Fresh Fizz

Hi Neil,

How about teemuk's book that's for free?

(ssguitar.com)

http://www.thatraymo...yttala_v1.0.pdf

cheers,

FF

Hi McSeem,

Nice to see there is a hexaphonic project year 2. Can I already order the dvd for the complete series?

So, please, tell me if it all makes any sense?

If I interpret your question well:"Would guitar players appreciate these type of sounds, would they use them?"

The main thing is no inter-modulation. The sound can be heavily distorted, but still, a big chord remains clean.

The hex-distortion is a winner for sure. If I were in your place I would focus on the distortion before anything else. Get a great distorted sound without effects even when mixed/panned into stereo (or even mono into guitar amp). Combined with the hex-sustainer your rig is already totally unique and the most versatile guitar on the planet.

Do you really need separate delays (or other FX) for each string separately? Would hex-sound downmixed into 2 channels used as input for 2 delays not be a reasonable alternative? And then use a stereo poweramp. Even the 2 delays could be panned instead of being hard-left and hard-right, if you know what I mean.

If you're interested I have some distortion sounds to be used as reference:

cheers

FF

When you open the aplett it should show

Number of frets 24

Open String Frequency 110Hz

Scale Length (Inches) 25.5

You have to change the Position (Inches) to 6.375 then you're in business

I find the Demo Aplett a little hard to understand because the fequencies are shown

2 5 100Hz 2 5 1KHz 2 5 10KHz 2

The first null comes up just to the left of 500Hz and the next is just to the left of 1KHz

These are 440Hz and 880Hz shown in my charts in purple

And they are the 4th and 8th Harmonics of the Open string

I'm not sure if the aplett is working properly because when I move up the fretboard the frequencies don't change it just moves the yellow line which indicates the frequency of the first harmonic

The applet is correct as long as you don't use a bottleneck from the bridge side of the string to change the pitch. Or screwdriver in a Sonic Youth fashion

For ease of use you should 'detune' a bit, use 125 Hz instead of 110 Hz.

cheers

FF

not so long ago i tried to run dod 280comp,which is ldr based compressor with no subtle result.

now i'm going to tried to build escobedo's uglyface,and run it as sustainer circuit. since it has threshold and frequency control,it think it has the ability to control the desired dominant frequency response of the sustainer. no?

The best thing is to try out the uglyface for yourself. But I think you're able to achieve much better results with the dod280.

A. The distorted sound of the uglyface gets blended with the sound of the sustaining guitar string. The string serves as some kind of reverb spring for the distorted overtones that's emitted by the driver. But the frequency response is not flat, which is demonstrated in Tillman's applet . Move the pickup towards the bridge and you lose the lows, fizzy fuzz on top of the original clean sound is the result.

B. A compressor (limiter) with a slow release time acts less aggressive than a distortion box. A distortion wants to sustain immediately but a compressor sags during the attack and needs to recover. When you use a lot of compression you need a long release time.

...since the goal of agc is to save power and energy. why don't create something that limit the use of power directly at the power source (+v) ? or the result is pretty much the same?

You want to limit the available headroom and let the lm386 clip the signal? I don't see what's so magical about an overdriven lm386. Wouldn't a clipping device and a master volume before the lm386 work just the same? But if you want to go crazy experimenting I have something for you. Like a power soak, place a small resistor (4 - 8 ohms/1W?) in series with the driver. Or like a tube rectifier, place a resistor (47 - 100 ohms/1W?) between V+ and the lm386 pinout 6 together with cap.

Of course at your own risk, cheers

FF

You guys do realize that the sustainiac river is a completely different animal? It is a bi-lateral dual coil, broad laminated core pair that functions as an active neck pickup as well. Each coil is less than half the length of the standard pickup or single coil driver.

Split coil like on Fender precision basses, huge core like some high output humbuckers (+ agc design that allows for a higher self-inductance). My driver functions as neck pickup too.

