psw

I'm a little suspect of this theory I have to say...every fretted note will obviously change all the nodes along a string. All the harmonic nodes 'gather' at the ends of strings (so the nut or the fretted note and bridge end of a string). So, for a natural harmonic you will find it easier to pluck them and they get closer together and have a more complex relationship with the "fundamental" mode of vibration. So...a bridge pickup is always going to be near the end of the string and be harmonically "rich" regardless of note played. The neck pickup will become more rich the closer the string is stopped to it, so a note on the 22nd fret is going to be effectively very close to the neck pickup and the effective 'end of the string' (the note will so high however that the far higher overtones be heard far less than a lower note). An acoustic guitars string vibration is obviously at the very end of the string and potentially very rich in high order jangly harmonics. I didn't look at your sources, except in additive synthesis perhaps, I've not hear the lowest node of vibration being termed as anything but the fundamental. It is perhaps a loaded term that implies it is "better" or "pure" and so necessarily desirable. On one reading, you seem to have missed mentioning the most important thing, which is the "mix' of harmonics...the stuff that makes the more complex "tone" that people are looking towards. At the neck pickup position, fairly much where ever it is, the 'fundamental' has a wide vibrational arch and so will appear to be the louder in the mix of overtones (exceptions being fretted note in the highest positions as mentioned but then the highest overtones of such frequencies tend to be attenuated by the ear). In fact, the 'fundamental' can swamp the overtones a fair bit and so give any neck pickup a smoother, more 'fundamental' sound. So...the mix of harmonics is crucial, at the bridge end of course, the arch of the fundamental vibration is less being close to the fixed point and only fixed mode in the system, of the bridge. Therefore, the relative 'mix' of harmonics will be less fundamental and the harmonics more on a par...the whole lot will be less in output, pickups in the bridge are often compensated for this with more power to balance with the neck. Also, there is not that much mention or an assumption about the sampling 'window' of a pickup. It is broader than you might thing, certainly broader than the physical poles of the device. An HB has a huge window sampling quite a bit of string, but even a single coil tends to sample points well beyond the individual nodes. One might expect if this were true, that as you fret notes the tone would change radically. You show a series from an A string for instance, a note Bb will move everything up the space of a fret and with it condense the modes and shift them along...do you hear a radical change in tone and harmonic mix? So...there are some concerns about the ideas and so the conclusions reached. The 24 fret guitar thing has merit, especially in an HB guitar, the further away from the fixed bridge nodal point and from the bridge pickup position, the greater the difference and the higher the mix of fundamental. But, as I say...I have quite a few reservations on this. There have been some in depth analysis done scientifically some where I have seen. And, I applaud that method of moving the pickup around to test your theories...the result is most likely that you have found a place where you prefer the neck pickup to be placed more than proven that there is a 'best' place to locate a neck pickup per se....but, happy to be convinced otherwise

You might want to see if you can find one of those "color organ" electronic kits. Remember those things...the different lights and are triggered by harmonic content...so high notes some lights, low another, chords lots of lights...hahahha I also used to get these cheap pens from the $2 shop here that were mostly a plastic prisim with a tiny circuit that had several modes. I got them because they were cheaper to by than a single blue LED and quite bright. However, if you had fiber optics and bring them all together, you could use such a circuit to mix the colors or sequence through them or flash or the other things this pen would do and run it up the optics. Which reminds me they also sold those fiber optic "hairy lamps" that rotated through the colors...a source of fiber optics perhaps though very thin and the ones my kids bought me a little short! You know, my sustainer guitar has a blue LED in it when the device is on and I always feel a bit silly with my guitar shining like that...but then I don't have the makeup to hide the blush and acne like Ace, perhaps that's my problem...

Yes...as per last post as said... You know, I never had tried it really before, the parallel thing had always got 'bad press' and I ahve always had splits...there is a bit of difference with the splits as you can effectively move the pickup position by being able to split between one coil or another further along the string, and it does make a bit of difference with combined settings, on some guitars and pickups you can get a bit of 'strat quack' in there...mine does it quite well with a split to the inner coils. Interesting in the JP LP like design with extras that I used, my LP does parallel on the bridge, and if you pull the split on the neck as well, both are split...or you can have series and neck split...but you can't get parallel and neck split...but there is a limit and the difference are very little really. I'll certainly be exploring this kind of thing more though...I have an HSS strat that's needing wiring and am thinking that going parallel will be a far better option than splitting for sure on the bridge HB. In fact, I am thinking of putting a secret switch on the backplate or even inside the guitar to get my new LP's HB neck pickup to work in parallel by default. Compared to the overpowered bass heavy all slug pole pickup in it, I think it will be a much better sounding option than the series sound all the time. It makes me wonder if a lot of these overpowered mid-rangy HM type pickups couldn't be brought to a new life just by wiring them in parallel before swapping them out. Maybe it takes a pickup like this with extra power and bass to make it as successful as mine was, but I am certainly convinced!

