an incredibly distorted field which is almost completely concentrated in the gap between the pole plates, and with almost no (or very weak) extraneous side flux.

Aside ... In the longer term, I am in the process of designing a bass which I intend to build over the next 12 months. It will have a piezo bridge in addition to a mag pickup of my own design, and if I manage to find a place to mount it, it will also have a sustainer. I will probably build a mock-up in cheap builders wood before I take to "real" wood, so I may be in a position to test some things sooner ... no promses, but a lot of hopes :D

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I was under the impression that hex piezo systems like the graphtech ghost system and rpland pickup put out six midi signals, not analog ones, which would make the implementation much harder?

Hi. It is unclear to whom you are addressing your reply, as you have not quoted anything, but I have an RMC piezzo/MIDI bridge very similar to those systems fitted to the Godin Multiac and the latest Parker (which also has a sustainer built in built for Adrian Belew I believe) etc., and I can tell you that it definitely does output the analogue acoustic sound as well as the MIDI signal. And it is not a MIDI signal that goes into the Roland VG-8 for processing, as the VG-8 only uses MIDI for paramater and patch change. It is not a guitar synthesizer and models the sounds more in the vein of the Line 6 Variax, which also uses a similar piezzo-electric bridge setup. Both the VG-8 and the Variax rely upon being able to impose digital modelling upon the sound physically produced by the guitar itself. This can be translated from either a hexaphonic or piezzo pickup - both are wired for individual outputs for each string. I hope this clarifies your misconceptions.

David

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OLG - Thanks for the links, on those two pages alone you can see that the big difference between sandwiched coils and humbuckers is the lateral (leakage) field. In a humbucker, each of the virtual magnets are oriented vertically, and radiate like two bar magnets in proximity. There is a strong field between the poles, but a siginficant (and unwanted) field looping around to the other pole on the same magnet (i.e. out into EMI land). On the other hand, the sandwiched coil is analogous to one bar magnet, with an incredibly distorted field which is almost completely concentrated in the gap between the pole plates, and with almost no (or very weak) extraneous side flux.

Ok, I'll buy that...

Now another potential issue:

My intuition (and femm) tells me that the closer together the two plates are, the less the flux protrudes above the driver, so if the plates are too close together, there will not be enough flux intensity reaching the strings.

Now, at least for the more traditinal driver, the optimum coil specs are 0.2mm wire wound to 8ohms. In addition, ideally the cross section of (one side of) the coil should be roughly a square, rather than thin or tall - this would suggest that at least if we follow our current best fit specs, the gap between the plates would be aobut 2.5mm to 3mm... Unless we have a much more 'strung out' coil, or use a magnet that sticks out at both ends opf the coil... So, how narrow can the gap between the plates be before the flux force on the strings is reduced too much?

(please don't take this the wrong way, I want this idea to work - any improvement on the existing design is welcome :D )

I guess we are looking for an optimum compromise between wire guage, impedence of coil, magnet dimentions and the gap between the plates.

Col

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(snipped to save space .....)

My intuition (and femm) tells me that the closer together the two plates are, the less the flux protrudes above the driver, so if the plates are too close together, there will not be enough flux intensity reaching the strings.

My impression also ... I think it would need to be a fairly wide gap, but that doesn't affect the size of the goil IMO .. extending my fantasy one step further, it could be a thin-coil inducer, just like the current, successful designs, but wrapped around an extended core. The length of the core has little relevance. If its ferro-mag qualities are good enough it will contain the field fairly well until we hit an edge ... so ...

modified_plate_sus.jpg

If the original slim coil sustainer has already got a magnetic core, the plates and core extensions wouldn't be difficult to knock together, and the copper would have the twin function of spacing and shieldingf all in one go (though I have no idea what the eddy currents might get up to with that mass of copper in the mix).

as for the "don't don't take this the wrong way" bit .. hehe ... I'm flattered to have caught anyone's attention, especially you guys who have picked up on my frivolity. In fact, I know nothing and I'm just dreaming out loud.

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Hi everyone. I have a question regarding mounting a thin driver (2mm) on various types of stock pickups. I am going to include some fotos of several types of pickup in order for you to more easily visualize the problem. The problem is that most are encapsulated pickups - ideally I would like to be able to use a stacked humbucker or similar, so that I would be able to wire the neck pickup in series/parallel as a true single coil or humbucker. But all pickups need to be within a certain distance of the strings, otherwise they start to lose tone and sustain. Now looking at these various pickup types, only very few have height adjustable pole pieces, and my feeling is that expecting them to adjust 2+mm is asking a lot anyway.....

Ohoh!!!!! I just realized, I don't know how to insert a series of images from my HD - can someone pls help?

BTW, I just found something interesting about the Lace Sensor Holy Grail pickups....apparently they claim to produce a less powerful magnetic field than other similar pickups, but also they seem to have an innovative approach to the coil layout:

http://www.lacemusic.com/electric_pickups/holy_grail/holy_grail_specs.php terrible drawing, but it's the idea that counts.....

