billm90

Thats looks nice and clean. Way to go! Not to sure 'exactly' what I am looking at, but are you going to run the pickup, upside down?

arg.... So i tried checking the ohms while winding my coil. (burn the coating off and sanding it) The ohm meter threw a fit giving me every number possible. I am guessing my battery is low. So I went with 190 winds. too many. Once I soldered up the driver, I found I have 12 ohms testing it again. Have to soak it, and unwind it a little. It is fun learning how each bobbin or DIY blade coil is a different size, changing the length of wire you end up using, thus changing the ohms. Going to have to nail this testing process down. I went ahead anyway and tried it out. I got some faint reponse from the B string this time. Broke my E string off. The A string rings out like crazy. I have the magnet loose, and I found that you get different results as you play with the driver set up... When I hit the fuzz button on that first act practice amp (no volume control), the harmonic mode reposonse is awesome on the A string. However I get 1/2 the fuzz sound through my main amp(I am using a clean sound). I dont think it is being picked up from the bridge pickup, That is a different sound. I am guessing by the split wiring possibly...(one to jack, one to driver circuit) defently going to play with this more. Even if I cant get the higher strings to respond like the lower, that A string gives me some cheap thrills. I would say 1 second after tapping a note, I get the harmonic to ring when overdriven. when not overdriven, it takes about 3 seconds. I think I like harmonic mode much more then sustaining. Everytime I flip the magnet, I get some different goods or bads when using it, Sometimes it wont work till I fiddle with it, Other times it is more responsive. It is a very percise thing which concerns me when I do finally lock it all down. I hope I have it right. I also broke the lead off my practice amp and have to figure out where it went. All in all, the usually frustration with playing with DIY electronics, and the reward with when it does work. I just have a ways to go.

well **** on me. I am guessing this is going to get locked up soon. In a last ditch effort to save this post, I got my 32awg wire, and once the wood glue dries up, I will get to seeing what I get out of it.

Pete, I am not trying to steal your thunder. I don't wish to market anything. I would not be a douche like that. Honestly, if anything ground breaking came out of it, I would just email you the info so you could run with it. My build is flawed because I threw it together in 20 mins with crap I had. I had not even went out to buy anything to build it. I picked up 2 pieces of steel to build a rail, since I can get that at home depot when I was there. I have 65 guitars, so I have a use for more then 1 sustainer. lol I guess I am a bit if a 'what if' guy. as of right now, I am chopping a few guitars up and doing a bit of DIY to them. Some just based on looks, other involve more strings. I would like this 1 guitar based on looks and LED's to function like a normal sustainer would, so I can get a feel for what it can do. It is also just a bridge humbucker guitar without a headstock. It would probably look better with something in the bridge position once I get it together. My bigger goals would be to involving not so much me making a break through on your design, but more or less, using it differently. Allow me to explain. I have been getting into multi string guitars. I have already began to build 2. All from seeing 1 particular guitar built in 1925 ish... that has a ton of stings on it, and some inside the acoustic body with a hand lever to mute them. I have been thinking about this for years... Not that I am trying to invent what is already there, but to play something that I will never see in a store because it is a museum piece. Then I wonder, what if I put spring reverb in the body. Wind chimes? or just more stings... how would they play... perhaps a sustainer could get them working???? Could I play a string that drives other strings, then I could hit a switch and have those strings drive them selves. Could I further make this insane idea work with push button activation to trigger one string at a time like your hex driver could of evolved into? Or would it work better with a kill button. Could I make it change chords? I have no idea. would it be electric, or acoustic, or hybrid... Just something I want to hash out. Then when I pulled out my zoom unit (effects and practice amp with 3" speaker) I wondered what would happen with delay on a driver? Could I get it to pulse? I read the whole sustainer thread. even the how to post. I have seen all the youtube vids. I have been all over the net. and I even found the pics in your photobucket account of the sustainiac autotopsy which led me to wonder about thickness... The sustainiac goes against what you have working. It looks like it has several hack saw like blades as a pole pieces. With windings that reach down the whole height. *** is the top made of??? It led me to some page about george lynch perfering the susatiniac model B or C that clipped to the headstock... I began to wonder if this could be built hidden into a guitar, such as what I am working on now. So it is not that I want to steal you stuff and put a copy on youtube/ebay. I am far more selfish and want to make my own crazy sounds for my own amusment. So if I ask off questions... it is more or less I have way too much info input. Sorry it seems like I want to rip you off. BTW, what would you sell one of your sustainers for? How about one of those plastic acoustic guitars you building? I kind of like it.

Thanks Pete, I may end up emailing you once I get moving along for further circuit ides. I have no doubt it will work. I had 3 low strings working. Both sustaining and harmonic mode. (by flipping the magnet) Just need to get the other 3 strings working. I ordered the 32 AWG wire this morning. I have 3 single coil bobbins ready to be wound, as well as more steel to DIY some more. Now to track down some parts for a few circuits, or try and mod the one that worked decent for me, which had the 386 in it. I am just trying to get a base line one working, then I will stray off the path.

