psw

I use a roland BR-600 8 track portable digital studio if you were to consider a separate device that you could use along side a computer (you can clear the relatively small card into the computer, upload midi into the drum machines and sounds if you like, play into something like free audacity to turn into MP3's, etc)... BR-600 I got mine 'as new' second hand for half new price as many may move up from something like this. It is extremely tiny and although powerful, it can be tricky to navigate around that tiny LED screen. It will run off batteries but a power pack would be highly recommends, I wouldn't expect it to last long on batteries alone and so get expensive. What it does offer is amazing for the price though...a full Boss velocity sensitive drum machine full off grooves and fills but of course fully programmable and high quality sounds. It has 8 tracks but also 8 virtual tracks for alternate takes per track as well and can record to CD quality. A Huge guitar effect library equal to top of the line Boss units...again fully programmable. The stock sounds can be overblown but it is pretty intuitive to get in and create your own and specifically for songs in different banks...particularly useful is they kind of map them over known amp models, so you get amp emulation type things you can start from. All the usual digital effects are in there. Some of the very useful ones for guitar and your use are decent acoustic and bass simulations of various kinds. There is also a huge mastering suite which can be trickier to get around, but this will help build complete mixes...however a side line to this is a lot of 'vocal' tools...including various mic simulations and pitch correction! Surprisingly, it also comes with two condenser microphones built into it that do sound surprisingly good. Basically it is exactly the same device as bigger models like the BR-900 with CD burning on board for much lower price but with less to go wrong and saves to Flash memory so no moving internal parts, though this is restricted to 1GB and clunky...that's where the USB dumping into a PC comes in. It is worth exploring the free software that you can get for the C-900's drum machine as this is easier to program and load into the machine than it is to do it on the machine itself... It's size is smaller than most notebook computers, very light and compact...there are smaller models that are also good but perhaps not as many features...worth checking out... ... There are programs of course, you will likely need some kind of USB interface to play into the computer, but the cost of good software can be prohibitive. Even with a program such as Sonar light that often comes with an interface, you are not going to get all the add its like effects and particularly drum machines and programs. There are obvious advantages in it being more graphical and in some ways easier to use for detailed stuff and editing, but the cost could well be far in excess of a portable studio like this. ... Anyway, I can recommend checking out this one, it sounds great through headphones in stereo and gives you a range of sounds to experiment and inspire...just plug your guitar in and play. It even has an inbuilt phrase trainer for slowing down audio and looping tracks for practice and learning. It has a big learning curve for the advanced functions which I have not yet fully explored, some which I didn't even realize was in there...I bought a DVD that goes through things step by step and even that only hinted at what was in the thing. I use it for jamming with a bass player and the drum machine mostly, but that and the effects are easy to understand, just plug the guitar in and play really. The down sides are the low memory capacity and the kind of clunky USB interface in order to dump and load from a PC, but it can be done ok. You can work on a bunch of songs at a time of course, but as a practice tool just to play with drums and with headphones it is great...press the red button and it will record...select a bass simulation and you get to play a decent enough bass sounds that sound convincing in the mix, or acoustic even...who knows you may even get to do a vocal...pitch correction is that robotic effect you got on a famous Cher record as an effect when used to the extreme and needs to be applied after the fact, so don't get your hopes up to high with this kind of thing! Anyway...another option...this one is small, but there are lots of different portable studio devices about that might fit the bill.

Well...I won't tolerate these kinds of personal attacks upon me, my private life or hijacking threads that I contribute to with this kind of thing. I sincerely tried to point you in the right direction, if by this post you feel I have not done so, well...lets see...you asked... I replied suggesting that you refer to the work done on exactly this, successfully with the F/R as is as i recall...primal... ah yes...from the tutorial primal says... If you looked at the tutorial...that I assume you have to get the circuit details...Link to tutorial pg3...you will see that Primal himself posted these things into the tutorial... So, when I suggested you consider his results, I was sincerely trying to point you into the appropriate direction...there was no attempt to elicit personal abuse...are you seriously suggesting that I replied to your thread with the intention of being personally attacked...or that I should not defend the information (for your benefit I should add) and myself from such attacks...or report that this situation exists that PG can not host any sustainer topic or thread without further abuse no matter what I attempt to impart. I did want to clarify or even agree with elmo's shorting and disconnection of nearby coils that could pick up induced noise...I indicated that is what I have done and where you could find these details...in the face of suggestions I was not giving the details enough, I even found the 2005 diagram showing exactly how you could wire such a switch...seems like a lot of help to me... But...I can only work with what is revealed and there is little to gain as to what is most appropriate above what has already been presented in this forum and I have pointed to. I regret that no topic on sustainers can be answered without these kinds of abusive posts towards me personally, you may not be aware of recent history, but I will not tolerate this, I do not seek it, I honestly and sincerely tried to point you in the right direction...go your own way then...but I can assure you that I did not answer your topic with the intention of again being personally attacked, but one of the few or only people presently here that have done this kind of thing...look further in the tutorial and you will see my own LP HB sustainer experiments as well... If this has not been helpful to you, I don't quite know what you are after...but if you are weighing in and suggesting that I intentionally replied to your post to attract comments about my personal life or lies about my work...you are very, very wrong!~ So, thanks for calling me a troll for trying to help you...nice one...

