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Sustainer Ideas


psw

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B) Boy that was a quick reply monkey man...

Read some of the thread, there is a picture of one 1-2 pages back...

Basically a Hex (latin for six) Pickup is six individual pickups, one for each string.

With the Sustainer, you're actually talking about six Drivers making the string vibrate to create, amoungst other things, infinite sustain.

No I wont tell you how it works exactly but there is lots of stuff within this thread. Current ideas are effectively pickups in reverse, but this is an over simplification...

psw :D

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ok i read most of the thread. I can understand half of it. If you wanted the string to vibrate longer (thats my guess of what you said a sustainer does) what about having 2 singel string pickups eqaul distant from the string having the same pole. Then send a magnetic charge through the string in the same pole direction too. This way the string will rong longer. I mean it wouldnt be infinate but long enough right. The magnets on the body would also be at an angle facing the string. Plucking the sting would cause the string to vibrate but when forces of tension bring the string down, the magentic field would force the string up causeing a vibrate up. This would then go back and forth for about 3 times the reular sustained time with no sustainer. Wouldnt it. Just my understanding. Oh i couldnt find the picture with the showing of the magnet set up

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ok PSW. Now you say

With the Sustainer, you're actually talking about six Drivers making the string vibrate to create, amoungst other things, infinite sustain.

No I wont tell you how it works exactly but there is lots of stuff within this thread. Current ideas are effectively pickups in reverse, but this is an over simplification...

Whats a driver. Im new at this sorry. I saw a loot of the stuff. Now on the 9x is the small little hole for the string to go into. Or what is that. Can you explain it a little more like the 8x

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:DOK sorry

Basically I'm working with very small electronics and magnetics to activate the string via a magnetic field.

I hope to have some photos soon of my test guitar (I don't have a digital camera so I have to scan them through when they're developed).

Basically it's just like a pickup but small enough, in my designs, to fit below the strings near the bridge. The hole is actually a marker, like a pole piece so you can see where in the magnetic field it should pass. The string goes over and across the black dot to the bridge.

A Hex version would have six of such drivers within it

Hope you get the idea from this

psw

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:DOops only read the last post Monkey

Actually you were'nt too far from the mark with your original thoughts. Yes they would cancel out and actually try to stop the string vibrating...unless...you reversed the signal.

One problem, before anyone tries this is that if you use a conventional pickup to drive the string you will burn it out and have to use enormous amount of power to overcome the impedance problem...

See my first post on this thread for an example!

Of course many have tried but there are alot of problems obviously otherwise we'd see them everywhere...thats why I'm working on it.

I can't disclose the magnetic field of the x series drivers as they are unique and the heart of my current work on this.

Conventional fields as found in a pickup, as I used in the CP1 work however but size and EMI are a problem.

It is intriguing as it seems so simple...yet

hope you stick around and help us solve the problem

psw

P.S. [/color]Seven string version could easily be made but the drivers need to be put into one unit. Same thing lefties, I'm not sure whether a special reverse driver configuration would be needed for you.

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ok. Thanks. Well when you started this idea you didnt mae a hex drive yet correct (hence start). Well where did you get the info on how to make your first sustainer. I would like to understand more to help you. I have a fix for electronics and can have ideas. If you would like you can PM the info to me if you do not want to reveal it but do want to tell me. Or you just dont want to say. Well i would like to try and make one too. Can you explain how a magnetic field will sustain a vibrating string.

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:DSorry, no can do at this moment...

While inspiration may appear quick, this has taken hundreds of hours and a lot of money on my part so I am not prepared to make public too much detail of how my sustainer works.

If you check out my post on Links and Patents you can see how others have done it.

That doesn't mean that you can't help...

For instance, do you know anything about digital high speed electronic switching?

Also basic low powered audio amplification and limiting...

Just contributing ideas for what you'd want a sustainer to be or how you would use it provides really good input and a springboard for ideas

At the moment though, my only protection is to keep the technical details secret

hope you understand

psw

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:DOK fellas, here is the latest development....

THIS IS THE CP9x in Hex format with a new look design....