Thanks for the info. I will have to get back to you guys. I am going to have to do an internet order I gather to get some of the parts straightened out. Probably be something after the holidays. I will attempt to build a preamp/amp circuit and get the 32AWG wire. Pete, did you ever find any differences in using thicker metal vs a slimmer piece, at all? When I was looking at the metal selection, I started to wonder. I know you built a slim one and a thick looking one for your center pickup/driver.

I have been wondering about that 32 gauge wire a lot. I wish I could just go pick some up opposed to internet ordering. the things is, some guys say they got it to work. hmmmm as for my set up The circuits I am using. Radio shack 1 watt hobby kit. It will drive the lower strings. I picked this up over 15 years ago. It is a solder it up yourself kit. The second circuit is a zoom effects unit/portable amp. it runs off 6 double A batteries, has built in speaker. It made a lot of noise. I was mainly unsing it to try effects through the driver. The third circuit is a First act pocket amp that I never use. It was by far the best as a circuit. The guitar is a LP that I routed the entire top out of. I have wood only around the bridge humbucker, and bridge/tail piece. Humbucker is wired direct to the jack. This is the same guitar I used to make the ACE flasher guitar, Thats why it is routed out. I have pulled put the LED's which makes it even deeper for this purpose. I can move the driver where ever I want between the neck and bridge pickup. above or below the strings. As for the driver magnet, I am using one from a scrap humbucker. I also picked up some mags here and there and tried those out as well. I have my bridge pickup as close to the strings before they touch. The driver is as well. The amp, which does not matter at all to hear what is happening is a junk practice amp that runs of 120v wall power. It occured to me that I have a strat with 13 gauge strings in it. I dont want to take it apart, but I might be able to rig something up to try and put the sustainer on it.

I know this is a touchy topic for whatever reasons, I want to address one issue I am having with out this turning into a disaster. I have built 2 coils. first one is 3mm tall and potted in wood glue using a single coil bobbin and pole pieces. It came up to 7.2 ohms after rebuilding it to pot it in glue and breaking off a few winds which was 8.x ohms with out glue. I built a second coil out of raw steel to make a rail, and made it with thin MDF and potted it in epoxy being about 2mm tall. It is 9.1 ohms till I just broke off the lead, and now it is an epoxy brick. Both coils are wound in 30gauge wire from radio shack. I put these in a guitar project that has a single humbucker wired right to the jack. No pots. and no neck pickup. I have ran these 2 coils through 3 different preamps/amps. 1, a one watt kit preamp/amp. one is a zoom 7010 effects unit with built in speaker(too much power and EMI). The last was a crappy portable practice amp that is .5 watts and optional overdrive fuzz. This unit gave me the best results with minimal noise set to clean. It appears to have a 386 chip in it. I have only been able to get the bottom 3 strings to sustain/hit the octive or fifth. Does anyone know why this is? I am using 9 gauge strings and I gather from the epic thread I should be using 10's at the least. Could this possibly be my only issue? I saw a few youtube vids of tests that seem to be better then mine... Whats the deal?

Yeah, exactly. I have been having brain issues.

I have put 5mm leds in a couple of necks. It is not rocket science by any means. A 5mm led has a good amount of round tip area on it. You can grind those down and still have a decent working led. If you go to far you will get a bad looking led, or failure by ruining it. I usually test them to confirm they work. Drill the hole. Glue them in. file/sand down the dome flush to the board. wire and call it a day. The filed top will kind of displace the led a bit since you just gave it a scratched surface to shine through. it will look like a glowing marker vs a led laser point, if that makes sense.

I use an iron with a rag as well. I also have one of those steamers that were all the rage years ago on the as seen on tv ads. You fill it with water and it heats up and shoots steam. Comes in handy once you have an edge pulled up. I saw on a guitar TV show a guy used a modded espresso machine to shoot steam to get a fret board off a martin. I figured why fuss with an espresso machine and go right for a steamer.

I refretted a classical guitar with a couple clothes hangers when I was young and poor. I thought the whole scale was off, so I compensated and refretted it. It was only the bridge that was off.

I have toyed with the idea. Never liked the sound so I backed off. But I am not a kid. I have a few small battery powered amps. Homemade, a first act pocket amp, and a zoom effects unit with built in 4" speaker. First act has a pocket amp for something like 40.00 If you google battery guitar amp. or pocket amp. You will find all sorts of things. Something like this works. I built one from radio shack. http://www.transeltech.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=6 The one I picked up had a resistor to add gain. I built it on a switch. it kind of goes between a clean sounds and a fuzz sound. You may end up with feed back once you get the speaker under the strings. all depends on the set up and power. It will still need an on off switch and trying remembering to turn it off was always a problem for me as a kid. My active pickups often remain on for hours since I cant remember to unplug the chord.

artec sound makes some pretty cheap acoustic preamps. I put the $60.00 preamp with piezo and mic blender in my 80.00 classical guitar and I was blown away with the piezo sound. the mic sucks. There are 2 places in the US that sells them for artec and they have some low grade models for 30.00. 10 more bucks gets you the piezo as well.

