Andreas

So it operates like an equilizer for midrange frequencies? (what excactly is a notch filter?)

How good is it? What excactly does it do that a tone pot doesnt do?

hehe...we are all guitarists in the end. All the same under one god (the six stringed one )

No no its ok..im sorry for my ignorance when I didnt search beforehand. Im like that as well...nothimg is more anyoing than having to repeat yourself.

Im sorry you are correct I didnt search first about neck thickness and now that I have I found a lot of results that im going throught at the moment. But it was a two part question...Does anyone have a tip or tutorial for an assymetrical neck built?...so far im thinking of doing a slightly thicker neck than stantart warmoth neck and just sand a bit the treble side but this would be a totaly freehand shaping which I really dont like. One other option is to make a sanding block that will have the desired shape of the neckand sand it down to get as perfect shape as possible.

I just spented some time looking at common neck thicknesses and all I could see is that it should be around 2 cm. The wizard neck that is super thin it is 1.9cm and chunckier necks are 2.1cm. Does this difference of 0.1 cm really affects the playing so much?...To be honest what I would like to do is an assymetrical neck and what I plan is to do a 2 - 2.3 cm neck and then sand it down towards the treble side (like a peavy wolfgang). The problem is that it will be freehand shaping and I hoped if any of you tryied this before can lend me a tip or something.

I want a preamp that will overdrive my guitar. I dont want it as an onboard distortion/overdrive unit but as something that will enhance the distortion coming off the effects line. Since as you said tryied others which one do you suggest? As for clean boost from all I know this is the one: http://www.muzique.com/schem/mosfet.htm http://www.generalguitargadgets.com/v2/dia..._amz_mosfet.gif

Maybe he spoke underrated about it for it`s highly frequency of use. Most probably my uncle thought that you need very rare and extra special wood to make guitars. Ill see what I can do when I speak to him. For now im making the plans yet. I took a huge cardboard and im drawing everything life size. Finally my school exams are over so I have alot of free time unlit I have to go to the army in a few days. I hope I finish the plans until then and work on the building on my exits. One question off topic...Im drawing side views and a central crossectional view. On the side views I want to draw the contours but I dont know how much to write down as wood removed. Where can I find some photos showing some dimentions of side guitar views to get an idea?

Yes that was what I was thinking so thats why I included oak which is a lighter in color wood. The only reason I would like to have mahogany in it is for "tradition" as it is used in gibson guitars. I love tho the look of the neck having a mixture of woods so I let me tell you what I think: Neck : |cherry|lighter color wood thin veneer|walnut|lighter color wood veneer|cherry| Body : A light color wood thicker venner joining the neck to the body wings. The body wings would be mahogany and walnut top. Altho im conserned of using 4 (6 including the veneers) pieces for body. Tell me what you think so far. PS: For light color wood I think maple would be great but I dont know under what name to ask for it around here. You see my main language is greek and the name here for maple I think it is "sfentamnos". When I asked my uncle who is an expierenced carpender his answer seemed like maple is an underrated wood. For those who know is maple not used in carpentry?

Im thinking which wood to put in the body area of a neckthrough guitar...mahogany or walnut? The neck I will do it a three piece laminate and im thinking of putting in the center walnut and in the sides cherry. I dont know if this is going to make the guitar look very dark. So im thinking of putting oak for neck center and walnut for the sides. What do you suggest with the compination of Walnut, Cherry, Mahogany and Oak. (Im not sure if I can find maple.)

the string from my physics knowledge will only form one antinode and that is excactly the half distance between the freted or open note and the bridge.

Excactly. Ill see what I will come up with.

I cant waste the wood...altho if I find some cheap wood I might do a bolt on first with the same shape and see what evolves. I checked it out in a guitar shop today. I can still do the contouring of the PRS and further remove the wood nessesary to get the better feel of the stratocaster contour. I suspect it will look a bit unbalanced and thats why im asking here this question to get opinions. Im not sure tho since that bit extra of removed wood normally shouldn`t affect the physical balance. I might go with the normal PRS contouring and see if I later deside that it would be more comftable to do an upper stratocaster contour.

Im thinking of contouring the sides of a PRS-alike body like this: The top half will resemple the contouring on a stratocaster and the bottom half will be like a normal PRS contour. What do you thing? Good Idea or should I go with the original?

Im missing out for a few days and you go and finish the sustainer. so selfish I see you made some serious progress in this. I haven`t read all of it yet and I dont have time now. Im back to organic, inorganic chemistry...chemical kinetics mass spectroscopy , nuclear magnetic resonance (has absolutelly nothing to do with either magnets or sound resonance) and a lot of other crap I have to shovel down my brain for tomorrow. Keep up the good work, I cant wait to read in detail the progress that it is made. Cheers, Andreas.

ah ok. Thanks for the warning. Congradulations on the discovery. After you patent it if it is that low cost in production then start selling them in this forum