Thanks... Are all those clicks and pops and drop outs something to do with the processing...I'm not following why it does that to the actual guitar sound, surely it would only affect the drive signal and the strings momentum would carry through? Also seems to be generating a fair few harmonics, perhaps perhaps the square wave signal is boosting all the huge harmonic content present in the piezo system and requires filtering back to the fundamental. There seems to be some 'winning out' in the middle range of the guitar. On mine, it's kind of 'tuned' so the middle range 'wins out' which is not a bad thing for the polyphonic effect. I can't help but think that you'd get much the same result without the difficulties, easier and cheaper and smaller by simply going analogue, and by limiting the power not risk melting the coils. For instance, 3 stereo amps could drive each coil individually from each piezo saddle and provide the same kind of thing without using any 'computer' power at all? You could mix the power to compensate for strings as well as other tweaking as well...just an impression

Yes...as per last post...don't know dudes from the tube... However, I just did an LP with 22 switch combination's including "global series" (turns two pickups into one huge HB...LOL)...but my favorite and I had never really explored before, is the parallel HB sound..bright like a split but slightly louder and fuller and zero noise. Next one I do will likely have at least parallel on both pickups...I am even considering having a parallel on the neck pickup as well, it's great if they pickups you have are a little too dark or muddy from overwinding!

I'm not following... Are you saying that although you can get sustain now, it is not clean? Is it not possible to hear the guitar clean as it is working now...I mean, we are not just talking distortion here but all kinds of filtering and other effects are we not? These can be 'impressive' but surely not how you are testing the effectiveness of the device, how would you be able to hear what is going on (or people like me hear it) if everything is masked by such distortions? You will note how much emphasis was put into "fizz" and drive wave forms for years and how to get the best clean response of the actual instrument. These are crucial requirements to deal with as if it produces it's own colour, it will colour everything you do with it also. It shouldn't be a "suspicion" but it's good that someone is finally catching on to the subtleties of some of the simple designs I tend to promote. The restrictive power of the 9volt battery supply, the distortion compression as something like an LM386 peaks, all manner or natural results of the design provide for limiting effects so that things don't get out of control and enhance response. It's not hard to melt coils or even fry strings and burn fingers and to pull notes way out of tune, just look at the first post in the sustainer thread about my previous attempts before starting that...not ideal! I would have thought that getting a good clean and controlled response (through limiting) would be far more of a priority than worrying about harmonic generation and phase angles and filters and such. But, I am a little lost as the sound clips seem not to illustrate things too well. Surely the guitar is capable of making a guitar sound free of effects so that it can be heard? I don't see how frying the coils comes into it surely...if it can do what you are already recording, surely it can do the same thing without the effects so you can hear whats going on? I see, it "just goes wild" but that's a problem right there that needs to be addressed. Hearing what the driver hears is cool, we all do that by connecting a speaker to the circuit to 'hear it', but in the end it is how the thing works in the guitar. In short, it is hard for me to "get" where you are up to and where the thing is going or you are aiming for. Anyway, it certainly is an expensive project and getting increasingly complex...I prefer to aim for a more 'elegant simplicity' myself, even when I was working on my Hex drivers...the intention was to get things that would inherently work and continue to simplify things so that more complexity could be added to that again as required, otherwise you can end up chasing your tail and the complexity just runs rampant. Already you seem to be requiring a computer just to generate the drive signal! For me also, there are many times where practicality has to be acknowledged...there's only so much I'd be prepared to plug my guitar into to make a noise after all!

All the clips I've heard have been saturated in effects...any chance of hearing the actual guitar clean without anything on it? Traditionally these things are judged by what they can do as a basic sound that can be 'effected'...plus, it's easy to be impressed with the computing power or digital processing these days, but that isn't what is being demonstrated. Holding a note or chord indefinitely is after all not hard with sample and hold technology in the digital realm without any modifications...as is pitch shifting and filters...but working with the sound of a real guitar, now there's a trick. But it's good that you are enjoying the process, where ever it may lead and it is giving you some results...carry on...

Has anyone ever actually been up close and personal with the "Moog"...there certainly is a lot subscribed to it and a lot of assumptions, but as yet and only one slightly independent review, there's been little and nothing on the technical details at all...let along the musical and other attributes of the thing. I have a sense of what you are going for, but it seems to be a rare wish, and what it is you intend to do with it is still evading me...it's certainly a lot of work and computer power and invasive modification for something that seems to be completely possible by other means without it... I could be wrong, but my impression of the moog thing and ideals is that it will be a novelty footnote like the gizmotron in time with little effective use made of it...just a hunch...more will and has been made with ebows and conventional sustainers or even natural feedback, but it is likely even there it will remain a bit of an "effect"... I suppose one day the guitar might evolve to have the range and expressiveness of a violin bow while retaining it's present attributes, but that day if ever is a long way away and this is likely the way towards it. Anyone that has tried to bow a violin will realize that it can be tricky and require technique and compromises, but what an amazing expressive device. With all things there are the untamed elements, and those who can tame them effectively...if the devices are too neutered, with that too goes some of the potential for expression. But then, perhaps I just don't "get" what you are shooting for or what this thing is being built to do?!

Single coil pickups are always susceptible to hum...it's in their nature. Not familiar with yours, but they are never going to be happy near a computer monitor for instance, or fluro lights and such. A fair bit can be done with shielding, a lot can be done with just shielded cable....for instance, if the neck pickup has shielded leads, that would pretty much cover it. My tele has no shielding other than the metal bridge and control covers and shielded pickup leads...it's deal quiet, but both pickups are noiseless and humbucking...similar my new LP, split the coils and you will get some noise...so the noise is not due to cavity shielding (or in both guitars a lack of it other than shielded cables) but due entirely to the single coil pickups...