There are various implementations of the kill switch idea. Les Paul users like Townsend have been using the technique for ages, simply turn say the neck pickup volume to zero and switch between that and the neck pickup on to create the effect. The problem with a lot of push button kill switches like the one on my tele is that they can be counter-intuitive...pushing the button kills the sound...so you tend to feel like you are playing the silences rather than the sound on effect. Players like Morello prefer the sound on thing and I can see why. I use it for a kind of rhythmic manual tremolo kind of effect on occasion, but really, it is a bit gimmicky to be used that often for anything that much IMHO

Sorry hank/Rob...a lot of lies and mis representation... You could hardly be seen to 'hold the sustainer fort'...you largely destroyed it! I have never ever endorsed the fetzer ruby, and you know this for a fact...the fact has always been that I have never actually built that design, nor endorsed it but submitted modifications to make it very similar to the kinds of generic circuits I have used since the beginning, even publishing them as well! Plenty of people have built it to show that it can work as well. I designed my own circuits that are not hack jobs from tllman or RoG or data sheets, I did try a lot of alternative circuits with satisfying results, but I did find that some chips could not handle the requirements, overheated and closed down in pretty short order...I sense that perhaps you found the same ideas, but even then...not a lot different from the F/R solution...but not actually posted it anywhere! My 'end finished circuit'...hmmm, you see the problem, I never claimed there to be a 'magic circuit' or a holy grail as you did. But then, you now seem content with the most basic design posible cribbed off of others while lauding your experience and expertise in such matters, particularly over me. I have given plenty of info as well as the direction I have been going in and explained that side of things enough. For anyone with the savvy, I have given and posted plenty to work out exactly what I have been doing and still currently use. All that matters is that it 'works' and so too can the F/R designs evidently or pactically any other to some degree. Your problems with string response are yours and not replicated in my designs...but that is for you to solve surely you wouldn't want my advice or take it? Efficiency I base on practical experience and testing side by side as you know. Yes, other wire gauges work, they may need more clean power to run, they may have different resonance characteristics...all I claimed is for my designs, for me, that these things appeared to be the case and independent testing and experimentation by many others over years backed up this real world observations...on my design ideas! I did not set out to get anyone around the globe to make sustainers, but to provide a place for discussion that you in large part you Rob caused to close and continue to make hostile. I provided actual design notes on my work, even a lot of the failures and helped many others to achieve their goals learning all the time. Someone like you would criticize any circuit I put forward as not 'good enough' even if it does work or that my coil and installation ideas are not mine and of course, no basis in 'science' where in fact I did trial and error side by side comparisons, real world experimentation with my ideas and put them up for peer review...and they have passed the test of some time. ... ... My personal affairs are my own and your opinion on who and what I share have no place at all. In fact, many of us here do much the same, but I have contributed a whole heap over many years...what it does indicate is that you continue to troll my posts for some obsessional and destructive reason...hence you are a troll! This forum actually encourages this community and there is a place to share such things...that is where I post them and you don't have top read them...but you do of course! And then post about them in your own little attacks on me! That is trolling! Since you seem to be following my personal life so closely, you would know that I made a significant move to a remote island at the bottom of the world...hmmm...and during these times of "huff" all of my threads were being closed by you and even removed from view and anything I said elicited exactly the same kind of unhelpful information and mis-information and personal abuse that made my posting pointless and contentious and damaging to everyone and the forum as a whole...and in no way helpful to the person asking the question, often times specifically about my own work! Your knowledge of what I am 'active in' is Nil in fact. The reality is I was working a long way ahead of what I was posting and for some time left my experimentation out of it and offer feedback to other peoples problems or concerns. ... I don't know what the point of most of your now deleted posts about CNCing and the necessity for winders and such technology, but you consistently did so and now deleted or had deleted these very posts you now suggest are pointless. In fact, there was never any need for a CNC machine or winding machine for a few hundred turns of fairly thick wire for this project...that is your obsession, no one elses! Now you seem to be suggesting that people can't build sustainers without a scope and the degree to understand them...but in reality, we have not seen anything really from you that has been helpful and what you now offer are thin drivers with basic circuits just as has always been prescribed as the starting off point...and suddenly you are an 'expert' giving false advice. Otherwise, besides criticizing my work, where exactly are the details of your own that could help a young person achieve the goals as expressed in this thread or any other that you hijack instead of starting your own? ... No one can get my advice or opinion on my work without this kind of hail of further personal abuse towards me from you, yet I approached this question much as I had in the past prior to your being anywhere near this forum and I presume project (at least from your now deleted posts would indicate). I also have a huge collect of how to information, actual wiring diagrams of real guitars and many many replications of my work as well as professional builders having installed my devices with success. That is surely enough to warrant some acknowledgment of the veracity of my work. I have never mislead anyone as you imply, i get a good even response on all the strings, high string response if fine and even polyphonic response is good to excellent depending on the guitar combination...I tested this against the sustainiac product for instance where the owner of that guitar indicated he preferred the response I was getting. Reading between the lines, I suspect there may be some problems with overload shut down on some of your proposals not fully disclosed or discussed that I alerted to in trying such chip amps well before you turned up. There is no deception or misleading and the results are in audio and independently verified over and over again! It has also been claimed that many of my ideas are 'all in the patents', though I have read them and found nothing like what I have proposed and built over they years. What I have seen are remarkable copies being touted as somehow different in design and application and then being offered for proposed sale by you without even testing them! ... In addition to my work on sustainers I have made guitars here, almost won a GOTM for the last one and contributed to other areas, but anything I might offer here has been pursued by you and handled badly. I ahve spent most of my time contributing elsewhere on a variety of subjects in much depth to avoid you Rob and your insistence on following me about and attacking my personal life! ... Technical claims...I claim that I have success with a range of designs and applications...I have outlined how these, published these and my failures in real time, supported people in replicating and proving them, posted sound clips of them working and offered more. Claims by you such as it is impossible that it work for the high strings are completely dismissed by the evidence, this apparently is true for your attempts. Others have chimed in also latching on my desire to improve things or others problems that I have tried to help with as if there are fatal problems, this is just wrong and myth. In fact, the idea that nearby coils need to be completely disconnected from the circuit of the guitar was lambasted by you, now you are suggesting that another has "the answer', the same answer I posted with diagrams to actually achieve it from the first installation of the thing! ... You can try whatever design you choose, I speak only for my own designs, formula and experience as to what works effectively for me (and by others who have done the same). I have always encouraged people to go their own way with things, I certainly did, but time and again I came back to and refined my ideas that were successful. Obviously my ideas are not the be all and end all or only way these things can work, they are my way of working things...thin coils (yours are looking ever more like mine, even down to the LEDs of course) and what I can help with. If people want to make their own, instead of asking hypothetical questions about them, I suggest they simply knuckle down and build a few test things and see how they perform. I have no obligation to anyone in relation to any of this, it is not my 'job' to prove or make for people designs or proofs of concept, there is plenty of info out there, but you can easily just do it yourself which I thought was the whole point. Of course, it is easier to DIY if you have a set of tutorials and proven working ideas, and that is one aspect that I set out to address. On the same token as Rob has put for not showing anything of detail....my more recent circuit designs used components and layouts not easily replicated by beginners (SMD devices for instance) but I stand by the simple circuits work and the suggested modifications that will get the same results as me if built to those specs. No detail is given in these other places...any wire, any thickness...nothing makes much difference...all the changing tunes as time goes on....follow the advice you choose OP...do anything (and refer to me obliquely), but there is plenty posted as to how badly wrong people can go with this project and not get good results as there have been people who have had success and published proven working approaches...I have shown many, and more than enough! Syn, it sounds like you need to do a lot of reading and experimentation...and if Rob here is to be believed, can't be done without winders and CNC and scopes and a degree in electronics... ....