You are running a power amp from a battery, there is no getting around the fact that you are going to be drawing a lot of power from a small power source...you will never get the kind of draw that you might expect say from a fuzz box that is only modifying a signal, that amps clearly state that it alone is drawing perhaps 1/2 a watt of power..plus powering any other gadgets, filters, AGC's and such on there. FF has an entire stompbox compressor running in that thing, so it alone would kill a battery reasonably quickly before we even get to a power stage. Battery power is clearly not a criteria for FF and others and is designed with this in mind, fair enough too. Everyone has different criteria and many have alternate designs that are not comparable. The best one can do is to listen to the results and balance them with your own criteria.

This was Wasp's question:

The commercial sustainer companies speak of 20 hours from a single 9V battery - that's impressive from a power source only capable of supplying 550maH....just wondering what the 'best in class' DIY sustainer gets out of a 9V battery?

To me it seems that Wasp knows what he is talking about. The commercial ones are not drawing 0.5 W, because of the use of agc.

But why don't you answer the question?

I chose not having to use a battery. That doesn't mean that my sustainer consumes more power than yours.

On the contrary I would say. You talk about balance but what you're doing is pushing the battery to its limit. To say it in your jargon: Exhausting a battery as quickly as possible seems to be one of your criteria.

Is the power consumption of a compressor more in the range of a fuzz box or of a mini power amp?

It's not that other formulas can't work...but hours of testing and independent confirmation over some years has indicated for the simple design (and that design alone) there is an optimum formula that provides the capacity for efficient driving of all strings with very low and basic amplification.

Now I'm a bit confused (cannot compare..., own criteria..., optimum formula?)

If you had said easy to build especially for n00bs, no difficult setup, will fit inside the guitar...

cheers

FF

Most of the debate is about this-or-that circuit, and I think that at least a degree of the issue is factoring out variables which affect the suitability or effectiveness of X circuit.

A debate is only possible between open-minded people who share an interest in improving a product.

Telling other people not to look any further because I build this or that product is not debating. It's marketing, promoting your own stuff.

Down with the marketing! Let us debate.

Why would anyone who is interested in building sustainers not prefer circuitry designed specifically for sustainers over a general purpose mini power amp?

Pretty much like banging a haulin' V8 through a mismatched box or drivetrain and wondering why the system as a whole doesn't work.

Yes indeed, those wicked Fetzer-Rubys.

cheers

FF

Does anyone have some general linkage to his bare bones sustainer amp (no agc) ...??? (I promise to say it's clever)

How about the Fetzer-Ruby that was posted by Galaga Mike in his sustainer tutorial?

FF

Who are da' main eggheads wrt sustainer circuits? Surely they can bash a sustainer schem out to marry up with the driver tutorial?

It feels like McCartney is still trying to find Lennon here .....goo goo goo jooob.

Some of the eggheads could use some feedback by you guys.

Build a driver together with a bare bones sustainer amp (no agc) as suggested by psw. And if you're not entirely happy with the performance report it back in the forum. Don't expect a free ride.

If there's enough demand for a more sophisticated sustainer, who knows what will happen. I could come up with something or perhaps col could repost his design.

cheers

FF

When i turn the sustainer on, there's a barely audible pop, but i don't think that's what's causing it.

I didn't notice any sustain at all, if there was any, it was too litle to be noticeable, even with the coil at the 12th fret.

At least one thing seems to fit: i did get the screaming feedback when i held the driver over the pickups.

Another interesting thing(even though i didn't manage to reproduce it just now):

about a week ago i was trying to get it to work as usual, and i accidentally put my thumb across all 3 connections of the gain pot, and i somehow started hearing some oreign radio station from my guitar amp O.o (probably croatian, since i live quite close to the border in Hungary)

ok Jogi,

One thing you could do is reverse the leads of the driver (reverse the phase - but I doubt an inefficient driver in harmonics mode is the problem)

You probably get radio Zagreb because of the high gain of the lm386, some 200 x.

To me it makes most sense to test the fet Q1 now. If you don't have a scope disconnect the volume pot from pinout 2 and connect it up to your guitar amp. So you need a 2 wire cable to your amp, ground and signal (= taper of volume pot). The fet should amplify the signal by some 10 - 20 times. If you compare fet inserted with guitar straight to amp there should be a noticeable difference in volume.