If you tie a sock around the nut end of the guitar, you get the "moog banjo" effect with a conventional sustainer, as long as you don't play open strings! sorry, couldn't resist, an old recording trick, sustainer or no to keep things quiet...

JohnH DIY Piezo circuit and details This circuit was designed for a specific guitar of course, but sounds fairly decent for the "buzzer piezo" element kind of thing...it's mono of course, but gives you much detail about the filtering and such. Piezos can have a huge dynamic range, but I was surprised that you'd be trying to alter the piezos before buffering and likely affect the ghost preamp system if trying to mess with that end of things also. I considered doing a piezo thing in my new guitar, it even has a piezo element built in, but the preliminary sound was not that great and in the end I got a $50 Acoustic simulator pedal that sounds as good as a lot of DIY piezo things I have heard and in many ways more versatile as well...can plug any guitar into it for instance...so abandoned it at least for this guitar. Along the way, I also use Kahler bridges and trems, so it was in part a project to show how you could piezo up these bridges...there are lots of design features that kind of lend themselves to this kind of thing and even DIY hex systems as well...when, I got word that graphtech are coming out with a midi compatible ghost system for this bridge in the near future. All piezos, and in the bridge even, are going to be subject to handling noise, especially in muting on the bridge and with a trem, possibly springs and mechanical noise showing up...so, for me perhaps not the best way to go and obviously a vast amount of work to DIY and costly with the new systems as well...

Why do you need to put a filter before buffering the piezos? If you run it through a simple buffer you'd get a low impedance and they you could filter as you pleased. There are some good DIY piezo circuits around, JohnH form GN2 and here gave a good circuit with the filter graphs and specs for instance...might be of some help.

I'm working on my new guitar, an LP with Kahler, and was able to track down a thumb screw of the right thread (thanks to wammi world for the size...6/32) to replace the allen bolt grub screw that normally locs the kahler... Likely it would only work on the stud type as you need a little clearance at the back there, but works a treat, just ground down a little on the end, a few turns and it's locked solid and in tune... Great should you break a string or need a fixed bridge for say altered tunings...which is why i need this solution... Looks like it was made for it...the pic shows the bridge "unlocked", so in trem mode...the screw goes almost all the way in to be locked solid. Thanks Wammi J for the tread size... pete

Really...isn't the saying, don't put anything smaller than your elbow in your ears? Most things are harmful, ear wax is created for a reason...ear candling can be dangerous and scientifically show to be bogus (think about it, no way can it produce a vacuum and on testing all that wax came from the candle itself...years back I gave it a go to help a friend who was learning this stuff, but I never felt so silly...someone has actually died from doing it themselves!!!) So...I will confess to the occasional q-tip on the outside of the ear canal to dry them, especially if I've been swimming in the ocean or got water in my ears some how...it you take out the wax, the body will just try and compensate by creating more...then you create a cycle of the stuff... If you are having ear irritations, see a doctor, if it's a bit of ringing in the ears, that will not help, leave it alone and turn down the volume. When working in industrial jobs, we wore foam ear plugs...a pain at first, but then I realized you could ignore the supervisors claiming you couldn't hear them, and a lot quieter... When playing in a band, I didn't use ear plugs, the main problem was the high end coming off the edges of the cymbals...that's why drummers suffer, it's aimed right at them...so just avoid that for the high end. You don't really "need" to play that loud generally, if you are louder than a drummer acoustically, that's really a bit too loud! One of the big problems these days are things like iPods, so not too loud and over exposed with things right in your ears. Your ear also has a natural threshold and if you expose yourself to a lot of loud noise, not only will it hurt in time, possibly give you headaches and other symptoms...they will try and moderate things so later you can't hear so well till they adjust...and when you are making noise, you won't hear it as loud as it is...better not to reach that threshold in the first place so it always sounds "loud" but within reason... But...I believe it is something, particularly in america it seems, that people get a bit weird about and feel that the wax in there is somehow unnatural and should be removed...it's there to ensure that your ears are safe, so best to leave it alone generally. If you must, there are ultrasonic ear cleaning devices I've heard, but really, it's all a bit of a scam...gross you out on the idea, convince you that it's wrong, get you to clean it, make it become a problem...then you keep buying crap to clean it because your ears are making more to replace what you have just taken out! That's all you need...the outside of the ear after a hot shower...and as far as I'm prepared to go! What a weird question!