I would just take the old loose pick up and tape the wires to the guitar chord and physically hold the pickup over the strings. move it about and see if it works, and see if you can repeat the loss of signal on the high e string. If you get the correct sound out of the pickup, you have a problem inside the guitar. Such as the tone pot, or pickup selector, or maybe even an off chance the jack. This would lead me to get a wiring diagram of a tele and basically do the whole thing over. I would agree that for it to work or not work is usually what happens inside of a guitar. But at the same time I have never had 1 string cause me an issues and I have seriously F'd with about 15-20 guitars now. I have had bad grounds with buzz... but never half a pickup.

Those pups look pretty cool

Wow... I want it.

I dont think it can be done. I had to look up the Corvus, and a little puke came up. I dont think it would look good on a naked playmate. Make something completely anti-ergonomic

I got a body and neck of one that looks like a jazz master. I had to build the rest. Plexi pickguard backlit, 2 old single coils stuck in humbucker covers. archtop ebony bridge with a home made brass tail piece. I did some DIY piezo stuff on it so I was not aiming for an electric guitar. I hate the small frets and the fact the body seems so set back from the neck. I looks like it needs a 1/4 wood top added on it. After I got done messing around with it I had some idea for putting a new wood top on it and hiding the pickups and trying to make it a more electric acoustic like guitar. I did not see much in it's future for me as an electric guitar. lol... but I have a few odd ones already that sound funky.

RMC is another route. http://www.rmcpickup.com/ if you want to read up.

HAHA I used to wonder if it would be possible to put a tremolo on an acoustic but I hate the bigsby things that they put on some les pauls and the older semi-hollow bodies so I tried thinking of a way to put a floyd or strat tremolo but decided that there would be to much tension and it was impossible. Nothing like a guitar shattering dive bomb on an acoustic. So I built the work board today. My sister said she didn't want to mess anything up (she hassen't realized there will be plenty of mistakes anyway like there is with everyone) so that is done I will put up new pictures tomorow. You make the whole bridge move. you put a smaller block under the bridge. you cut a hole for said small block, but not as big as the whole bridge obviously. you hinge the bridge to the body top. you run the springs to the neck pocket (where there is a lot of solid wood) and the block under the bridge. Been there done that. acoustic whammy sucks. Have fun.

Thats how I would do it. Does not mean I am right.

In my case it's not a problem at all. I use Graphtech piezo saddles, which are already well balanced, besides, 6 pre-amps with adjustable gain. I'm not a big fan of DIY everything, if I can find a ready to use solution, I'd rather buy it. I have 2 piezos bridges I purchased. Midi rig as well. I know what you mean about DIY. But that was my goal. Make the whole diy thing work. I have been doing DIY on 25 or so guitars. If I tried to buy everything for these guitars, I would not be able to do as much blow. lol

There is some seriously cool stuff going on here. years ago all I wanted to do was pickup up the 6 strings hexophonic so I can pan them on an acoustic. I did get it to work. When I went to repeat it for a cleaner install, I had issues with the DIY piezos out of balance. Still working on that one, although not very hard. This kind of thing is just what I am into. Keep going!!!

I wish I had some good stuff to capture sound clips with, but I dont. I dont know how to do all the cool stuff the link you posted with measuring frequencies. If I could find a decent way to catch it with a camera that did justice to the sounds I would spend some time doing it for you. I know from other things the sound generally sucks. I have 2 production bridges with the piezos built in. A fishman on a strat that I have nylon strings on again. and a TOM bridge that I Played with, but have not decided which guitar to put it on. Hands down these systems beat a DIY set up, so the ghost system would be a great way to get you there (however dont give up on the DIY yet). Plus I guess you lose the rollers which could be Good or bad depending on what you want. As far as where the DIY piezos are placed and what they pick up is defently an issue. When I first started years back, I was very upset with this vibrations and thumps and string scratches being louder. I guess I kind of figured you get what you get and bend the playing around where the pickup is. I know what you are talking about in the neck pocket and pickup up finger noise etc.... I think if you try out the headstock piezo real quick, you might find it not as bad for certain playing styles. My DIY piezos in my LP bridge were bad as well. the saddle set up was showing hope but just too hard. I could actually ground the bridge, and break off the ceramic from the buzzers, solder a lead wire to that piece, and touch it to the bridge to get the circuit complete. I epoxied these to each saddle. very irritating. And unbalanced again. I even tried taking apart one of those BBQ lighters with the piezo sparker to try and use that.