This is one pickup that could possibly be removed from its cover in order to mount a thin driver over it, then perhaps an alternative cover could be made. What do you guys think?

And Col, could you please explain your LED circuitry to a complete electronics novice? I have a pair of bicolour LEDs that I would like to use for the different harmonic modes of the Sustainer, and for on and off.

Thanks,

David

> [b]

Edited by Truth_David
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And Col, could you please explain your LED circuitry to a complete electronics novice? I have a pair of bicolour LEDs that I would like to use for the different harmonic modes of the Sustainer, and for on and off.

I don't got no LED circuitry :D

Really I don't - My feeling is that if you have to look, then it's no good, so LED would be redundant - it also means more components, more to go wrong and more battery drain. (Where they are useful is on stomp boxes)

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I'm Back...kind of....

Hi guys and all the newcomers....

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...

So...I have moved house but have had trouble getting a phone on and have just got an interim dial up up and running today. Have been very busy setting up house, been in court, holding down a job and seeing the children as much as I can. I will still be an intermitant lurker for a while yet I'm afraid... People interested in the personal can always email me...I save you the details...

Much to my surprise, though it was predicted in the quote above, there would be heaps of new stuff, several new pages of questions and explorations and a new total of over 85,000 visits.

Special thanks to all those who have kept an active eye on the thread while I have been away...especially Col, Tim David and Curtis for helping with the Q and A's.

So...

I've skim read through most of the posts since I left. Similar problems and solutions that have been explored before but with some more detail.

The layered magnetic shielding will be more efficient and 0.5mm on either side of tin/steel in an insulated laminated core is substanstial. It is a credit that it can be made so small and is quite a work of art by the look of it.l It could be a little difficult for the average DIYer however. In some of my experiments I used an epoxy/pure iron putty which could even be more efficient but againg, a little exotic for most (though possibly easier to achieve).

A humbucker/driver has not been built as such as yet but it is likely that a dual coil driver in the manner of col's device mounted on top of a conventional humbucker would work. I was able to mout a single coil on top of one of a humbucker with creditable results, but further work will need to be done. It is likely however, that a single driver between two humbuckers, especially on a shreading 24 fret guitar, would never be achievable.

I do believe a mid driver is possible on a conventional strat type guitar. Dizzy achieved this (see the sounds thread link on my signature) using a bilateral driver and secret circuit along the lines of the sustainiac patent. zfrittz6 appears also to have achieved this with the shielded driver. In some respects my hex designs also had this ability, but were never fully tested in this capacity because of overambious plans to preserve complete functionality of pickups on a three pickup guitar...!!!!!...d'oh!

Coil calculators are available but there are so many factors effecting resistance and such that the easiest way is to simply measure it as you go. The thin driver maximises the number of overlapping winds in the coil and these overlaps greatly effect efficiency, localises EMI and effects resistance. The same length of wire around a cylidrical core of a different dimention and material for instance (like a speaker) will not yield the same resistance if rewound to our device (much to the frustration of one emailer that I just received).

The "lego magnet" dirver is a good first attempt. It usually takes a few goes to get it right. I would be looking at getting some wire (0.2mm) and winding it as per my pictorial (see link in my signature below) and make sure it is pooted well and measured to approximately 8 ohms. The blade was to help with string bending, but individual poles or screws will work. They do need to be magnetised, the driver manipulates the existing permanant magnetic field rather than creating one of it's own) and they do need to all face the same way...use a magnet to test each one away from eachother and mark the same sides that attract to be sure which is which. The next version should be better, but there may also be other factors in the higher strings not responding so well.

Piezo's will be able to drive a sustainer as Cutis has demonstarted, however, the driver would still interfere with magnetic pickups if these too were fitted to the guitar, so they are not the solution.

Side coil drivers have been shown to work but there is some contention about the efficiency...there are various schemes...but fernandes who have the patents on some of these seem to have abandoned the concept...so... We welcome all brainstorming though so don't be afraid to put those ideas forward.

Bass sustainers. Hmmm, I think sustainiac still offer something. I did try our device on my bass but it has a split P-bass style pickup. This means that on two strings it is trying to sustain one way and the other in harmonic mode due to the polarity reversal. You would need to make a matching bilateral type driver of a similar design to test it properly. It is easier to drive bass strings as there is less tension and radically more mass...the main problems I had was that the circuit was tuned to guitar frequencies and so worked better on the higher strings. Adjusting the output cap (bigger) could lower the frequency range enough to give better results.

Two good things about the bass is that typically there is enough room to mount the device on the surface of the instrument without modifying the guitar and the scale length provides enough distance between the pickup and the driver for it to operate (at least on my single pickup bass) successfully...or so it would seem.

Kinman designs. These are great and I have read the patents. They are not so revolutionary, they are kind of a cross between a stacked pickup and the dummy coil idea. I think the main thing that contributes to their sound is the use of short alnico magnets in the top coil and metal slugs for the lower half.