OK...well, winding wire is enamel coated to insulate it...so you need to be sure that the ends are stripped and clean so the probes have good contact. Some light wet and dry paper or scraping it carefully with a knife on the ends and making sure no glue gets on it (or the probes for that matter)...these are the usual problems with taking readings directly from coil wires. Make sure you have your meter calibrated to taking low ohms like 8 ohms, not a level in the thousands for things like pickups also. Being exact with the resistance of the coil seems to have less influence than you might think, slightly lower (i've had coils work well as low as 7ish) or slightly higher seems to be ok...other factors in construction and the magnetics seem to be more important than this. A preamp alone wont power the project, you do need a poweramp of some kind designed to drive a speaker, not just condition a signal. If you have built the F/R thing, test this with a speaker and experiment...look to find the suggested mods, but this has been shown to work in a lot of projects over the years and should at least produce some sustain that you can improve on. Rather than talk hypotheticals with your project, perhaps better would be more details and pictures of your coil and guitar and what you are proposing to do...the topic was about using an HB, so perhaps some details as to how you are doing this would help as so many factors have an influence on performance and you may be entering uncharted waters that few have addressed. I did notice though that there is a pic on the tutorial of my LP with a test SC driver sitting on top of the neck HB...I had to lower the HB so far to fit this, that it was ineffective as a Pup though and was more of a 'proof of concept' experiment with the 'sustainer box' and HB pickups than any kind of installation. I can't recall too many others, but Primal did the LP thing, but I see that the pics now no longer exist on that...but the text is there and in the tutorial.