I also see 2 ways to improve stability:

A. add a zobel network at pinout 5.

B. swap the inputs of the 386, pinout 3 to signal, pinout 2 to ground.

FF

I did test it with a little loudspeaker, and it was a little distorted at max volume. Is distortion what i'm supposed to be aiming for, or am i misusnderstanding what overdrive means?

pinout 1 and 8 do have a pot between them

i built the amp according to this schematic:

No, you don't need distortion, you need sufficient gain.

I don't see what's the problem.

You have an amp that works and should have enough gain. The driver seems to be all right.

You don't notice anything when you switch on/off your sustainer?

Do you manage to get some sustain (even very weak) or is there no sustain at all? The driver coil above the 12th fret should sustain your open strings in fundamental mode. If you move the driver towards your guitar pickup do you get screaming feedback, squeal? If you move your driver towards your guitar pickup you should get noise out of your guitar amp, period!

Cheers

FF

hey,can you draw me a very simple schematic of what agc appear to be? (not something from col's circuit design,but some simple implication of that post) it is enought to add some filter or ldr (with another stage of amp) from the output to the input?

Hey man without quote button,

The whole agc thing is nothing more than some kind of compressor/limiter that has to be transplanted into your sustainer circuitry. So best to take a look first at the tangerine peeler which has feedforward as well as a feedback sidechain.

Filters, no! Ldrs are used in compressors like the flatline compressor (not feedforward). So ldrs yes if you know how to do it!

I can't offer anything from col's circuit design. Even if I had it, there's ownership rights that have to be respected. :aureole:

Cheers

FF

Yes, but most efficient only according to some arbitrary criterion. You have to settle on a frequency range. Maximizing gauss output at 2 kHz or at 500 Hz ?

The 'criterion' is solid sustain (for me at least) across the fretboard for the *least* battery consumption - so, while you may wish to call such related 'efficiency critereon' as arbitary ..I just interpret it as meaning the lowest battery running costs (or being a cheapskate for short)

So you're going to work by ear. Build a driver coil do a soundcheck and if the behaviour for the high notes is still acceptable take thicker wire and use more turns of windings. You don't know beforehand how much highs you can afford to lose. Depends on the guitar, guitar pickup, applied eq , all-pass filters as well. Only afterwards you can measure what it means for the gauss output per frequency.

But it's interesting to see how close you get towards the 256 turns of the sustainiac.

Cheers

FF

Ok, so in the absence of any documented driver coil efficiency data, it looks like I have some experimenting ahead

(after making a few pickups over the years, I eventually got my backside in gear built myself a gaussmeter last night, so will be able to take some measurements wrt RMS current into the driver coil vs gauss output presented at the string).

I want to be sure that I've the most efficient coil before moving on to the associated circuit.

Yes, but most efficient only according to some arbitrary criterion. You have to settle on a frequency range. Maximizing gauss output at 2 kHz or at 500 Hz ?

FF

Well, there is a sort of iron core. For this driver i used what was left of an old pickup bobbin, wich has 6 iron poles going halfway through the bobbin, and having a bar magnet in the other half like so:

'---'

The coil still measures a little over 8 ohms (8.3 to be more-or-less exact)

This driver was approved by the Habsburg dynasty lol

looks nice, i see no reason why this driver shouldn't work.

I don't understand your last question. Why does the LM386 have to be overdriven?, how can i check if it is? if it isn't, how can i overdrive it, or get enough gain?

I thought maybe you tested the lm386 with a a little loudspeaker.

Never mind, can you tell what you got between lm386' pinout 1 & 8? Is there some gain pot (or resistor) like in the ruby?

FF

sooo guys, i have a working amp(thanks for the tips on that ), the driver coil is wound, potted, the magnet is only on one side of the coil and not inside it(therefore the coil is around only one pole of the magnet), i have connected it all up, but no sustain. what can be causing this? can it be the trim pot? does it matter wich side of the strings the driver is on? (i haven't installed it on the guitar, only seperately and held it above the strings) is there anything else that might be causing this? please, i'm soooo close to getting it to work

I'm glad that your glass is halve full, that's the spirit.