As for using the driver coil as a dummy, humcancelling coil...it is way too different to have any appreciable effect. You could also switch the wires to add the driver to the pickup, but again an extra 8 ohms will unlikely have much of an effect and be tricky to do. There is a vast difference between the resistance of a typical pickup and the driver coil.

Pickup depth. Adding an extra 3mm to the depth of the pickup could well mean that the pickup will not fit in. I have not had this problem, but it could be a problem. On my Les Paul, I could not screw the pickup down enough as the adjustment bolts did not go down this far....the route was deep enough however...

Col's driver has 2mm dual coils and I suspect that a 2mm deep single coil could work. I also cut the top out of the SC cover saving about 1mm...check out the pictorial.

LED indicators...I have one, but it isn't so necessary. I find it useful but it does look a little wierd...bright blue light in a chrome bezel, tastefully done. I find it good to remind me to turn the thing off! I did think about a color changing version, but you will need more switching power on the harmonic switch to achieve this and it is debatable whether you need any indicating lights at all! To wire an LED you simply need to calculate the right resistor to drop the voltage down to a suitable level for the LED...unfortunately I have forgotten that value for an LED on a 9 volt battery. To have it change color, you would need, probably a separtate circuit with a 4pdt switch for the harmonic function to reverse the power flow, this would take up more space and expense and could even be difficult to find...it could even cause noise problems...hmmmm

So...

I hope I am a little up to speed and perhaps if there is any other specific comment people would like me to make based on my experiences, or to introduce themselves, please do so...I will be dropping by fairly regularly again I suspect.

I have been able to retrieve some of my electronics stuff, but am far to busy to do anything just at the moment. I have been playing my new squire with humbucker (JB) and two single coils and it is a nice guitar to play. There is however, quite a bit of volume difference between the bridge HB and the single coils and the tone difference is dramatic. The squier single coils do a great job of the straty sound but a lot of that is lost in the midrange honk of the HB. Even though I have always been a Les Paul player in the past, I am now hooked on the articulation of the single coils that a strat provides...but not the noise. Distorted, the HB does sound great, but I am leaning towards much cleaner sounds these days. I may get a superswitch and try out some sneaky coil selection/combinations (treating the HB and 2xSC as 4xSC's) or at least try to provide a better balance between the HB and the other pickups.

As for a future sustainer on this guitar...I am still not sure. I could make a device the same as on my present guitar I'm sure and it may be a lot more conventional looking than the prototype. The mid coil idea still appeals, but on this guitar, the mid pickup and in combination with the neck is a great sound, so I would unlikely be willing to loose it completely. This suggests a combo so, being a true single coil, probably along the lines of the prototype also with some shielding...not sure that this would work too well of course in the mid position, but if not, it will likely be workable in the neck as with my present guitar.

Other options could be to look into the blade pickup that shawn has donated as a possible driver...this though would not have the straty sound that I like of the true single coils. Or a separate surface mounted driver along the lines of the radical hex designs.

For now, I'll just enjoy playing the guitar again for a bit and organising my life a little more. Nice to see that this thread has remained of such interest, is still attracting new people and that has been in such good hands...this is not a one man show anymore, that's for sure...

pete

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Hi all,

I have a question about something I find perplexing......if you read the gumph (informative material) on the e-bow that comes with the device, the manufacturers recommend only using the neck position pickup, as that is closest to the node at that octave of the fingerboard. This is why presumably one can find the richest sounding warm sounds right there, and also the most harmonic content. So why is it that we are mounting our drivers on the neck pickup and using the bridge pickup to drive them? Do you see my point?

Now I understand to some degree the fact that the given reason is EMF interference from other pickups (which is why I recently posted about the Lace Sensor Holy Grail, which creates a comparitively weak magnetic field but which seems to be effective both in terms of high output and being relatively silent - no 60 cycle hum, because it uses a dummy secondary coil) so the further the driver is from the source of that radiation - in this case the nearest pickup - the better.

But in consequence, effectively we are deprived of the use of the pickup which would provide the richest and arguably best sound, as well as probably far more sustain. So mounting the driver in the middle position would be a step in the right direction, but still limiting, as the harmonics produced there are nowhere near as rich as in the neck position....

Those of you who have an e-bow can test this out for yourselves. You will find that the best results come from finding the node above the neck pickup - the strings vibrate far more readily from there - the sweet spot.

Now obviously, the e-bow shares much of the same technology that goes into our Sustainers, yet does not seem to suffer from the EMF radiation problem - one can use any of the pickups and it will still function. So perhaps we need to look at what it is that renders the e-bow less vulnerable to this interference. Then once that is solved, we can look into what is really the best mounting point on the instrument for the sustain driver, and be able to use it with potentially any of the available pickups. Perhaps I am oversimplifying matters, but nevertheless this seems a logical conclusion to me.