There is no mystique about the bypass switching and handling of other pickups, posted way back in 2005 and many times since and alternatives, the above diagram was presented including the full wiring for the entire 'sustainer strat' and is still very much like the switching for my tele of recent times...the only mystique is to say there is yet offer little and clogging things down with...well I'd strongly suggest to anyone approaching this project to wind a test driver and circuit and hold the driver above the strings to see if they can successfully test the device they have made before modifying a guitar at all, especially where experience is limited or there is experimentation required that makes the results unknown. Processes such as installation questions can be handled later once you have something that works! The LM386 debate is pointless, it has shown to work, but any suitable battery powered amplifier will work with a 'front end' (preamp or buffer) that prevents loading of the pickups...The main thread has the mods I have suggested to the F/R to bring it up to the specs I use and give added stability to the circuit for instance. Other circuits have been posted as alternatives but conspicuously some have declined posting anything conclusively alternative (like a circuit diagram) while being the most vocal at spreading the idea that the LM386 can not drive high strings etc...which is clearly not true. The 0.2mm wire thing is what is recommended by be for my designs after testing many others and to produce consistent results with my design. There are various reasons why this was settled on, but it has show to work. Otherwise, I'd also point you to the tutorial and pictorial I did on driver winding that shows things like measuring the ohms as winding for instance and constructing a coil, in that case over a pickup, but the principle is the same. Such questions though, make me wonder if you have enough knowledge and experience to carry off this project successfully...measuring the ohms and such are important very basic things even for wiring a guitar and this project is tricky on many levels and essentially, you have to 'do it yourself' in the end, so you may need to acquire these skills first (perhaps build some stompboxes or something, do some reading, look at the tutorials a few more times) before tackling this thing that is notorious for the tinkering required. Suggesting that I have not offered solutions in this area for a long time is just further inflammatory material from someone who has offered very little in what he criticisms me for...no switching, no circuits, no tutorials or design details...just lots of thread hijacks and trolling after anything I personally offer on this subject. Clearly this forum is still not ready to openly discuss or help people with this subject that for the past year has been taboo and seen all the information closed or disappeared for the last year...and so the misinformation and trolling continues.

Well...you are going to do a bit of research and work out exactly how you intend to do this with an HB if you still want an effective neck pickup. The alternative might be to mount a single coil sized HB into half of the space and put a driver along side it. Read the tutorials and such and see how you go. No, it is not enough with a neck pickup present to simply "deselect it"...what happens is that the pickup coil gains induced current like a transformer, although not wired to it, it is linked via the magnetic field. I have found that this needs to be tackled carefully with the entire neck pickup disconnected with a bypass switch. The sustainer is not that hard, but it does draw on quite a few skills to be successful, circuit building, guitar wiring, coil winding, bobbin construction, problem solving...plus a good understanding of some of the issues and principles really. Each installation can have it's own problems or special requirements and in the end the only one who can DIY is that you do it yourself even with all the advice in the world. Also, the adaption of an HB, and what you are after isn't completely clear to me (do you want to have an effective neck pickup or prepared to loose it? Are you prepared to physically modify the guitar, etc ). And, to an extent a bit of this is experimental...HB's need to be close to the strings as a pickup itself because of the magnetic field shape, at least to some extent, I do know it can work, but exactly how you do this and how far you are prepared to go...and not the least your skills in doing it successfully, is kind of in your court. It may be that a DIY sustainer is not for you and you might consider a commercial alternative from fernandes or sustainiac

I think it was Primal that wound a driver on half of a humbucker, the other half made for a low powered single coil as the neck pickup, it was a successful sustainer though...check the original thread on that project perhaps The idea that near coils will pick up noise and interfere by inductance (like a transformer) is a bit of a misnomer and the solutions a bit wafty. I have always found that any near by coils, all other pickups, neck and say middle on a strat, need to be completely disconnected ground and hot (not just disconnected) from the guitars circuit, not a lot of difference in shorting or keeping the coil circuits open, but any induced noise needs to be kept out of the circuit. People like Col also made HB like dedicated drivers as well and it would be possible to do similar things with the piggyback thing. I even put a test coil on top of a lowered HB on my LP and it worked as an experiemcnt...but the HB was way to low to be effective as a Pup. You may wish also to consider the magnetic fields of HB, the opposite nearby polarities are attracted to each other and so have less 'throw' and you will need the driver very close to the strings in general. The idea that strings like 10-52's will lead to over active bass strings is also a bit misleading. Like pickups as well, you simply have to adjust the circuit bias (less bass) or indeed just adjust the driver and or pickup to be less close to the bass strings. HB's are tricky though to work with, if you were of a mind to rewind pickups, perhaps you could do something, the piggyback idea can kind of work and should be fine with a newer design (I have done something like this with dual wafer coils) but that is going to be tricky and a bit experimental to begin with, but certainly it could work...the pickup under it though may be a fair way away from the strings and not be too effective (single coils generally need to be further from strings to avoid wolf tones and that means there is space there). The alternative is a small dedicated driver between the pickup and the neck on an HB guitar, well tested and proven...hopefully this won't turn into some big debate about it, but there is plenty on this kind of thing is just interested in the idea in the main thread...

I have heard reported that different manufactures 386's or any chips are different in sound quality including outpt, but they are what they are and limited at least in part for the amount of power they have to work with...running them from batteries they can be limited by the current that they can draw from them. Something that I have seen done with op amps usually, and I have done this with LM386's is to literally stack them on top of each other. If you think about it, the pins are identical so the signals in and out and power and such will work across both chips...but I can't say that you get any amazingly different results from the single chip. There are other ways to apply the chip or multiple lm386 circuits as well...you could use two complete circuits to run two speakers and get 'twice' the "power" for instance...but you do need the power on hand to run the things, batteries do tend to run down pretty quick and sharing the load from one battery is probably not going to make for good results. Probably a good tip though is to use a chip socket so that you can easily swap out different 386's and see for yourself on an identical circuit if there is a difference to your ears and what works well. pete

