My Guitar Sustain Problem, Wonder If You Can Help.

[MichiganBoySB]

Jeez it seems like years that I've been trying to repair this "custom" guitar of mine. I changed out my tubes, strings, pickups, amps, cabinets and speakers and had my electrical redone. Had it "setup" about 3 times and it still seems "stoppy" or "blocky" to me rather than fluid. Know what I'm trying to say? For the longest time I struggled with not just the lack of sustain but lack of controllable feedback but recently fixed that with a good setup. So that's not a problem anymore but if I can just get the single notes to sustain longer I'll be golden. And as of recently I've been learning about how to perform a setup on a guitar and noticed that my nut string notches are cut too low where when I depress between the 2nd and 3rd fret then my 3rd,4th and 5th string touch the 1st fret. I'm about to either have the nut redone at a shop or attempt to do it myself and hope this finally fixes the problem cuz I'm getting tired of this. Tell me more ... appreciate it guys.

Ken

[Mickguard]

Is this a guitar you built yourself? One you modded? Had built for you?

Details will help, so will photos.

[MichiganBoySB]

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/mygear.jpg

Quicksilver on the left, it was made for me. I changed out the p/u's three times, had the wiring gone over by a tech and all the rest I mentioned. Flamed maple with korina body, ebony fretboard, maple neck, Dimarzio air norton for neck and air zone for bridge. Sperzel tuners, tone pro with ghs strings. I've been learning about setups and all and feel comfortable with setting it up myself and having it in tune etc.... But the one thing I seem to have trouble in improving on is the darn sustain. I'm thinking either my frets are already flat or it could be the nut or saddles, I dunno. Hope I clarified this for you some more.

Ken

[RGman]

http://www.wideopenwest.com/~kpasque/mygear.jpg

Quicksilver on the left, it was made for me. I changed out the p/u's three times, had the wiring gone over by a tech and all the rest I mentioned. Flamed maple with korina body, ebony fretboard, maple neck, Dimarzio air norton for neck and air zone for bridge. Sperzel tuners, tone pro with ghs strings. I've been learning about setups and all and feel comfortable with setting it up myself and having it in tune etc.... But the one thing I seem to have trouble in improving on is the darn sustain. I'm thinking either my frets are already flat or it could be the nut or saddles, I dunno. Hope I clarified this for you some more.

Ken

Seing as the nut and bridge are the endpoints of the strings vibrating length you should get them checked out. If anything it would be more likely to be the nut.

[brian d]

I doubt that the problem is with the nut. Once you fret the note, everything from the nut to the fretted fret is not vibrating at all anyway, so doesn't really influence the sustain.

FWIW, I would look at the distance of the p/ups to the strings - too close and the magnets will pull on the strings and inhibit their vibrations, too far and they won't pick up the final (lower amplitude) vibrations of the string.

Hope that helps,

Brian.

[RGman]

I doubt that the problem is with the nut. Once you fret the note, everything from the nut to the fretted fret is not vibrating at all anyway, so doesn't really influence the sustain.

FWIW, I would look at the distance of the p/ups to the strings - too close and the magnets will pull on the strings and inhibit their vibrations, too far and they won't pick up the final (lower amplitude) vibrations of the string.

Hope that helps,

Brian.

Thanks for clearing that up brian, my post was more assumption than anything.

[Mickguard]

I had a similar problem with the guitar I built--except it was just with the bridge pickup. The neck pickup was great, tons of sustain, surprising really. But the bridge pickup was just...dead. Nothing. Notes just died. I'm not sure why --maybe I didn't position that pickup where it should have been? Tried raising it, tried lowering it, didn't help. I'm thinking it might have been too close to the bridge.

So do both pickups give you problems or just one?

[MichiganBoySB]

Yea the neck and bridge pickup both are lifeless and I'm a tweaker of all tweakers, playing with the p/u height, tone pros and tail piece height. The nut being taken out of the equation is an interesting look at it. Lets see I changed out pretty much everything but the neck, nut and tone pros... oh ya and the tuners but doubt that they prevent sustain. It isn't THAT old of a custom-made guitar, bout a year... can't believe its the frets but could be. Guess my next move can be replacing the nut and tone pros for shits and giggles. I hate sending my guitar away to some legendary luthier since none around here have a clue! But I just might have to do that if I cannot fix it myself. There are such things as the sustaniac as you know and the ebo but don't think they are necessary, I want to get to the bottom of this. Directions, directions ... whatcha think my next move can be?