I feel that we need to break out of the constraints imposed by this problem, otherwise we will be forever working within those limitations, instead of being able to move in new directions, because our foundation is not as sound as it needs to be in order to continue to build upon it.

I feel that asking a musician to give up any of his pickups, and especially the neck position, in order to occasionally have the use of the sustainer is not a fair trade-off. Especially when you understand how important it is to be able to switch pickups mid solo - Jeff Beck has integrated this so much into his technique that in one interview he stated that the higher the note, the thinner the sound, so one needs to switch to the neck pickup and roll off the treble, but when playing low notes, the opposite applies - one then needs to use the bridge pickup so that the notes are clear and not muddy. On the other hand, we have the other extreme in Allan Holdworth, who hardly ever uses anything other than the bridge pickup, but uses his fingers to produce the clarity needed for chordal work, in much the same way as a classical guitarist will choose different areas of the string between the bridge and neck in order to vary his tone and attack.

But for those who need a radical change in timbre, the change between bridge and neck pickup is absolutely necessary, after all, if I am playing jazz, and want a warm articulate mellow tone, I am not going to go for the bridge pickup, because it sounds too thin and middly and lacks the bass depth I need. The other way to go is forget the pickups altogether and go with a Variax system combined with a sustainer, as has already been done. But that is an expensive project, and you need to buy a Variax as a 'donor' instrument in order to build the system into a guitar good enough to do the job well. And it cannot be the cheap model because the circuit itself takes up almost the entire guitar beneath the scratch plate. Only the most expensive models have a compact format for the ciruitry.

Perhaps the ideal solution is to have either a hex or piezzo pickup do the job, and concentrate on making that work. It does apparently work, but there is not enough signal strength, from what I have read here, so why don't we assign one team to that and another to the EMF problem, then see which turns out the most worthwhile and useful to the overall project?

Now, unfortunately, not being either well versed in either electronics, engineering or instrument building, I can only speak from my experience as a musician, but on the other hand those who are more technically skilled and less advanced as musicians might benefit from the observations made by those who are skilled musicians. Undoubtedly there will be some who fall into both categories, like Allan Holdsworth (who builds and designs much of his own gear), but I am willing to bet they are few and far between. Jeff Miller is one of those highly gifted exceptions, but then again he thinks nothing of building project after project using Variax's as donors for instruments of his own design that take the best from all technologies - Sustainer, piezzo bridge and Line 6 modelling.

Perhaps someone needs to do some lateral thinking too.

Does this make sense?

God bless,

David

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You make some good points, David, however I'm not sure how effective driving the driver with the middle pickup is really going to be. Keep in mind that the ebow uses a very small, very simple (in comparison to the neck pickup) coil to pickup the string vibrations. I highly doubt that this coil is able to reproduce all the nuances of the vibrating string at that node like the neck pickup can. Also, as far as the nodes go, the node above the neck pickup is only really the most useful when playing open strings. As you move up the neck, the nodes move further away from the neck pickup. Once you get up past the 15th fret or so, the only tonal characteristics you are going to hear will be from the actual specifications of the pickup (wire diameter, resistance, etc).

This is not to discredit your ideas -- I'd love to get my neck pickup back. However, I think we need to tackle the EMI problem before anything else.

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No time just now...but...a lot of these problems were trying to be addressed by the extraordinary amount of time spent on the hex devices.

I too am interested in some of the characteristics of the ebow and it's interactions with the pickups. I think there are other reasons for the preferance of the neck pickup with the ebow however...

EMI can be reduced (with a bit of work) enough for a mid driver I believe...a twin humbucker may be puhing it a little as far as space goes and with a lot of guitars such as a Les Paul, there would require significant modifications to install a mid driver anyway...

As for using the neck pickup. For the reason that primal observes...that the device will drive the string even when fretted very close to the driver itself on the highest frets...the driver could be mounted on the bridge pickup and driven and used with the neck pickup. Indeed, you could have two drivers in both pickup positions and switch between the two for different effects and combination (but never in combination).

The mid driver would allow the use of either pickup and combinations and the ability to source the driving signal from any of these pickups too. Hence my interest more in this type of development. This would most likely be suitable really for strat type setups with plenty of space between the pickups. 24 fret shreader guitars may have some problems as the pickups are all forced pretty close together and many other instruments without mid pickups will be too hard to modify.

There are some aspects of the ebow that I don't fully understand in relation to their interactions with the pickups. An important aspect is that it is a self contained system containing both it's own pickup and driver. (It should also be noted that it only needs to deal with one string at a time and can be moved along the string!). This begs the question of whether a closed system (dedicated pickup and driver system) would not be advantageous with a fixed sustainer also. In this regard, a piezo bridge pickup driving the sustainer seems like the best option.