Well...I am not doubting that you have explored it a lot. I am also perhaps not completely understanding or indeed not taking everything into account at all. The middle pickup quack is by enlarge a cancelling effect with the pickup it is combined with and placement is crucial. I'd also say that the combined setting (B and N) is greatly affected by this relationship between pickups...I think I may have mentioned that earlier in the thread. Perhaps if you have something that shows how the waves of any fretted note are particularly unique to a certain position I might understand where you are coming from with these concepts. I guess the thing that is holding me back is that while you might find a great spot for an open string, but the time you are playing notes on the 7th fret say these relationships and "preferential" position of a pickup must surely have moved fairly dramatically. And I imagine by the same principle that a pickup perhaps not in the "sweet spot" for an open string may well fall into that area when playing around the 7th fret for example. For any combination of pickups though...I think we are in some agreement that there are much better positions than others and in that there are "sweet spots" to produce those tones. It's kind of amazing that on a strat that fender got it so right...yet it was unintentional and he reportedly hated that quacky sound and the original strats were never wired to produce it with the old three way switches. The tele has an interesting combined pickup sound as well...mine isn't typcial in that department because it has this huge bridge HB...it seems to just sound like the neck pickup with more harmonics for some reason. The out-of-phase version of these two pickups is unique though...sounds like a cocked wha and you can even get wha like effects just by playing things with this setting I have found lately. If interested some of these sounds are in the red like of my sig and a description somewhere in the tele thread of what settings are which (not intending to hijack the thread you understand). It would be interesting if you could perhaps demo in this way audibly if you have a guitar that you think illustrates a superior pickup positioning of tone... pete

Well... I have been away for a bit and come back to see this discussion is still going. Unfortunately, and at the risk of sounding insulting, i think there are a lot of things that are not being taken into account in the search for a definitive answer where there simply may not be one. That said, perhaps I misunderstand what the question is. As I understand it you are trying to ascertain if there is a sweet spot and why (if there is) this may be. There seems to be an assumption that there is in fact a sweet spot for the placement of a neck pickup. For the record, i think there are preferential pickup placement points for different pickups and players and types of play. But I don't think that this can be explained simply or "scientifically" by just nodes and antinodes and such. Some of the reasons have been given such as the obvious moving of all these nodes as the strings length is shortened by fretting. Other reasons however have not been fully explored, a vibrating string for instance does not only vibrate at the fundamental frequency but a very complex accumulation of overlapping, reinforcing and cancelling nodes and anti nodes related to the harmonic series. The amount and amplitude of these harmonic waves behind a note a greatly affected by the construction and materials used in the guitar, the type, magnetism and width of the sensing device (pickup) as well as its placement and the way the guitar is played. For a given player then, I believe there ma be a preferential (sweet spot) for the neck pickup. Certainly further towards the centre of a strings vibration gives a more fundamental heavy smoother sound. So, if this is the sound that one is after, for play from the lower frets to the mid board, further from the bridge is an advantage....and could be taken to be a general rule. I don't think a universal sweet spot exists though or that it is that important given all the other factors and the ability to compensate for a lot of these things with the pre-amplification if desired. ... For the way I play in recent times and with my particular telecaster, I use the neck pickup alot and in combination with the bridge pickup. In fact I have always had a bit of a preference for the combined pickup selection even when I played a les paul. Part of the reason is that I like the smoother tone but I still want to be able to get the harmonics that the bridge pickup senses. I use an SCn tele chrome covered pickup which has a narrower field than even a strat...but I have used others and the quality of this pickup has had more of an effect on this tone in the same place than the positioning. But then, I am also using a fairly clean tone these days and doing a lot of chord work or leads in the lower register (below the 12th fret) and this gives a good bright and true sound to this kind of play for me. I believe that if I moved this pickup a cm either way it would have perhaps a slightly different tone, but still a usable and good sound for this purpose. Ironically I guess...looking at the guitar right now...it has 21 frets but the fretboard extends to where the 22nd would be...and the pickup is far enough from that that I dare say on this guitar I could have 23-24 frets and have the pickup placed exactly where it is now or extremely close. Now...HB pickups will warm things up a lot more and a neck HB will even out the response to a warm fundamental heavy sound as it will be more consistent in reading fundamental modes of vibration over the many secondary harmonic modes. However, the guitar itself makes a huge difference to this...my les paul will also have a very smooth neck tone largely as a result of it's rock solid construction...where as my tele is an extremely bright harmonically rich guitar...even if I were to put a neck HB on it, it would still have an enormous amount of harmonic content in it regardless and this matters far more IMO than the placement of the pickup. ... Anyway...I don't no if this is of any use or value to your thesis. I'd be very careful about comparisons with acoustic guitars...they are likely even more complex again. You are not just hearing the string but the manner that the top is vibrated by them and this involves so many different factors...even though many do relate to the solid body as well in the nature of a strings vibration, we do sense and amplify the strings directly in this case by enlarge. But I am not entirely sure what it is that you are seeking, verification that there is a "sweet spot" (which seems to be largely disputed here) and if so (since you feel that you can hear one) why that would be. What I think you can hear is your own preference for pickup placement and I would not dispute that, as I explained, I can hear it too...for me...but this is more to do with the type of play and expectations that I have over some mystical "best" location theory. But...you know...my considered opinion of course. I am sure that a lot of work went into some of this by those modeling guys who allow you to simulate locating virtual pickups anywhere along the strings length...perhaps there is some material there. pete