Well...I ahve a different perspective...it certainly would be nice to have all octaves say, and something to pursue... But, I disagree with the wrong note thing...these are harmonics, derived from the harmonic series and are within the notes, not imposed on it. As a player, I use a lot of harmonics these days especially. Now, the 12th frets will give you your octaves, the seventh fret is going to give you an octave and a fifth above that...so on the A string, 12th fret will be an A note and octave higher, the 7th fret that and a fifth higher than that...so A, A octave, E and octave and a fifth above that...the 4th fret (ish) is going to give you a C# on the A string, an octave higher still. This is just the manner in which strings vibrate and the overtones within the vibrating note as they naturally occur. It is only reasonable that the natural effect of generating harmonics will apply the same laws... So, with the harmonic generating device in a fixed position (the driver) and the source signal in another place (harmonically rich) you are going to have to expect that the driver will suppress the fundamental (as lightly touching the string at the nodes of the string does) and expose the harmonic in relation to that. So...sometimes the note is going to be an octave, more often a fifth, sometimes a 3rd, sometimes reverting back to the fundamental again (too high and the sound will be too weak or high to sustain). You can have some choice in this by which fretted tone you use of course, and some installations and approaches may lead to different results. It's admirable to pursue these things, but it is also encumbered on a musician to be able to map these things out and work with them, and this can be rewarding in of itself. A trumpet uses the harmonics to get all the notes and range for instance from only three valves and blowing harmonics and adjusting...a bugle gets all of it's note in this manner! So...it is a matter of knowing what the thing is doing and mapping out what you play with this in mind really...I know, sounds like work...but really, I don't see why if the goal is to play "octaves" (especially if going to this extent and already with midi capability) because harmonics sound "wrong" then, surely the most obvious thing to do is simply plug in a pitch shifter and getting all the octaves you want...or any interval for that matter? The interesting thing about the harmonics generated by the sustainer or just generally, like natural harmonics techniques, or pick harmonics, or whatever...is that it is surprising how "right" these things do sound. You listen to ZZ tops La Grange and hear all those 'pick harmonics' including high major thirds, and you don't think, "woah, that one was a clanger Billy!" No, the thing is that these harmonics are already there in the tonal makeup underneath the fundamental...that can be a beautiful thing...it can be used. Fortunately, in general the sustainer devices used conventionally (and they all do it of course) are incredibly predictable, you just need to 'learn' the instrument...as you need to learn the notes that natural harmonics make if you want to use them effectively. Or, you can just enjoy the fact that they can sound "right" even though apparently wrong, as they were always there in the first place in the original note. I can see why you might seek to get 'octaves' as a rule, it kind of "would be nice" and it may well be that with this elaborate approach it might be possible, it's a little hard to tell as yet, there are physics of the vibrating string and limitations to the physical layout of the device. But, there certainly other, less invasive and easier ways to get octave sounds from a note than a sustainer...for that matter, there are easier ways to get a sound to hold forever digitally too, especially with synth or digital capability with things like sample and hold. The beauty of the sustainer to me is in that it is an organic thing (like harmonics in the string) and that it opens up a door to these organic if quirky things that are available from manipulating the physical vibrations of the string. Different aims perhaps, but if the aim was ever to produce harmonics only of an octave or whatever, this is not the way I'd be going about it frankly, far easier ways. I can see where you are coming from, once you get into polyphonic things (unlike the trumpet) you are going to get all sorts of musical problems...for instance, from memory... My note G on the low e string first fret in harmonic mode is going to play the note B...so a major third, way up on the high e, 7th fret as an equivalent. So, when I hold the chord G, the low note will morph to add a B note and octave and a fifth above that...so equivalent to the 4th fret b string. So, I know that as a musican who has learned the "instrument" and can use it...and avoid it. For instance, If I am playing a G minor chord, I'm not going to want a huge sustaining B note to emerge right next to the Bb, even if it is an element of the G note (hidden within the harmonic series). However, with my guitar...(I plugged it in right now, so I am testing it)...I have it set up so that the low notes in the 'fundamental mode' also "bloom" into harmonics...I find this to be musical and a creative element to it. And, that note G will drive the harmonic an octave higher, so avoiding any clash, but still creating the harmonic effect. Now, turn down the "drive" and you can alter the timing of the "bloom" from fairly instantaneous to a slow emerging where both the harmonic and the fundamental can be heard from the one string. So, it is simply a matter of saying, well, some notes produced by the natural harmonics produced by this device (as with the natural harmonics produced along any string) are not going to work with all chords, other times they are going to be great...say if in fact the chord is a G major and by playing a power chord of G and D on the lower two strings, I get say G morphing and for a bit sounding together, through the octave to a 5th above and the D string morphing to an octave above that. But, it is tricky to take everything into account, especially when things are polyphonic, but that is something I tend to see as something of the nature of the instrument, something to work with or around as required, and further avenues to explore...not as "wrong"...just requiring a different kind of intuition. Bit like the way with using natural harmonics they get higher the lower down the fretboard you go! To me, the organic nature of the device is a part of it's "charm" if you will, there are other ways to get all octaves and even sustain without going into this technology. It may even be possible to get what you desire from it, but it is going to take a lot if it's going to be practical at all to fight the laws inherent in the harmonic series and the limitations of most of this technology.

