Super sustain

[Shaggy]

what kind of ways to build and materials to use to make a guitar that sustains like hell?

[soapbarstrat]

All steel, or even better some kind of alloy they make bells out of. Build the whole guitar out of it (oh yeah, it'll be sooo easy). Put a sustainer pickup in it, pluck a string, then go on vacation in South America for 2 weeks, come back home, and I bet the guitar will still be ringing like hell (although it'll sound like crap)

[GuitarMaestro]

[Shaggy]

i mean real sustain, not something that needs battery's

[Alarung]

I hear South Africa's actually quite nice this time of year.

Regarding sustain,

There are several ways to build a guitar with great sustain. The neck configuration is key, as are the woods. Of course, there are pedals and other artifical sustain enhancers, but wood and neck configuration are what a builder can do.

Sustain is when the body of the guitar continues to vibrate. Denser woods vibrate more than lighter woods, so they have better sustain. Maple, and ash are some of the denser "standard" woods. Also, the less there is to obstruct the vibrations, the greater the sustain is. A 2 peice ash Strat has much better sustain than a 5 peice alder one. Likewise, a Les Paul with a 1 peice maple top has better sustain than a 2 peice plain mahogany LP.

This is where the neck configuration comes in. When a string is hit, it vibrates the length of the guitar, and the less there is to get in the way, the longer the vibration lasts. So a bolt-on neck, which is tightly bolted to the body, but still bolted nonetheless, has worse sustain than a set neck, which is bonded to the body like the peices of the body are bonded to each other. But the style of neck with the best sustain is the neck-through style. It's the hardest to fix in case something goes wrong, but the string is vibrating along the same peice of wood from nut to bridge. And that produces the best sustain of all.

There's also a rumor the the weight of the headstock can affect sustain?

Here.

Hope this helps!

[Drak]

Try using all quartz, that should do it.

But really, this is open to all kinds of interpretations, my take is that very solid construction techniques (i.e., really knowing what the hell you're doing at every stage of the build) is what contributes to great sustain.

Which isn't something I really even shoot for, to tell you the truth (massive natural sustain), I'm usually more concerned with tone and natural resonance. Good sustain just seems to come along for the ride if all else goes well.

I've heard guitars that sustain very well that are tonally dead and buried.

Usually all Maple guitars.

But I agree with Alarung's points for the particulars.

And keep the pkps low, and maybe use some Tone Pro locking bridges and that kind of thing wouldn't hurt.

[Snork]

or explorers...lmao

[soapbarstrat]

Well, the thing is wood just doesn't have what it takes to "sustain like hell", It sustains to a degree we seem to be ok with, but wood actually kills sustain in many ways.

I agree with Drak about all maple guitars tone, but that is one of the wood with more sustain ( I guess because it's quite dense, maybe full of a lot of minerals ?? Maybe like another wood mixed with a little stone ??

Stone will probably sustain like hell. You will sustain like hell if you drop a guitar made of stone on your toe.

There was a guitar made of granite in an old Guitar Player mag I have . I think they said it really sustained, but had a tone that would leave you begging for even a Pat Boone record.

I think you'll really have to use an electric sustaining device to get what I would consider " sustaining like hell".

For more sustain, you can pretty much clamp any guitar to a wood bench and the sustain increases greatly. I find this out everytime I use my neck-jig work-bench

[GuitarMaestro]

To tell you my opinion: Sustain DOES NOT MATTER!!!!

I studied E-Guitar and do alot of studio work, etc. and I never played a guitar in the $500+ range that has not enough sustain for any kind of music and recording/live situation. What do you want that endless sustain for? I don't know a single real world situation where the sustain of a common guitar is too short....And if you talk about Santana-like long rining notes it's simply a matter of the right amp setting and playing technique. Much distortion and playing in front of the box increase your sustain thousand times more then any subtle difference in construction. I can stand in front of my 5150 stack with a standard 250$ squier strat and have a singing note sustain for minutes....What counts is tone and playability. Sustain is a non-issue as long as you play a somewhat decent guitar....

[Drak]

I agree w/ ya GM, but I wuz tryin' to be gentler than my normally brassy self about it.

[GuitarMaestro]

I agree w/ ya GM, but I wuz tryin' to be gentler than my normally brassy self about it.

Thats great! I expected all the sustain-freaks flaming me to death....

[Drak]

Oh, they're 'a comin'!

[frank falbo]

Sustain is when the body of the guitar continues to vibrate.  Denser woods vibrate more than lighter woods, so they have better sustain.  Maple, and ash are some of the denser "standard" woods.

That's actually the opposite of what sustain is, but I think you might've meant it the other way around. If the wood is vibrating, then it is taking some of the energy away from the string. If not, then you have just invented perpetual motion. The string has to give up energy to make the body vibrate. Maple and other dense or stiff woods (or graphite, stone, concrete, etc) don't vibrate as much, therefore allowing the string to keep more of it's energy and sustain longer. You're right about the woods but not the explanation. To agree with GuitarMaestro, I never build a guitar for sustain. I have excellent sustain from all my guitars, even the bolt-ons with locking trems. Its all about the build quality. Stiffness of the neck is very important. I despise the tone of graphite reinforced necks, but they do add sustain. Ebony boards add stiffness, as does a solid, high tension fret job vs. "pool of glue" fretjobs.

A great deal of sustain is in your technique. I hate to say it, but its true. The way you squeeze (too soft and the string dies out) and if you put a little vibrato in there you can get some additional vibrations out of the fret rolling itself, and the tension fluctuations. I heard it said once (can't remember who) that the electric guitar will always have "enough" sustain. How much is enough? Have you ever played a note and hoped it lasted longer than it did? I haven't, really.

I wrote a Guitar Shop article that pitted tone against sustain, and showed how many things are a tradeoff. Softer body woods like alder will sustain less, absorb more vibration, but then again they're producing more warm tone, etc. A maple/walnut/graphite guitar will sustain more but sound thinner because you're hearing more "string". Some things are universal, though. Heavy bridges solidly attatched are always a sustain improvement. A good sharp headstock angle is also an improvement even to the fretted notes, since it tends to hold its position better, similar to adding brass headstock clamp devices. Sharp clean angles at the saddles are good. Bolt ons have less sustain, but then again I prefer the tone of a bolt on many times. I like the "mixed tone" you get from two independent units on either end of the string, rather than the cross checked tone of a set or thru neck. Physically the neck and body are so different, that they are producing such a different "tone" you can get some cancellations of various frequencies when you "lock" the neck to the body. But that's also what makes the LP and PRS sound so cool.

When designing for sustain you have to try to harness all the energy you can to reflect back to the string, not be absorbed or squandered away. Basically search out any areas where you could be losing vibrations and lock them down, or eliminate them in the design.

[litchfield]

A loud amp helps sustain. Playing at the feedback threshold helps a fair bit

[Jivin]

Buy an ebow

[Alarung]

Opps...

Thanks Frank.