CP9xHEX.jpg

Again this is larger than actual size...it's 12mm wide x 95mm long. The ribbon cable takes all outputs out for prototyping purposes so would be neater in a production version

psw

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OK Monkey...

Hope you like the pic of the new one...

The digital switching comes in because I have some ideas for using the driver as a hex pickup/driver in the event that simply taking the combined signal from the guitars pickups proves to be ineffective. It's a pretty simple concept, basically a fancy LED follow but using audio ins and outs...

welcome aboard

psw

P.S. In case anyone missed it, bumped onto the previous page is the picture of the latest prototype..................the CP9x HEX...

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ok well just so i can get the feel of a sustainer. Can you tell me how to make one. maybe not a Xseries or one of yours but another. Oh im a quick poster sorry. Well i got an idea. What if you sent pulses though a coil. The coil would be around the string the pulses would make the string go into a circlular vibration causeing the sustain. The pulse would make it so the string doesnt stop but actually moves around the coil and causing a quick magnetic field that moves around. one more thing the 9x does that cover all the strings

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You are quick, but it's 5:30 am down here so it's back to bed for me...

B)You really have to read the thread as that and a lot of other obvious ideas have been explored :D

For now, If you send a simple pulse the string will try to vibrate at the frequency of the pulse, not the note being played. It wont even do that unless it is close in resonant frequency to the note of the string...Also EMI would cause the pulse to be heard through the guitars own pickups...not good

nice try though :D

psw

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Hey monkey if you want to try to build a sustainer then i suggest u look up my thread on electonics on how to build a fairly simple one.

it consists of a 'little gem' circuit as the amp, and a coil wound to 9 ohms with a thick guage wire such as AWG 23. its fairly simple but gives an idea of how the fernandez one works, plus if u use a swith then u can get the harmonic effct but im not sure how to do it.

hope it helps, i might build one soon if it goes well.

Matt.

PS this is no where near the complicity of psw's but it might help you to add some ideas to his project.

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well one problem is i would like to see a sustainer being built with photos. I mean i looked them up and all i found were computer gen. pics. Well, i still dont get what a driver is. looked all over. ill google it now. Oh and got an idea. If you put a sensor on the pickup and have the gadget i said on the previous post about the pulses it might work. The sensor will pickup the note frequency from the vibrating string. Then send the frequency to the chip which will then send pulses to the right frequency around the coil to the tring. There fore causing a infinate sustain.

Also EMI would cause the pulse to be heard through the guitars own pickups...not good

well um i might need some help with that.

5 min. later Found out that driver is the part that makes the string vibrate. It puts motion into another part.

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well a driver is just a pickup coil, except you put current through it, not using it to create a signal.

I know what posistio ur in because i was in that position - correction, i still am.!

-Ok what you do is get some thickish wire as i said and wind it around a pickup bobbin to something like 9 ohms, ( a good idea is to get a scrap ceramic single coil, and take off the existing coils. - with the amount of current going through it, they'll melt!!).

-Once you have wound the pickup, make sure u pot it gud'n proper like with epoxy, otherwise the actuall coils will vibrate inside!! THIS IS THE DRIVER!!!!!

-Then go to www.runoffgroove.com and build the 'little gem'. This is used as the amp to produce the signal.

OK from now im not to sure how it goes together, but it sumthing like, put the wires from the bridge PU into the input of the sustainer, and then put the sustainer/DRIVER in the NECK position, and wire to the output of the circuit.

In order to get the octave effect that fernandez has, just install a dpdt "invert" switch between the headphone amp and the coil. Think of it like a positive and negative feedback switch... The harmonics effect is gotten by negating the fundamental.... And getting really SICK with the magnetic field.

Hey dude if you build this, could you tell me how it goes as im thinking about making it, (i havn't tried it yet!! -but it is supposed to work fairly well)

good luck Matt

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i might but i dont understand part of it. Well the

In order to get the octave effect that fernandez has, just install a dpdt "invert" switch between the headphone amp and the coil. Think of it like a positive and negative feedback switch... The harmonics effect is gotten by negating the fundamental.... And getting really SICK with the magnetic field.

i dont know where on the headphoe and the coil you are talking about. Plus im making a ruby probably. Will that work.