KISS = Keep It Simple Stupid ??? That was the first thing my physics teacher told me Very interesting and original idea!! I think if you break up rare eath magnets (but carefully so they dont demagnitize) and ground them up to dust and then glue it on you will get a more responsive system and it could be thin enought to be placed anywhere. Also the breaking up of the magnet will make it to loose polarity so the string will be evel less affected by dampening. The small individual magnets will still be affected by the string. Sure it has these overtones as they are called. A single frequency note would be really anoying...in fact it will sound like a simple piezo speaker...simple and constant which it would form a simple sine wave on an osciloscope. The overtones are the ones that make the sound of the guitar interesting and unique and differend than the same note on a piano or on a saxophone. They have the same frequency curve but with alot more overtones coloring the sound. That is the reason differend wood make different sounds and why differend hardware and construction quality affect the sound. Afterall if it didnt affect anything why the same pickups with the same strings sound differend on different guitars. The overtones will be sellected in the amplification system that you will setup driving the string since they cant be avoided anyway. They introduce distortion in the curves which are the overtones and this distortion will be amplified as well. (distortion not in a heavy metal headbanging way...distortion of overtones that colors the sound of the guitar and makes it unique) Sorry for the repetition of the words overtones:P im down with a fever right now and Im a little bit shakey. Cheers, Andreas.

Yeah that is what troubles me the most. It will dampen the vibration of the strings...distort the signal of the magnet of the pickups. The best thing I can get my mind to think is a pure electromagnet with a simple iron core that wont store a magnetic field it self....(altho it will produse one when the strings are moving and when the pickups get too close). An unatural solution I can think of is using the frets as magnetic material to vibrate the strings but it is highly imposible I wish a large enought piezo speaker could be made to be added on the body of the guitar and vibrate it

how do you do it?...do you rout wood out at differend depths making a square pyramid and then sand out the difference?

I see...so I will take a piece of wood and draw on it the radius needed cut it and glue on the edje of it a rough sand paper. Then I will take a block of wood and roughly shape a curvature in it and use the piece of wood to make it exact to the nessesary curvature. Repeat this for two blocks. Sand with the first block the first frets where a steeper curvature is needed ( 9 inches radius) and then sand the rest with the other block which will be wider and more flat and it will be passed over the area of the 9 inches curvature a few times to smooth out the difference. If more smoothing out is needed logicaly a fine sandpaper will do without harming the overall smoothness and curvature.

ok I mean correct to what you want it the angle and to be smooth and continual...I would like it to be composite as well...9 inch radius to the top and 16 to the end. Does it sound a good idea to make two sanding blocks that will are of the desired angle and use it to sand the top and the end and then just smooth out the difference?

How can you be sure that the fretboard radius is ok? Cant you just sand it out until it seems ok or will you revome too much wood in the end?

First of all...the waves formed in the guitar strings are stationary waves. The stationary waves are loops which contain their energy within the loop. If you manage to input some of that energy as it fades out you normaly will get an infinite sustain. For stationary waves to be formed a wave must come in contact with an opposite moving wave of same frequency and similar amplitude. In short..it needs a collition of two identical waves. (LK- The amplitude could be the answer to the gain control...if the two amplitudes mismach the larger wave will overrun the other.Of course this could be insignificant since that wave will be reflected in its turn and pass over it self so prety much nothing is noticed except an increase in volume) In the guitar these are formed when the string is plugged. How is this im not prety sure but I can think of 2 possble scenarios why: 1) the wave starts where it is plugged and moves out hitting on the bridge and on the nut (or fret) and is reflected back. As the two waves come on each other they form the stationary wave. 2) The string when plugged tranfers the vibrations to the wood where it "stores" the energy and vibrates. The nut and the bridge are conected on the wood and thus start to vibrate the string at each end. This generates pulses of disturbance (wave pattern) that flows down and up the string thus resulting in an overlap of identical waves thus stationary wave. I believe tho that it is a combination of the two since as you plug the string you see a large vibration that seems to move....the reflected waves in scenario one that overlap in stages and so they form the loop in stages....and then latter the vibration seem to subside and form more constant pattern..the second scenario explains that. Also the sustainer C that is clamped on the headstock gives back the reserve of energy to the wood and thus maintains the string vibrations. I believe that an electromagnetic drive should be focused on the wood vibrations rather than the string vibrations....use piezo to feed the driver and not the signal from the pickups...this might remove any feedback problems since no feedback loops will be formed between the pickups and the driver. This might even retain the natural tone and not make it thin since we are adding the wood filtration of the tone....energy flow : Strings > wood > piezo > amplification > driver > Strings....and so on. The thinnes of the sound in other sustainer models I believe it is caused by leaving out the factor of the wood vibrations...altho it most definatelly affects the strings the pulses that drive them is the initial wave formation (scenario 1)that is also moving...and could be causing phase problems..where as the wood vibrations are more stable and define the tone better. Now for all those who read up to this far let me tell that this was one of my longest posts and sorry for the wasted time I hope this is food for thought since mostly it underlines some theory issues and not practical aspects of the sustainer. Post your remarks questions Ill be happy to try and answer them....afterall I have my GSCE A level physics examination next thursday Cheers, Andreas.

How can I make an active 7 band equilizer?...It will be ment to be placed right after the guitar so it shouldnt just cut frequecies off but boost some and remove others.

From what I read im going with the cheapest option...all seem to be good so if they are cheap they are better for me.