I'd consider just wiring everthing with shielded cable and leave it at that...that can be plenty quiet enough and how it is traditionally done...just watch the soldering so you don't melt things... pete

Sure...the commercial sustainers preamp the whole guitar as far as I can tell (my DIY sustainers don't but some people have done that as well) which means that you need to have some power in the battery to operate the pickup preamp and the switching system...however it is nothing like the amount of power required to run the sustainer itself. That is why it is vital that you can get to the battery as you will go through a few if you use the sustainer a lot. But that is unlikely a reason for your problems...if the sustainer is working it has plenty of juice. Running a buffer or preamp on a passive signal gives the signal some brilliance and more highs and harmonics generally...it doesn't need to be an EMG system or something. My impression of the sustainiac guitar I have played once was it was pretty good...it sounded pretty much as you would expect for a Jem style guitar and sounded much the same with the sustainer on...however it did need power in either mode. pete

Well...the switching is active and the pickups are passive...however I believe that besides my own DIY versions all sustainers require power to run an internal buffer...so they are not on/off devices like effect boxes. So...even though the JB is a passive pickup it goes through a preamp...as should the middle pickup for that matter. These things are not at all easy...but they are doable with some study. The pics don't really show what is what and what goes where...it is a bit different from other sustainer circuit boards I ahve seen as well...maybe the jackson brand thing. If the sustainer thing is working though...it is likely to be an installation fault...just very hard to trouble shoot such things. A major reason I didn't develop my own sustainer into a kit has always been the difficulty in installation...where I have done such things there have always been some kind of problem that comes up and even having built and tested things myself it can be sooo hard to know what has happened...it only needs to be a small thing...people have enough problems just wiring a guitar without this kind of thing in there. Even very competent repair guys have trouble of course...if it is a sustainic unit...they might be able to direct you to someone who has experience with such things...as most of the install is done...it might not be too much to have it checked out. The DD JB is not much different from the authentic one...i have had both...and the kind of sound you describe with the sustainer on is much like the tone you should expect from it...that why it is so popular. However...often the sustainer does bring all those characteristics out more and the buffer removes any loading as well that only makes it more alive...it is worth persevering with, but i think you will need some experienced help beyond what can be offered here or on line pete

Definitively done something wrong with the wiring there. The JB tends to have a great sound for harmonics and it sounds like the wiring is faulty...it's not an easy thing to do and why sustainiac have registered installers. Sustainiac are also an active system even with the sustainer off as far as I am aware, the switching is I believe electronic through the circuit and it is quite a bit different from your average wiring thing. So...temperamental and you will need to test the pickups as described, but it sounds like you already have identified that the selector isn't working properly. Sustainers affect the whole wiring of the guitar generally and each are a little different, they are not a simple add on like a preamp but a whole of system device. Perhaps of interest with my DIY sustainers, they are not active systems with the sustainer off which is kind of unique...but even there, the bypassing is quite complicated and needs to be sorted to switch the wiring between the sustainer mode with pickups bypassed and the normal passive system with the sustainer switched off. As these things can get complicated, sustainiac have a lot of switching handled on the circuit but the connections are crucial and generally the guitar wont work at all if the battery goes flat. Anyway...make sure everything is done exactly as described by the manufacturer for your type of guitar installation...there are a lot of wires on those things and is very easy to get things out of wack... pete

I haven't read the entire thread, but I think the failure is largely to do with this being basically a preamp kind of circuit where you need the power of a power amp circuit to drive a speaker or headphones generally. The ubiquitous LM386 meets the bill for this kind of thing with battery power as on the various "ruby" like circuits based on it...another approach is to use power transistors fed by the opamp circuit to push the power through to move speakers sufficiently. I am not sure of this analogy, but you could look at the speaker or headphones like a big (generally 8 ohm) resistor...you may be getting the gain but not the "power" to move this obstacle at the end of the circuitry. What you are getting is a lot of voltage gain from such circuits but not current gain...so perhaps an analogy is you are getting a lot more water but not the flow rate to move the speakers when it hits that resistance...maybe an analogy would be a hose running up hill, you can have as much water at the bottom as you like, but it takes some pressure to get it to run up hill! However, such circuits are useful if not necessary on the front end of power amps like the LM386...you need them to prevent loading down the guitars signal as generally power amps have a very low input impedance (like resistance)...such opamp or transistor circuits before the power amp stage help to condition the incoming signal from the guitar to "match" the impedance and not offer a tone robbing obstacle to the guitar itself. Hope that hasn't confused things even further... pete