Thankyou,

Ken

[crafty]

Sell the guitar. It just isn't working out for you. I don't know what one of those Ed Roman abortions will bring on the market, but it just sounds like a lemon.

You have an awesome amp set up, although I'd try the Rec with a set of EL34's and see if that helps the bloom. That guitar really sounds like it just isn't working for you and no matter how many parts you change it's just not going to do the job. Given the smattering of crap ER seems to throw around his website, I'm not surprised that you're having problems with it, either.

Keep in mind that ER's design philosophy mandates moving the pickups out of the harmonic nodes on the scale AND relieving tension on the neck. Both sound like they'd create a pretty dull and lifeless guitar, so I wonder if your experience is any indication of the performance of the line.

[Mickguard]

So did you ever contact Ed Roman about the problem? Seems like a pricey guitar like that ought to have some backup?

I agree with Crafty ( ), some guitars just aren't meant to be. It might work out for the next guy though.

[brian d]

Where did Ed Roman come into it? I don't see where Ken mentioned him.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, how does the guitar sound/feel when it is unplugged?

Brian.

[Mickguard]

Quicksilver is Ed Roman's 'brand'....they're pricey guitars, ranging up to $7500!

[brian d]

Thanks for clearing that up Mickguard. That's one less thing I'm ignorant about. So many more to go....

Brian.

[MichiganBoySB]

Didn't realize its lack of sustain till long after I bought it. The most important thing to me at the time was to finally have a guitar that stayed in tune up and down the neck so I had him include the buzz feiten. That would suck if the pickups were in a non-optimum position cuz I can't really correct that. And I'd be taking more of a hit if I sold this thing for a quarter of what I got into it. I wanted to put a new neck on it from Warmoth but turns out I just can't simply throw one of their necks in a quicksilver. I got to keep awn keeping awn with this "repair"... I'm in too deep. My next move shall be to throw a new tone pros on it and a new nut even though I can see how it may not be the nut from what the earlier posted wrote. I'll keep you posted of course.

Ken

Oh and yea I did try modifying the amp tubes with a "my fav" tube package from Euro tubes. half EL34's and 6L6's with a different rectifier tube set on EL34. I'll prolly end up sending this thing to Mark Arnquist (luthier), have him do his thing then go with a legit guitar like Les Paul.

Edited November 25, 2006 by MichiganBoySB

[Mickguard]

You know, I bet if you keep giving details, one of the 'doctors' here will be able to make the diagnosis.

So this is a bolt-on neck?

[guitar2005]

Couple of questions:

1) What string gauge do you use

2) How high/low is the action (measured plz)

3) What is the neck relief (measured plz)

4) How close are the pickup poles to the fretted strings at fret 21?

5) Is the problem in a certain range or all over the neck?

6) Do you have another guitar that sustain longer for reference?

[MichiganBoySB]

You know, I bet if you keep giving details, one of the 'doctors' here will be able to make the diagnosis.

So this is a bolt-on neck?

Its a "bolt-in" neck... I'll provide some detailed pictures for you today so maybe someone can notice any gross errors.

Ken

[Mickguard]

Its a "bolt-in" neck... I'll provide some detailed pictures for you today so maybe someone can notice any gross errors.

Ken

Next question: has the neck ever been taken off or loosened? Shimmed?

Seems strange to me that you noticed the sustain problem only sometime after you'd been playing the guitar --you'd think you'd notice it right away.

[crafty]

One other "holy grail" philosophy that ER spouts is the removal of the neck heel all the way to the body joint. He rips on PRS for having "heels from hell", but somehow hasn't realized that removing that much mass from the neck can result in a neck full of dead spots.

In other news, you can get ANY custom or production guitar modified for Feiten tuning. Sooner or later you're going to have to suck it up and sell this turkey. There's no reason to keep throwing new parts at a guitar of questionable quality that you were charged waaay too much for in the first place. Maybe Ed will give you a good deal if you trade it in for another guitar, provided you've restored it back to original condition. I'm not sure I'd trust him on another transaction, however.

Find a nice guitar you like and see what you can get for the turkey.