You understand that the tone cap is just a means to roll off the highs ( a treble bleed the opposite) and that with any passive circuits, all you can ever do is take away form things. Many have gone with the varitone idea or switchable caps...but these only really affect things in the operation of the of the tone control...not the TONE of the guitar at all. If considering such schemes, you might want to put one setting to be a total bypss of all the controls and get the full power and harmonic richness and highs of a pickup unaffected by pots and caps and such...just a thought. If you are keen on using the tone controls (few in reality ever use the things) then it can make sense to have preset tone caps that can be easily switched too. A Varitone can give more options using inductors also to provide 'notches'...but it is important that unless one goes "active" all any of these tone circuits can do is "take away" tone (highs, lows, middles, etc) and there are a lot of limits to how well it can do that compared to say an active equalizer or something. Interestingly, guitars (less so with basses) have all but failed in such attempts. Ibanez had some great active systems with intuitive equalizers in their top line artist models...you don't see them now...Gibson got Moog to do an overly complex tone and expander compressor circuits in their failed RD models...again, no one thought they were a good deal (except perhaps John Williams in the band "sky"...but hey, if gibson are giving away guitars, who would say no right?)... Something neat though that I have been playing with are treble bleed caps with high output (traditionally muddy) pickups...these can tame things down with a little less volume and bring back all those lovely highs in the opposite manner to how a tone control works, by shunting them all off to ground and making things muddier still...I'm tempted to hard with the things in there so it can never go up to 11 on my new guitar...lol Not sure how you would use this substitution box practically either, a simple rotary control and a hand full of resistors and capacitors and inductors is all that one need to be effective and easier and cheaper to make oneself I suspect!

A pickup is designed to be very sensitive to electromagnetic fluctuations...it is after all designed to pick up the vibrating strings in it's magnetic field... Now...consider the amount of electromagnetic force being put out by a driver in order to drive the strings...of course the pickup is designed to pick up little fluctuations of a vibrating string...imagine what a a great big AC powered coil is going to do anywhere near it... You may wish to ponder how transformers work... ... There are lots of ways besides magnetic shielding, proponents of multi coil drivers ususally are keen on them for the reverse HB effect, two driver coils of equal and opposite magnetic output, thereby neutralizing some of the effect. However, you could shield a driver completely...the problem is that the EM output is exactly what drives the strings...so, perfect shielding would result in no effect at all! Plus, there are so many other things, the strings are metal right, and magnetic too...so the driver will put an alternating magnetic signal through them...and run along and...oh, get picked up by anything near it. Don't mean to dampen enthusiasm though, experimentation is the key. You might want to look at others attempts though. For instance, I too had similar motivations and use the neck pickup extensively (you will notice mine are some of the few multi-pickup guitars) but the "fear" of being limited to the "sound" of your neck pickup is largely overstated in reality. A string being driven by a sustainer is and can be quite different from that of a plucked string. You might like to consider some of the sound clips...with the tone turned down a little, you can get quite mellow flute'y effects and the sound that is produced is largely a factor of the manner that the string is vibrating, so one should not jump to conclusions about the resulting sound. There are problems with driving the string from the bridge end as well, there are a lot of harmonic content that close to the bridge. Most of my hex designs were working towards efficiency and low power to be built into the bridge itself and to use the bridge as something of a magnetic 'sink' in the process...but alas.... Potentially, you could run a driver from the bridge and the source from the neck, but the results can be unpredictable. On the surface though, it is the same thing, same distances between the driver and source pickup, just reversed. I'm not saying something is not possible...it was a bit of a holy grail. My motivations were largely to make installation easier, perhaps working twoards a self contained mid pickup for soemthing like a strat...no complicated bypass switching and the choice between the pickups sensing and providing the signal...you can see models like this but they have to be a lot more sophisticated than the simple designs I usually suggest. In fact, the Hoover patent shows such a proposal for sustainic, though there is no record of it being built or sold and they surely have the means to do so...got to make up your own mind there. Dizzy1 successfully did it, with a remarkable copy of this idea, but quite separate from my work or that thread. I have a sound clip and very convincing. It has some quirks though and a lot more sophisticated. He chose not to share the details fully. There is a post in the sustainer sounds thread on the thing. Also, the 300+ page thread was a discussion thing that grew out of my work quite innocently. There are tutorials and other threads about that are easier to get the basics without reading any of it. However, if planning to go down the road of experimentation, you really are going to need to be able to construct and come up with some pretty innovative solutions that others have not already tried. That's a tough call after people have been having a go after all those years. It certainly is not going to be easy or 'cheap'! ... Neck pup---> AMP Bridge pup---> Sustainer source Driver---> Over the neck pup. no...the driver and the neck pickup will act as a transformer I suspect, you will hear the driver very loudly through the amp through mutual inductance at the very least...it needs to be well away from any coils... You really need to dig deeper into how things work to understand it, it is not just a choice and these things are not done. There could be some merit as I say, but the results are not all they may appear to be for numerous reasons...this is why I stopped pursuing a lot of these ideas, amny may well be completely insurmountable. ... Piezos...perhaps not, but my experience is that they too can squeal, they are not entirely immune as one might thing despite not being "magnetic"...even the Moog guitar has the driver well away from the bridge pickup and the piezo system. A recent review, one of the few independent I have read, seemed to indicate that the much hyped but mysterious moog thing, was not all that it pretended to be in the sustainer department. Yet to meet anyone who has seen and played the thing, so very hard to tell, no technical details, no patents...all very dodgy for now...and extremely expensive. The Hex things, well, the jury is still out there, maybe...I spent an entire year doing nothing else...but as yet and with mine and other efforts, the results have been less than stellar and some pretty innovative stuff was tried (including the obvious magnetic shielding, ultra compact, opposing coils, piezo drivers, etc...) ... Yes, significant problems there, and a lot of fingers have been burnt regardless, especially mine! Plus, till you have really heard the more conventional solutions, the assumption of what they will sound like is just that...the sustainer is an addition and quite a different sound completely...it can produce a broad range of sound and even can be tailored by going DIY if you are clever enough.... Consider this for instance, the neck pickup sounds as it does, to an extent, because it is placed away from the bridge where things are less harmonically active...so the primary frequencies heard are the fundamentals...so it sounds "smoother" and "bassier" and such. Ok...well, if you are driving the string from that location, and you are driving the fundamentals, the sound produced is largely the fundamental, and so that is the sound that the bridge pickup will produce. So, it is an assumption that the driven string will have the character of the pickup at the bridge, it far more has the sound of the "driven string" more than anything...it's definitely something to think about careful and take in mind for the amount or work that would be required to do differently and everyone pretty much has either failed at, of been unhappy with the results of. ... You should really study how transformers work...for instance... The driver is a completely different beast to the pickup...other than they are both coils. The can't really "match" at all. You will have a low impedance coil with a hundred or so turns and say 8 ohms...and right next to it and sharing the same magnetic field (just like a transformer) another coil of say 8,ooo ohms (to be conservative) and many, many turns of wire. This difference will amplify the perhaps 1 volt of power going through the driver, 8,000 times right there...a few slightly vibrating strings in this equation will be as nothing...and you will be putting a huge number of volts (even at a lower current) directly into your amplifier. The device is simple in principle...the problems are not that much harder to comprehend (though there are so many) and the solutions...if there are any that are even possible...are going to be extremely difficult and frustrating to over come. On top of that, the pursuit may well be only from a perception of how the things can or do sound, not the reality...the perceived 'problems and deficiencies' far less than the assumptions that you start out with. As you get closer to a solution to these tings, you may well find that the solutions are not what you were after anyway... You might find, as a quick and dirty suggestion and from some experience, that a driver on the bridge end of the string will do the opposite of the convention (it may well be possible to do what we do in reverse as I describe (neck as source and sound, driver away in the bridge position)...it may well drive the string with a harsh range of perhaps discordant harmonically rich and unpredictable manner, you might get it controlled enough to make a sound not unlike the character of the bridge pickup you are trying to avoid...and this sound will be going right into the neck pickup and that's what you will hear...if you are lucky and can do the work and solve the problems to make it happen. Now, maybe you could compensate with circuitry if you have those skills, certainly your drivers are going to have to be A grade...or you could run the whole thing through a modeling computer and get it to sound anyway you like...but if you are going to go that far, I'd suggest you can get all that an more with digital processing now and with guitar synths, easier, cleaner and possibly with less expense and hassle. Once you have gone as far as Hex things, all that is already available, so you may as well go all the way IMHO!