My understanding of the ebow is that there is an interaction with pickups. There is significant gain and distortion as it passes over the pickup...increased magnetic field and signal entering the pickup from the driver...which is put to use with many techniques with the ebow. By sliding the ebow towards the pickup you get that bowed effect of increased volume and drive...you can even get cancellation effects that can produce a neat tremolo effect...or so I believe. There are some cool clips on the ebow site demonstrating these techniques.

The down side of the ebow though is that it interferes with picking and is monophonic (only one string at a time). The sustainer offers unrestricted playing and chord playing. There has been some interest in making a better ebow from time to time...a very small ebow would seem possible for instance. The ebow is a very good design ergonomically and contains the battery and all components...it would be difficult to redesign it without detracting from it's functions in some way (eg by having a small difficult to handle mini ebow powered by wire to a remote battery)...

Anyway...just a few thoughts.

pete :D

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I highly doubt that this coil is able to reproduce all the nuances of the vibrating string at that node like the neck pickup can.

Hi Primal, thanks for your reply....one thing that makes me question that statement is the fact that very subtle nuances are indeed picked up by the e-bow, a fact verifiable through experimenting with an acoustic (bronze wound strings) guitar. In my opinion it is extremely expressive, but simply lacks the power to drive the acoustic strings into sustain with no pickup. Thus the response is a little too slow. But in terms of nuances it is far more subtle than when aplified. If anything the power of the pickups themselves tends to create a more distorted sound, then you lose the amazing violin like timbres produced by the e-bow on an acoustic.

Also, as far as the nodes go, the node above the neck pickup is only really the most useful when playing open strings. As you move up the neck, the nodes move further away from the neck pickup. Once you get up past the 15th fret or so, the only tonal characteristics you are going to hear will be from the actual specifications of the pickup (wire diameter, resistance, etc).

Who plays beyond the 15th fret? What is the point, when the harmonic mode of a sustainer effectively raises the pitch by 1 to 2 octaves? I dislike the quality of the notes played at the highest frets anyway, they sound thin and weedy. I much prefer to 'catch' the harmonic of a lower note then through feedback obtain the octave....

This is not to discredit your ideas -- I'd love to get my neck pickup back. However, I think we need to tackle the EMI problem before anything else.

I believe that was the point I made....

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Those of you who have an e-bow can test this out for yourselves. You will find that the best results come from finding the node above the neck pickup - the strings vibrate far more readily from there - the sweet spot.

Now obviously, the e-bow shares much of the same technology that goes into our Sustainers, yet does not seem to suffer from the EMF radiation problem - one can use any of the pickups and it will still function. So perhaps we need to look at what it is that renders the e-bow less vulnerable to this interference. Then once that is solved, we can look into what is really the best mounting point on the instrument for the sustain driver, and be able to use it with potentially any of the available pickups. Perhaps I am oversimplifying matters, but nevertheless this seems a logical conclusion to me.

The ebow only has to excite one string at a time, as a result, it doesn't need to generate anything like as much magnetic force, this allows it to have its own driver and pickup pretty close together without major issues. And as Pete pointed out, when it is used near a pickup, the interference is there, but is deemed to be a feature.... this makes sense because of the fact that you can move it around to control this 'feature' - with a fixed driver, it would change from a 'feature' into an 'issue'

I feel that we need to break out of the constraints imposed by this problem, otherwise we will be forever working within those limitations, instead of being able to move in new directions, because our foundation is not as sound as it needs to be in order to continue to build upon it.

which constraints, which problem and which limitations ?

It seems as though you are saying that the fixed six string sustainer has problems that the e-bow doesn't have therefor we should magically be able to remove those problems?

I hope in the long run through refinement and innovation, we can get a simple to build system that can be mounted in the mid position and give good sustain without fizz and grunge, but I doubt it will be by copying the e-bow.

Perhaps the ideal solution is to have either a hex or piezzo pickup do the job, and concentrate on making that work. It does apparently work, but there is not enough signal strength, from what I have read here, so why don't we assign one team to that and another to the EMF problem, then see which turns out the most worthwhile and useful to the overall project?

You provide the teams and I'll tell 'em what to do :D

Seriously, all the success so far has come from individuals giving up their time (a lot), coming up with ideas, and making the commitment to follow up their ideas with hard work. I for one am not about to start telling them what to work on.

Anyone who really wants to help move things on further should be willing to get their hands dirty and Make some stuff, then when/if they eventually get something working, post the details. One thing that we sorely need is for new people to try recreating some of the existing systems. I would love to help anyone who wants to build a setup based on mine because that would help to work out any design faults and also to give more confidence to others that its worth the effort to build.

Now, unfortunately, not being either well versed in either electronics, engineering or instrument building, I can only speak from my experience as a musician, but on the other hand those who are more technically skilled and less advanced as musicians might benefit from the observations made by those who are skilled musicians.