Hello again...just looking in after moving to my island...getting a bit chilly down here! Good to see the thread continues the tradition of long threads! Still...the computer didn't survive the move too well...blew the power supply and CPU...but am now on dial up and awaiting ADSL service in the near future...fingers crossed! ... camilo...I suspect there are some problems with that switching system...the tone pot switches on power, but how is the other pickups bypassed so that only the bridge pickup is operational when the sustainer is switched on? I'd also add any of the mods like the zobel that can help control potential oscillation as per the hi-gain LM386 data sheet and seen here from time to time and discussed a fair bit. Perhaps the wiring of the selector could be used so that the sustainer works only when the bridge pickup is selected but it may take some working. ... There are a few streams or camps I guess that have become more polarized in recent times. One is the pursuit of an improved sustaining device which by necessity takes a lot of work and innovation. Then there are the simple approaches with the restrictions on performance that can come from that. However, I think that you can, and people have, created quite good, even professional performance from the simple approaches that compare well with the sustainiac and fernandes systems and if the limitations of such devices are accepted. In some aspects there are "improvements" such as not using any power when not in use and significantly smaller circuits as well as the option of driver types and switching to suit the installation type. However, once you start looking for improved polyphonic response or things like a mid driver things get very complicated indeed. And, having done some work in these directions including the hex systems there are perhaps not the returns one might expect for the amount of effort that is required to make the things. ... Meanwhile, given my present situation/location, all my project work has been boxed up and not likely to re-emerge till at least after winter at this stage. I am likely to be doing a bit more playing and possibly recording and I may well have some use for the sustainer along the way that might demonstrate what can be achieved with the simpler approach. More power to those that seek to push the boundaries of course. For myself I found there to be some fundamental obstacles and I don't think that necessarily 'theory' will surmount...but I may well be wrong and perseverance may well rule the way. The end result may well be more complex than the average DIYer might wish to embrace of course. In my hex designs cross talk was a fundamental problem...in some of the mid driver things I could get it to work with one or other of the pickups selected, but not both at once...hmmm...and every guitar seems to have it's own idiosyncrasies to tackle. Still, I am happy with the way the tele worked out for instance and it is worth while addition to what has become my main guitar and workhorse instrument. One of these days I will attempt to finish my strat project with the ultra thin coil pickup/driver (the sustainer has been tested as working and built into other guitars). Anyway...just passing, thought I'd drop in and see what's happening and if progress has been made... pete ps...thaks FF for all the references to my work. I don't think that the LM386 is a secret to the success of my builds, it was just a cheap and available poweramp chip for battery operation. I did try some others, but found that the LM386 to be adequate and cheaper than the alternatives I tried at least with the same drivers...they all seemed to work. I always included the zobel and other components as the data sheet version was what came as standard with the CHAmp kits I originally used (these are cheaper than the sum of individual components in them!)...various preamps were tried and all worked in their fashion...originally a lot of gain was used, but in my more recent versions very little gain if any is involved in the preamp stage, mainly it is there to prevent loading.

Perhaps what is happening is that the middle pickup is quiet (how does it sound with the middle only if that is a selection?)...but the selector is splitting the HB's. Likely it was set up to be HB'ing with one of the HB's split and the middle pickup (like a strat in 2 and 4 position)...now that you have got a noiseless (which is also an HB) you will have lost that effect when split and the others may be making noise if that makes sense. Otherwise, if your VV SC has 4 conductor wiring, you may have connected it wrong so it is only operating on one coil.

The problem appears to be the bare wire going to the S/P switch. This is wrong. It should go directly to ground or the phase switch ground (the arrow on the bottom lug). The reason is that the phase switch reverses hot and ground and it looks like it is shorting out the guitar when switched...at least this looks to be the problem and seems to be a fault in SD wiring scheme over an error of yours. hope that helps...pete

Hmmm...sounds like the shielding is hot! I would suspect that string grounding thing....you should hard wire the ground to the trem/bridge/string to the "star" volume pot. Of course...this is where you need a multimeter/continuity tester. for this I use my old "analog" needle meter...touching the ground to the jack and foil for instance. One problem that may result from fixing the ground wire thing is that you may end up shorting the guitar (hot to ground) and getting no sound at all. One way to test if the shield is hot perhaps is to touch a wire from the ground (output jack or volume knob that decreases noise) to the strings (or shielding). It's very hard to know exactly what you have done but it sounds like you rewired it, not just shielded the cavity and as a result something may have gone wrong in this process. Again, it is easy for things to go wrong in a strat when it is reassembled and can be frustrating...everything can test ok till you put it all together...so all the more important to test that things are ok while it is opened up...in case when closing it a hot wire presses against the shielding somehow. Anyway...not a lot I can offer at this point....keep at it...likely it is something simple pete

Hmmm...it occurs to me though...thinking a bit more...that you might have a completely unrelated problem. It could be insufficient pressure on the saddles...a neck shim and re setup might fis this if lowering the pickups has no effect. It may be that the high e crashes into the frets a little above the 12th fret...this can be from a poorly adjusted neck or far too low an action. The string can just touch the frets enough to dampen things and set off "wolf tone" effects. As I understand and experience it, magnetic wolf tones tend to happen more on the lower strings that have more mass for the magnets to work on...which made me think again. Lower the pickups...if that doesn't help...take a good look at the frets, neck bow and the breakover on the saddle to ensure there isn't something else going on. pete