OK... well...there's hum and electronic buzz...and there's mechanical rattles and fret buzz...very different things... I just installed a Tusq XL nut and found it easy to work and is teflon impregnated (and now comes in white or black) and have been very impressed. Worth to get this kind of slippery nut to help with tuning... Otherwise, all these kids of set up, nuts and frets, truss rod adjustments and such can be handled elsewhere on the forum... Electronics wise... There seems to be a problem here...hmmm Are you sure it's 6 ohm (how do you type the ohm symbol btw?) and not like 6k ohm or 6,000 ohm like the value of a pickup? The multimeter usually has different settings and may be on the 1,000 ohm reding so be saying 6 but meaning 6,000 if you get my drift...check it by reading a pickup...is it the same or similar value? I ask, because the cover of the pickup should be grounded, there should be no resistance to other ground points like the bridge or the controls and such. What it may be indicating and will be causing problems is that the cover is "hot" instead of grounded. Does the cover have it's own ground wire, are you sure you have the hot and ground around the right way...could reverse them on the neck pickup and see if this helps. It's a little tricky to know what's going on here, did you work from a wiring diagram, could you post that? You can measure the value of a pot, form the middle tag to an outer, remember to turn it, one direction will be the full resistance, the other zero (when 'off')...but I really don't think the pots are at all at fault, rarely introduce noise like described. Did you do the entire wiring? If so, it might be easier to 'start over' with a good diagram and such, checking everything as you go with a multimeter...but it must be something simple like the neck cover being hot which seems to be a distinct possibility. This could well be a great guitar, it's nice to hear of things being 'saved' like this. I too am not aware of the actual pickup models used, wire colour codes or specs...do you have links to the specific models we are dealing with? Traditionally, the tele neck pickup has a chrome cover on it, this is wired to the 'ground' lead internally, to do any phasing or fancy wiring, this needs to have a separate lead. More modern pickups often will have a separate ground lead for grounding the cover separate from the cover...so as well as the two coil leads, there is a third wire. If your pickup has only two wires, one will be connected directly to the cover...you can identify it with a multimeter as there will be zero ohms resistance between one lead and the cover...this MUST be the ground. Another simple test is if you were to touch the cover, does this make the noise worse, or is it the same effect as touching the bridge or the strings and such...all grounded parts should get quieter when touched, if anything is hot, it usually sounds like you touched the tip of an amp or maybe even short out (no sound)...so check all this over carefully, as this may well be the 'simple' problem that's been overlooked.