I would guess that everyone here is a good enough musician to judge for themselves the potential value of ideas and technology they are designing and working on. It is one of the reasons that most of the succesful implementations so far have differences - everyone has their own set of goals and reasons for wanting a sustainer. Whats more, most of us here have very little electronics experience prior to this project. Pete has stated that he pretty much tought himself from scratch... I have been building effects units occasionaly for many years, but this is the first time I have attempted any original electronics design... lots of trial and error, lots of research, lots of hard work.

Perhaps someone needs to do some lateral thinking too.

Are you offering? :-p

Have a read through this thread and you will find possibly the richest source of wierd wacky left-field lateral thinking in internet guitardom, and thats just the ideas that got posted, we all have plenty of others that were too daft to even contemplate sharing.

Its amazing :D

Col

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Hi Pete, thank you for your reply, and I apologise for not having the time to comment on your last post. It amazes me how you are able to grasp the essential points of so many points made by contributors to the forum...

No time just now...but...a lot of these problems were trying to be addressed by the extraordinary amount of time spent on the hex devices.

So as not to waste your or anyone else's time covering ground already covered, would someone please post a link to the most important part of the thread dealing with hex pickups, also piezzo....?

I too am interested in some of the characteristics of the ebow and it's interactions with the pickups. I think there are other reasons for the preferance of the neck pickup with the ebow however...

EMI can be reduced (with a bit of work) enough for a mid driver I believe...a twin humbucker may be puhing it a little as far as space goes and with a lot of guitars such as a Les Paul, there would require significant modifications to install a mid driver anyway...

My Ibanez has HSH configuration, but with my project guitar I am thinking more in terms of a pair of stacked humbuckers and a vintage type single coil in the middle position. Looking at the various companies producing pickups with variations on that theme makes me think it is possible to get close enough to the desired humbucking tone without needing to install a full sized humbucker. I actually find the quality of the sound produced by the smaller magnetic field of a single coil sized humbucker to be preferable, there seems to be more definition and once you wire it serial/parallel and can actually turn one of the coils off, I believe one can then get back to a fairly close approximation of a Strat pickup. Actually having a guitar with standard Strat pickups and another with and HSH configuration has shown me just how muddy humbuckers are when compared to single coils. They are great for fat sounds, but little else.

As for using the neck pickup. For the reason that primal observes...that the device will drive the string even when fretted very close to the driver itself on the highest frets...the driver could be mounted on the bridge pickup and driven and used with the neck pickup. Indeed, you could have two drivers in both pickup positions and switch between the two for different effects and combination (but never in combination).

Now you're talking! That really gets the inspirational glands salivating.....

The mid driver would allow the use of either pickup and combinations and the ability to source the driving signal from any of these pickups too. Tell me more!!!! Would this all be possible with just the one circuit, or would each driver need its own?

Hence my interest more in this type of development. This would most likely be suitable really for strat type setups with plenty of space between the pickups. 24 fret shreader guitars may have some problems as the pickups are all forced pretty close together and many other instruments without mid pickups will be too hard to modify.

Speaking of this, you went the route of rebuilding the pickup and driver coil as an integrated unit, but presumably you first investigated the possibilities of mounting the thin driver on a standard pickup? Well, I am having problems seeing how it is at the same time possible to satisfy the needs of the pickup to be sufficiently close to the string, and for the driver itself to be even closer, in order to avoid battery drain...most pickups are either staggered pole pieces, screw height-adjustable pole pieces, or blade derivatives. The only type I can conceive of as being really possible to use is the screw height-adjustable type, but 2mm is a lot to raise the screws. Practically speaking what were your findings? Has anyone else successfully mounted their driver over a standard pickup, without losing power, tone and sustain (aside from the driver) when using the pickup as a pickup?

There are some aspects of the ebow that I don't fully understand in relation to their interactions with the pickups. An important aspect is that it is a self contained system containing both it's own pickup and driver. (It should also be noted that it only needs to deal with one string at a time and can be moved along the string!). Yes, quite :D ...

This begs the question of whether a closed system (dedicated pickup and driver system) would not be advantageous with a fixed sustainer also. In this regard, a piezo bridge pickup driving the sustainer seems like the best option. Well, as my guitar already has a piezzo bridge, I would be more than happy to explore that avenue. I am very much a rookie when it comes to this type of project, and I am just about to instal my first sustainer, thanks to zfrittz6, without whose excellent craftsmanship I would not have been able to do anything much....but in order for it to work with the piezzo, I presume that the output of the piezzo needs to be boosted somehow?

My understanding of the ebow is that there is an interaction with pickups. There is significant gain and distortion as it passes over the pickup...increased magnetic field and signal entering the pickup from the driver...which is put to use with many techniques with the ebow.

Yes, apparently some even say that the e-bow can damage magnetic pickups, or at least reduce the effectiveness of the magnets.

By sliding the ebow towards the pickup you get that bowed effect of increased volume and drive...you can even get cancellation effects that can produce a neat tremolo effect...or so I believe. There are some cool clips on the ebow site demonstrating these techniques.