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:Dkind of...

The chip would be an amplifier and the pulses simply the typical signal to a headphone or speaker. Instead of a speaker though you have a driver coil and the string moves like the cone in the speaker. If the sensor (which is just a pickup like a microphone) gets too close to the driver (or a PA speaker for instance) you get that ear splitting hi frequency oscillation.

What you don't want is this!

EMI stands for electro-magnetic Interferance and can transfer signals just as a transformer can transfer power (same principle). You can effectively wire the in to the out which causes this uncontrolled squeel. There are alot of different resonant frequencies...in the coils especially, the string of course and it's harmonics, even in the amp. Then there's all the phase problems, etc, etc...

Really Monkey, the principle is simple and your kind of grasping it, but you really need to study this stuff and especially put it into action and see what happens, then study some more to find out why. :DB):D

I have hoped by laying bare the frustrations of my sustainer project would inspire people to do stuff themselves and not give up or suggest stuff to me and others to see the result. I don't think the ultimate sustainer will be as complicated in the end but it's not going to fall into my lap. Look at all the design changes I've made...

I ran out of magnets I've use over 200 of em...that should give you an idea of the amount of stuff I've made and it still doesn't work in a truely playable fashion.

Keep trying, the 386 chip projects like the Ruby are a good place to start...maybe a few effect boxes...I don't want to put you or others off but building something like this, that hasn't been made before...thats for the insane.

If you want to try something like this...try and make an Ebow...same principle as you are suggesting

good luck all

psw

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well i looked at the patents. No scehmatics for the E-bow. Well can anyone help me out. I now understand a little how it works. Its like having its own pickup inside the ebow and thats basically what i got. I didnt understand how it sustains it. Help me on that too.

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Dude, not being sour or anything, but psw is obviously very busy, Im not sure if he has alot of time on his hands and cant give you too much advice. Ive been researching pickups and pickup winding for about 5 mounths solid, and i still have alot to learn.

my advice is to really look into this stuff by reading other peoples threads first, and then re-read them once you understand something a bit more. It will all fall into place eventually B) .

heres the thread that i started and heres a reply i got on how to build a sustainer.

"I just had to reply...

I'm sure fernandez's is much cooler, but I have a home made jobby in my guitar. It took one day to build.

First I ripped the wire off a junker ceramic magnet single coil. R.G. pointed out that if you used alnico, the strong magnetic field will unmagnetize it.

I bought some magnet wire from radio shack, pretty heavy guage...28 guage maybe? I measured the spool and total it had 20 ohms, so I wound about half onto my bobbin making a 9 ohm coil. About what a speakers ohm's are!

The coil has to run alot of current to get the strings to move!

The driver I built using a lm386 headphone IC. You can get that at radio shack too, But the radio shack book's circuit oscillates because it doesn't have compensation.... So go to : runoffgroove.com and start by building a "little gem" with that lm386!(he has the needed compensation!).

In order to get the octave effect that fernandez has, just instal a dpdt "invert" switch between the headphone amp and the coil. Think of it like a positive and negative feedback switch... The harmonics effect is gotten by negating the fundamental.... And getting really SICK with the magnetic field.

the coil will have alot of power and the wires will want to vibrate, so try to wind it tight... and maybe glue it. I had to pot mine twice because I could hear the wires vibrating. And my anger almost shattered my molars....

And another thing...The new load is highly inductave, so the compensation thing is key... in the little gems amp thing, it is a resistor and a cap across the output. You might have to play with it. maybe if you added a small series resistor with the coil... just to chill the load a bit, that might help.

It is fun and pretty easy. there are like 30 turns on the coil, and building a headphone amp is a real good beginning soldering project.( except do watch out for that bastard inductive load!)

Good luck!

-eth

OHHHH! By the way build it outside of the guitar first... solder a temporary jack to it and use the coil with your right hand while you fret with your left hand. And you will want to use the invert switch no matter what, because the phase will be any bodies guess!

PS. sorry psw if this is a bit off the subject of your hex driver. :D

Matt

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