true, and with two chips more power...so more clean headroom...but a lot of power consumption...not really practical for batteries. Things like the ruby or others are a better proposition, no buffer and a huge rheostat on the speaker to use as a volume control (which is one of those "what were they thinking of" moments... as an alternative 'volume control' a 1k pot between pins I and 8 of the chip (the top two connections on either side of the chip) will provide a gain control from 20x to 200x amplification...still lacks a preamp, but a better move that will use less juice and be a better deal...20x will be fairly low but fairly clean...so the volume control will never go to zero or off. to do this connect the centre tag of a pot and an outer to either pin, swap as necessary so the control turns the right way...less resistance means more gain. Oh...on the circuit it even has a 5k pot illustrated, which would do the job...on the layout it would appear that the two pins 1 & 8 which are the ones either side on the right hand side are wired together...if so, break that and put a pot in there to adjust gain and loose the rheostat as this is going to waste power in heat and not be very effective at all. Stompbo, easy buffer and should improve things...

Fair...if it's working ok for you...then I'd first try an 8ohm speaker (or two 4 ohm speakers in series) and mount them in some kind of box with a secure baffle for the speaker mounting that wont move around. You might fins some car speakers for instance that would work out, something say 6" out of an old radio. However, if you use a tiny computer speaker or something, it will be impossible to get a decent sound at any volume with guitar frequencies, especially the bass strings. Often you can find a suitable stereo speaker boxed already and could mount the amp inside it! Ultimately, a used practice amp is generally the 'way to go' in my experience...there is only so much these things can do, and if actually running off a battery, you will eat up a lot of batteries that is going to cost a fair bit in the long run...performance greatly diminishes as batteries die, including distortion of course. Otherwise, the lack of a preamp in this design is going to be a problem, the likelihood is that it will load the pickups deadening tone and so not give anything like a decent approximation as to how a guitar or it's pickups really sound. It need not be much, a simple sing transistor type that if found in most other LM386 designs such as the ruby or noisy cricket will suffice, or as I say use a stomp box (or at least test this to hear the difference) as a substitute.

Well....the "little gem" is not a great circuit at all...the "rheostat" control is not at all a good idea. The pot between pins one and 8 should bring things down a bit gain wise. There is no pramp in this design at all and this is going to cause all kinds of problems with loading and impedance matching for a guitar running into it... In short, this is a poor design, far better is say a ruby or whatever that has a preamp buffer (if you use a stomp box into the amp, this will provide the necessary buffer) and of course, a bigger speaker will get far better results. Not only is a 9volt battery going to be severely limited in headroom, it isn't going to last long in an amp, even a little one...a wall wart even at 9 volts will provide the amps needed regardless of voltage to improve things. The LM386 amps are ok, but they are limited. 1/2-1 watt max...but if you max out any amp it is going to distort badly, the solution, turn it down...but then it is going to be very quiet...helps to have more speaker to move more 'air'...if you are running headphones, make sure they are 8 ohms, many cheap headphones are 32ohms and stereo so a complete mismatch to what the amp 'wants'... I'd investigate running a stompbox into it...most boss for instance buffer the signal even when off...maybe looking to see if you could update the design and loose the rheostat control...plenty to choose from on RoG and elsewhere as mentioned. Great though to see that it worked for you, that's a start for sure. I've always kept a little amp about that I found on the side of the road and just plug in, mains power and a bigger speaker in an enclosure...and free...

In passive circuits, caps and pots can only take away...so a tone pot will bleed the trebles to ground to change the tone that way, with a treble bleed volume, the bass is attenuated while the trebles remain....but in both cases there is a loss, of highs in one, and in volume in the latter (leaving in more highs)...the only solution is active... The rest is much as I said, higher pots values will attenuate less to ground even when full up. Even though a 250k pot will have 250K resistance between a full short (zero resistance, or the pot turned to zero) there is still a connection through the 250K resistor to ground. To get the full effect of 'brightness, have no pots at all and connect directly to the output jack! However, a 1Meg pot will achieve a similar result. I think what you found was that by using a mix of controls, the 500K pot may have brightened up the neck and the 250K taken off the treble...resulting in a similar sound...by the position along the string, the neck pickup is going to get more fundamentals that the bridge which will have more harmonic content in the higher frequencies of the note...a more complex sound. The ear is also more attuned to these sounds and more so with a bass. ... I'd still recommended playing with treble bleed things and turning down the volume on the instrument...and turning the amp up to compensate...and/or...changing to much higher values such as 1Meg pots to let as much highs as possible through, and rolling off them as appropriate with the tone.