I found that sliding the e-bow away from the pickup or rather the sweet spot over the neck pickup is what produces the most noticeable changes in timbre, and it is precisely that facility that makes it so special - you can ride the harmonics along the string, but the whole process is somewhat a matter of chance, get it a little wrong and you can kill the note instead.

The down side of the ebow though is that it interferes with picking and is monophonic (only one string at a time). Absolutely, it forces the player to accomodate to its shape, weight and dimensions, and severely restricts finger movement. And it is also poorly designed for the outside strings - playing on the high or low E string is a delicate balancing act that does not always work...mostly because you only at that point have a single rail to guide the e-bow over the string, and it is all too easy to allow the e-bow to come into too close proximity to

The sustainer offers unrestricted playing and chord playing. There has been some interest in making a better ebow from time to time...a very small ebow would seem possible for instance. The ebow is a very good design ergonomically and contains the battery and all components...it would be difficult to redesign it without detracting from it's functions in some way (eg by having a small difficult to handle mini ebow powered by wire to a remote battery)...

Forgive me repeating myself for perhaps the umpteenth time, but I still don't understand why it is not possible to run a device like the e-bow, or indeed the sustainer from a series of lithium cells, or alternatively the type of battery now used in cell phones....do we really need to use a bulky 9v battery when all these alternative technologies exist in such a comparitively small size? And does it really need to be 9v? zfrittz6 has designed his circuits around a different voltage, and told me that it would last far longer than the 9v. In fact the only reason I have to stick with the 9v is that the piezzo circuitry is already installed with a 9v supply, and the sustainer is going to share the pre-amp of the piezzo as far as I understand. the string, at which point the vibrating string strikes the surface of the e-bow, resulting in a horrible buzzing noise - unless you're into that sort of thing B):D

But I am really excited about the prospect of being able to use a sustainer and have the ability to use it on all the strings and with chords as well! - I have never had the opportunity to try a sustainer other than my e-bow, this is going to be amazing! And without you guys, that would probably never have happened in my lifetime, because I would never have been able to justify shellng out so much for one of the commercial sustainers, so thanks. I do use distortion, but for me it is a definite second best to feedback-induced sustain - or should that be sustain-induced feedback? But I have never had the luxury of having a Dumble or similar amp nor being able to play at sufficient volume to get controlled feedback/sustain like Larry Carlton, Scott Henderson, Jeff Beck and those guys - so now, even in our Worship group I will be able to get it...praise the Lord!

Enjoy your weekend and God bless.

David

Anyway...just a few thoughts.

pete :D

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Hi Primal, thanks for your reply....one thing that makes me question that statement is the fact that very subtle nuances are indeed picked up by the e-bow, a fact verifiable through experimenting with an acoustic (bronze wound strings) guitar. In my opinion it is extremely expressive, but simply lacks the power to drive the acoustic strings into sustain with no pickup. Thus the response is a little too slow. But in terms of nuances it is far more subtle than when aplified. If anything the power of the pickups themselves tends to create a more distorted sound, then you lose the amazing violin like timbres produced by the e-bow on an acoustic.

I think you misunderstood me. When I said nuances, I was not referring to expressiveness. I was referring to tonal characteristics of the vibrating string and how the neck pickup picks these up compared to how the e-bow pickup picks these up (and then transfers them back into the string to drive it).

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David, I designed my sustainer to use a 12v battery (actually, an 8-cell AA battery clip). The components you use dictate the power you can use. The LM386 chip has a range anywhere between 6v (I believe) to 18v+, depending on the manufacturer and specific specifications of the chip (those voltages are estimates -- they can have a variety of values). Obviously, you would not want to use an 18v power supply for a 12v circuit, because reducing the voltage via resistors greatly decreased the efficiency of the battery. As for the cell phone type batteries, for the most part I think they are too expensive to use during this phase of research. Once this project is finalized, if ever, then we could start looking at alternate batteries. As of right now, however, standard off the shelf batteries are more cost efficient, I think.

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:D

Have a read through this thread and you will find possibly the richest source of wierd wacky left-field lateral thinking in internet guitardom, and thats just the ideas that got posted, we all have plenty of others that were too daft to even contemplate sharing.

Its amazing :biggrin.gif

Col

That has got to be one of the best quotes on here Col!!!!

Yes, there has been some amazing lateral thinking and a lot that has not been posted. A lot of people have felt intimidated and I can sypathise, there has been a lot of stuff that I have done that I dare not admit too. We are talking hundreds of hours on my part alone thinking through, but more importantly (untill the last year or so) a lot of practical work. Bear in mind also, that there are people in the world who's business it is to think about this stuff...they have product out there, patents and they get paid...they also have a lot of experience and expertise I am sure.

Lateral thinking though is the name of the game and I think we have made significant progress by following this path rather than replicating the products already available. I think more progress can still be made and over the last year there has been quite a bit. Certainly, the project has been taken in practical ways (I'm thinking Col's circuit for example, or Tim's jigamethingie) than I could have done on my own.