Ohhh...a case of stratitis.... wolf tones are generally caused by single coils, generally the neck and/or middle pickup. Basically the strong magnetic strength directed in one direction (as in a SC pup) can pull down or dampen the strings at certain harmonic points like touching harmonics, above the twelfth fret you are also pushing the string down closer to these pickups...particularly the neck pup...making the effect worse. Generally you solve this problem by adjusting the SC pickups away from the strings till it goes away. HB pickups tend not to have as much "pull" and do so over a wider area and can be adjusted very close to the strings without ill effect. The main reason is that each coil has a different polarity and the magnets are attracted to each other more than they pull on the string. Unfortunately the HSS combination can lead to a loud bridge pickup and it is tempting to raise the SC's to compensate...not a good idea unfortunately. On my strat I have hotter neck and middle pickups but they still have a tendency to be weaker than the bridge HB...such is life. In sustainer land, I have developed a personal preference for the basic single coil driver over fancier dual coil systems because they seem to have more "throw"...this means they can be a little further from the strings. On my tele sustainer I reversed the polarity of the single coil driver to the neck pickup next to it so that it wouldn't have quite so much of this wolf tone effect...more like an HB magnetically perhaps. pete

Be aware that the hybrid set screw to fix the bridge is behind the bridge and fairly small needing an allan key to set it...this could be a problem with recessed versions. You can just see it behind the bridge on my tele above at the back. I found it to be of great use in changing strings and installation as it keeps the bridge fixed in the place it should be when fully strung in tune...as long as you adjust the spring tension right. They may seem a bit "hair metal" perhaps...but i didn't choose it for the extremes it could do but for the build quality, the amount of chrome and for a floating bigsby kind of action...if used responsibly. Other benefits is the bridge saddles stay faxed so string damping wont effect the tuning while playing as with fulcrum types and the strings don't lift when the trem is used which means they stay close to the sustainer driver no matter how slack the strings go. Really though, it depends on the guitar you put it on...but I would pay some attention to the set screw issue if recessing the thing...on any top loading bridge you need a fairly big breakover angle to get enough pressure on the saddles...on my tele of course I could add shims to get a better tone on the high strings I suspect by shimming the neck a touch more...the saddles do need to be quite high for them to work effectively pete

I really think things are getting into mysticism a little here. I don't by this at all for the reasons given..especially the modes and antinondes which change with every fretted note...or that the length of string behind the note is at all advantageous...generally one attempts to dampen the string behind the fretted note or it is dampened automatically by the finger pad (remember behind the finger it does not bend over a fret as it does in front generally. As for gibson's design team...hmmm...there is a clear evolution from the archtop guitars, I really don't think there is a magic position there other than the provisions already discussed. If you want to look at why people may choose to design a guitar a certain way that seems to make some intuitive "sense"...maybe you should look to the science of aesthetics. The Fibonacci series and the golden mean relate to the harmonic series that is graphically drawn out in the distance between frets...perhaps the gibson position of the neck pickup makes more intuitive sense from a design/aesthetic point of view than it does to anything else. Although, I doubt that gibson would have though about it like that at all...most likely they thought it was one more fret than the tele and they had big pickups that needed to be far apart to get a good variance of tone. Honestly try the slide without damping...in this "experiment" you will be able to clearly hear the effect of the ringing of the string behind a given note and how bad these interference tones are. Similarly to test your theory, wrap a sock behind the fretted notes to prevent vibrations on that string length...perhaps it will have no effect...perhaps it will sound better! This sort of thing may also relate to things like neck joint tightness, type and resonances of the neck as well. The nodes/antinodes thing really is a furphy and far to simplistic a way to look at things...at the very least it should be laid to rest buy the fact that these things change with every fretted note that effectively makes the string shorter. On a bass where the strings are considerably longer, the fundamental modes of vibration are longer and the fundamental note wanted to be far stronger...and with single coil pickups...there probably is advantageous positions for general play of that instrument...but with guitar I think that there are other things at work, a different kind of tone desired and a different type of play completely (full range, higher frequencies, chords, etc) pete

Hmmm...there probably is a bit of voodoo and misunderstanding...most ground loops are small enough not to have too many bad effects. Generally though...a single coil pickup is susceptible to noise as it "loops" of wire in the coil will form an anntena to passing radio frequency waves and electromagnetic "noise" about the place. Now, suppose you have a guitar as quiet as it is going to be...say hb pickups that cancel out the noise inherit in the SC pickup construction...poor wiring can result in creating little "loops" that act as antenna to pick up signals and so create noise. So, that should be avoided in general by grounding everything with the minimum wire to a central point (as in star grounding)...but often such things are of such a small length that it makes little difference I suspect and are blamed for other bad wiring problems. There are some traps though...I often use shielded cable, but it is only necessary for it to be grounded at one end which avoids a loop and the longer grounding from a pickup to a selector can be of enough length to have qute a bit of effect to allow noise back into the system. Plus, ground looped systems are almost always simply badly planned and executed and that is where a lot of the problems arise as much as any ground loops themselves. Sorry...perhaps not the best or fullest explanation... pete Hmmm...well perhaps checking up on myself...Wiki...my explanation is a bit poor. Components like pickups and pots can vary the resistance and so the ground potentials between grounding wires...therefore unless everything is going to a fixed point there can be differing potentials (some grounds hotter than others) within a control cavity. As such, noise can be introduced as currents can flow as some grounding points may be "less" ground than others.