[MichiganBoySB]

One other "holy grail" philosophy that ER spouts is the removal of the neck heel all the way to the body joint. He rips on PRS for having "heels from hell", but somehow hasn't realized that removing that much mass from the neck can result in a neck full of dead spots.

In other news, you can get ANY custom or production guitar modified for Feiten tuning. Sooner or later you're going to have to suck it up and sell this turkey. There's no reason to keep throwing new parts at a guitar of questionable quality that you were charged waaay too much for in the first place. Maybe Ed will give you a good deal if you trade it in for another guitar, provided you've restored it back to original condition. I'm not sure I'd trust him on another transaction, however.

Find a nice guitar you like and see what you can get for the turkey.

I took pictures tonight but my camera's computer cable is at work... I'll get it tomorrow. I'm keeping the guitar and not dealing with Ed Roman again. Eventually I'd like to build my own les paul from Warmoth parts. The neck has never been taken off and again I never paid attention to the lack of sustain cuz as I said I was focused more on how well it stayed in tune etc.... My gibson V needs to get operational again... it was very fluid, I should be working on it instead of this really lol. The usual trussrod setting is at about .007 7th fret you know. Bridge pickup about a 16th while depressing the 19th fret. Neck about n 1/8. Now I worked and tweaked these adjustments like crazy to get a first hand look at how they affect the sound. Nothing seems to increase the note longevity. The playability may get better and tone but the sustaining note seems to lose its life at about 6 seconds. I should kinda clarify this lack of sustain furter; it sustains but loses its life or volume rather rapidly as far as I think. Let me ask you about this... you know the adjustment poles in the p/u's? Well should the screws be, lets say, facing the front on the bridge p/u and facing the back on the neck p/u? Or it doesn't matter? Also this lack of note luster is really all over the neck... but notice it much more in the upper neck region.

Thankyou,

Ken

[Acousticraft]

Have you played this guitar thru another amp to test for sustain?

Does your amp have, or do you use a noise gate pedal as these will kill sustain if adjusted up too high? Maybe you are looking in the wrong place.

You should be able to hear the sustain playing it unplugged acoustically as well.

[crafty]

Fretted notes on the upper frets are going to decay more quickly simply because there's less string length for vibration and it's vibrating at a higher frequency. There's probably nothing particularly wrong with the V other than maybe the pickup is a little too close to the strings. It's a fine balance because you want to have sensitivity but not create so much string pull that it kills the sustain too fast.

Are you running straight into the amp or are you using any kind of boost or overdrive? Are you running a noise gate too?

[MichiganBoySB]

I thought it was my amps as well thats why I'd change out the tubes or send them to a repair tech etc.... But each display this lack luster sustain. One more thing I haven't really paid too much attention to is my guitar cable, just a thought. I'm currently playing through my Budda Superdrive II along with a line6 delay pedal ... that's it. I have the Boss NS-2 but don't use it right now till I get this issue handled. It seems that with music there can be so many elements that try and prevent you from being creative such as extraneous noise issues, or a guitar that won't stay in tune, muddiness or no controllable feedback etc.... I've been slowly but surely handling these issues over the past few years. I'll be honest with ya I was going to quit playing guitar just cuz my G.A.S was costing me a fortune and I wasn't satisfied with the gear. Friend of mine insisted I start fresh with a custom guitar and go from there. Ugh the QUicksiLver.

BTW with regard to having too hot of a pickup magnet pulling on the strings, thought that might be it as well that's why I recently changed out my Dimarzio X2N and neck Tonezone with the air zone and air norton medium p/u's. Pictures will be posted tomorrow ... just by inspecting my guitar maybe you all will see some sort of gross error. How about my question about the poles direction? Does it matter or no?

Later,

Ken

ps: ty for being very responsive

[x_possessed_x]

just my honest opinion but ed roman is a hack.used to and probly still does convert cheap bc rich guitars into usa ones.even makes them or used to and sells them as originals.he use to offer a pretty good bit of $$$ for usa neckplates.probly frauded other companies like jackson also.

[Mickguard]

You know what, I think you should take the guitar to another guitarist you know, leave it with him and ask him to play it for a couple of days. Don't tell him why, just tell him you have an issue, you want to see what he thinks about it. It should be a good guitarist.

What I'm trying to rule out is that this is not some kind of 'guitar dysmorphia' syndrome, you know, like a lot of people get about their bodies, where they look in the mirror and can only find flaws.