As for the Hex and Piezo parts of this thread. Some things were never really revealed. Most of the Hex devices were kept pretty secret even though I was working on them for a full year. They did influence the current thin driver concept, but were very different in many ways.

The piezo experiments were two fold....

One was the desire to have a DIY piezo pickup in my guitar. For a while the sustainer strat did have a piezo in the neck pocket, but I never got around to a full install and removed it as the wires hanging out eventually got to me. In pictures of the guitar you will see two extra knobs...one of these was for the piezo.

The other was in the idea of a piezo driver! Using layered piezo's in the bridge saddles to vibrate the strings and so avoiding any EMI and the thing would be invisible. Didn't work of course, along with all kinds of other motors and solenoid like experiments.

Besides the sustainer, I was also looking into and working on a design for a bridge with push button retuning, using the strats sustain block, ball bearings and levers. Kind of like adrian legg's stuff or the hipshot trilogy, but with far less visible workings on board. I had some success with this before it needed to be abandoned. Like everything though, had I suceeded anyway, at best I would have a working prototype with no way to profit from it....oh well!

So...the hex driver had many reasons for being. Compact surface mounting, no coil winding, it used every possible lateral thinking device possible to limit EMI and increase efficiency. A single string driver was able to operate within 2cm from a true single coil. However they were difficult to make and have significant quirks, especially to do with alignment.

Acoustic guitars with bronze strings will always be a problem to magnetic sustainers because of the low amount of magnetic material in those wound strings. The only solution really is to use electric guitar strings I would think.

As for the twin drivers...I imagine that you could use a single circuit but the simultaneous switching of pickups and drivers and the avoidance of combinations...and the problem of noise of course, could be pretty steep.

As for humbuckers...yes, it is difficult to return to them once you have been playing single coils. My new strat has a great sound from it's neck and middle alnico squier single coils, and it's bridge "Duncan Designed" JB sounds good too, but not entirely to my liking and the two types of pickups are quite out of balance volume and tone wise. Still...a humbucker is noiseless and you have to like that. And, I do think Col's style of twin coil driver could be built on top of one in a manner similar to my own device.

It's great that this thread has continued to foster such discussions. Keep the mind active has been shown to increase life expectancy by years I am told. This thread has been a very interesting phenomenon really. One of the amazing things about it is how expansive and open it has been by all who have participated (with a couple of notable exceptions B) to prove the rule) and I hope all can see that criticisim for what it is and not let it inhibit them in any way.

Still I could be accused of too much pride to disclose everything...at one time I was accused of faking the whole thing which really did hurt. The fact is that things come from failure...most things did not work and those that did came about mostly from trying things out that shouldn't have worked, or at least had not been explored before.

A lot of stuff is visionary too. I think the best things happen when people think about what they would like and find some kind of comprimise in between. The sustainer as it stands has some of those elements. but I think the mid driver, if it can be achieved may take it to a level where things like circuits and standardisation can occur and perhaps some kind of product, or at least clear instruction can ensue.

Anyway...another typically long post, so i will leave it there. Again, great to see the discussion continues even when I am away. I have retrieved a lot of the vital equipment to make this project, just need to get a bit of the old fire back, a place to work and some inspiration to start experimenting again.

I think the first port of call would be to make a coil on a jigamethingy type thing that could fit a standard single coil and perhaps a little of this powdered epoxy/iron shielding. Keep it simple...at the least it should work as well as my present guitar in the neck position, and we will see how it fairs in the mid slot perhaps. It may be that we need to get a little tricky to suceed there though, so I am not expecting it to be an easy victory. It is easy to get overcomplicated till you try things I have found, and no one will really know till they have a go. At the very least, if it remains a neck driving device, I may strike an easy way to manufactuer the coils saving people that job and finding the wire...we'll see...

check you later... pete :D

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Hi Primal, thanks for your reply....one thing that makes me question that statement is the fact that very subtle nuances are indeed picked up by the e-bow, a fact verifiable through experimenting with an acoustic (bronze wound strings) guitar. In my opinion it is extremely expressive, but simply lacks the power to drive the acoustic strings into sustain with no pickup. Thus the response is a little too slow. But in terms of nuances it is far more subtle than when aplified. If anything the power of the pickups themselves tends to create a more distorted sound, then you lose the amazing violin like timbres produced by the e-bow on an acoustic.

I think you misunderstood me. When I said nuances, I was not referring to expressiveness. I was referring to tonal characteristics of the vibrating string and how the neck pickup picks these up compared to how the e-bow pickup picks these up (and then transfers them back into the string to drive it).

:D Sorry Primal, I was thinking from a muso's perspective, rather than an engineering one, so I defer to your experience in that area. But from a musician's perspective I still say that the e-bow is a very subtle tool - limited, in terms of what it could do with the right development and with respect to what a musician requires of such a device - we have already covered that is some detail...

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