Is the OP still having troubles on this? I suspect the LACE pickups should be quiet, I'm not sure of the type you have... A tele tends to pretty good shielding wise, if trad, the control cover plate is metal and provides a shield, the pickguard covers mostly wood, unlike a strat, so no real benefit shielding that. If the pickup wires are shielded, these will cover any of the cavities better than shielded paint ever will... It's good practice to put a shielded cable to the output jack, but then again on a tele it is so short and covered mainly by the control plate...so generally ok... Aluminum foil...no, i don't think so!!! the bridge and so the strings are grounded, it will be better with the strings on, these also provide a little bit of a shield above the pickups... It could be that you have the pickup covers or something hot..not familiar with the Lace codes and such...does it have a separate bare wire for ground? Along with the bridge, i take it the pots and so the control plate is grounded, is there a drop in noise when the knobs or control plate is touched? It's tricky to know exactly what is going on here...do you have a multimeter to check grounds? The volume pot does sound a bit dodgy... Cleaning it is probably not going to help, but if you have a multimeter, you could check the resistance between the middle tag and the outers to see the value of it, and if there is something strange going on with the volume wide open. maybe also check that the pickup covers are grounded...just in case, multimeter from cover to ground (say bridge plate) You might want to try it with strings on it...I suspect there's nothing wrong outside of the control cavity... I doubt very much if it is a shielding issues, real single coils tend to be noisy you understand, but on a tele, there is so little in there to cause trouble and generally pickups have shielded wires that takes care of the cavity shileds. best of luck...

There is some debate and mojo about different cap types, generally though a cap is a cap, the biggest differences tend to be the tolerances...how close they are to what's written as their values...but in simple passive circuits there really isn't a lot of difference... As Wes points out though, there can be a huge difference in the effect different values have... There is a big difference between the cap in the tone control and the treble bleed though...which is what these are designed to do... This is a good reference though for the treble bleed values between bass and guitars that are commonly used. Pot values are similar...it's worth thinking about how there things work...some of it seems a bit anti-intuitive... A pot is a variable resistor, a resistor resists the flow of electricity...so a pot so a bit like a tap. So, in a typical circuit, the pot connects the hot of the pickup coil to the ground,,,so effectively bridges the pickup coil...when the pot is turned to zero...the sound is off... Think about it...what is happening is that the pot is turned from it's biggest valued (say 500K, 250K or whatever) to zero resistance...it therefore creates a short across the output of the guitar and you get no sound... A HIGHER VALUE POT when wide open (full volume) will show MORE resistance between hot and ground...so a higher value will ground less, and in these circuits, this largely effects the highs... So, you can brighten up an HB say, by using 1M or 1 mega ohm (2x500k) value pot...so higher values pots generally mean, more highs when wide open. On a single coil strat, perhaps you will want the edge taken off, so 250k is typical, with HB's 500K is typical...and so it goes. A TONE POT...should have little if any affect when wide open...it's still a resistor so there will be an effect...and the volume and tone will interact to a degree...but what is happening here is that the resistor is showing less resistance between a cap and ground...the cap allowing the highs to be grounded and the resistor (pot) and cap in this will affect the way the tone control rolls off highs. Small caps can often produce a pronounced wha type effect in the lower range of the guitar and can be a cool effect as wes found out...but a lot of the pots travel may do little...depends what you want from the operation of the tone control. The TREBLE BLEED CAP often combined with a resistor, has almost the reverse effect of the tone control...as the volume pot is turned down...less resistance, it still allows for the high frequencies to 'bleed' through...so as you turn down the guitar, instead of getting muddier, it gets brighter...or seems that way, it just retains the highs and turns down the lows first. A lot can be done with experimentation (or conventions) and of course on a bass, completely different frequencies and so different values are used. Without a selector switch...you can't isolate one pickup, pot and tone circuit...so it is effectively like an LP with both pickups on... If you think about it...when you turn either volume down towards zero, you are creating a short across the output...whcih of course silences the guitar...the idea with these things is to mix pickups with the two volumes to get the kind of sound you are after from multiple pickups. The combination of the two pots then do interact...the manner in which they do and the sweep of the controls, the amount of 'bleed' or roll off on a tone control, is a mix of all the values of components used... There are no 'hard and fast rules' and in fact, different pickups (which adds a big induction coil into the circuit) will have different effects and perhaps require different strategies. You will notice that a lot of basses use active electronics...this will allow separation and even tone boost (passive circuits can only bleed frequencies to ground, they can't add anything) as they have an effective mixer on board. So...this is a very little potted overview, it is probably worth reading up and exploring circuits, or even getting a few caps of different values (they are silly cheap...stew mac is selling components worth 5c in an electronics store for over $5 here!!!!) and trying things out. But the answer is that there is an interaction...at zero resistance on either pot, you will get a complete short and so no sound...but the secret to working these things is in the mix...pot values are only a part of teh equation, and effects the interaction...but higher value pots typically show more resistance and so retains highs...a treble bleed network will allow the highs to be retained as you turn down the volumes (rolling off the lows) while the tone control does the reverse. The tone control should have little to no affect when on full...so there is not "tone" advantage with different mojo infused caps, at the very least, not till the controls are turned down and even then, it is far more the value of the caps (along with the pot sweep and the pickup coil specs) that creates the tone control effect (ie tone control...not TONE). Sorry though, can't advise as to what cap or pot values, especially in a bass, you are likely to want or even the affect you are after...the previous thread seemed to imply you were after more highs, so a bigger pot value, or just a treble bleed network suitable for the bass, should get you in the ball park for that kind of effect.

I did some work with a sustainer for someone that was using a SD custom shop for the "host" of a wafer coil...turned out they forgot to magnetize the poles...hahhaa...took for ever to identify the "problem" If you got it cheap, and "brand new"...well, you got to wonder why. However, it may not beyond "saving" if you have steady hands and eyes...