Some questions:

But inside the coil there is an iron core, right?

You didn't burn out the driver coil? Does it still measure 8 ohms?

There is no wrong side for the driver, from above works even better. (Sustain more balanced from open string up to highest fretting positions.)

Do you have enough gain? Does your guitar overdrive the lm386?

FF

...do you know if anyone has carried out 'current draw' tests for all the possible coil variants (series, parallel, single, dual) & established what the best perfoming coil is?

No I don't recall any tests on current draw.

Col, one of the guys over here, has come up with an agc that utilizes a feedforward sidechain. The agc regulates the signal level right at the guitar pickup. This way the swing amplitude of the string is being controlled. This will save energy. How to save more energy? Like you already said, more windings on the driver coil (it might well be that the sustainiac's spec is the optimal performance). It depends on whether the agc can deal with the behaviour in the high freqencies region, but it certainly would make your system more energy efficient for low frequencies.

Depending on how 'quiet' your driver and pickup are (humbucking?/shielding?) you can increase the gain in the pickup-amp-driver-string-pickup positive feedback loop and limit the swing amplitude even more.

And yes an LM386 or a TDA7231A which I use will get hot so class D would help.

The commercial sustainer companies speak of 20 hours from a single 9V battery - that's impressive from a power source only capable of supplying 550maH....just wondering what the 'best in class' DIY sustainer gets out of a 9V battery?

I'm afraid I skipped that class, mine is on 12V power supply.

Cheers

FF

If everybody wound on the same bobbin type, using the same wire to the same tension at the same room temperature & in the same winding pattern, then a DC resistance would be all we need to shoot for. But obviously, differing sized bobbins, slightly different tolerances on the wires, different winding tension & style are all going to affect the final number of turns that makes up '8 ohms DC resistance' ...and like I say, the 8 Ohms is simply a ballpark target to aim for to placate the associated amplifier - not the main parameter for winding a coil?

So for example - 8 Ohms @120 turns, 8 Ohms @150 turns, 8 ohms @200 - which one is the reccomended 'target'? Becuase each one will surely differ in performance by a noteworthy amount.

One of the biggest arguments we had in the sustainer thread was about whether a what I call bare bones sustainer (fet + power-ic + driver) would do the job. (Too many dead spots to my taste, I don't expect miracles not even from the perfect driver coil.)

Some of the guys (me too) moved away from the bare bones sustainer: agc, agc and microcontrollers, fx pedals before the sustainer amp, hexaphonic sensors + drivers in combination with dsp. The sustainiac you've mentioned isn't exactly a bare bones one.

When one starts using agc not having enough magnetic drive isn't really an issue. I used 130 turns/1mH and 180 turns/1.8mH and both humbucker drivers performed well. (A more noticeable difference was caused by the difference in distance between the 2 coils of the humbucker.)

It seems to me that you fit in psw's school of thought. (0.5%, wow!) He's a firm believer in the bare bones sustainer. He did all the experiments with the various wire sizes. If someone knows the recommended target it should be him. Haven't received a pm from psw already?

cheers

FF

First post here....just a quickie - I've wound my own pickups in that past but now fancy trying my hand at making a sustainer coil.

The tutorials more or less say wind a 'blocked off' strat bobbin with 0.2mm wire until you get to 8 Ohms - ok, but that 8 Ohms is so the LM386 amp is happy with the load - what's the best spec for the sustainer itself wrt to the number of windings?

Depending which of the multitude of threads you read, I've seen turns count quoted anywhere from 120 thru 200 ....that's a rather wild variation...which is ultimately going to yield very different results.

So, just what is the optimum target for the driver wrt 'number of windings/turns'?

Cheers.

Hi Wasp,

That's a good question to start with, I wished my reply could be a quickie. There's some formulas in it, I hope it doesn't scare you off. But I understand your question as looking past the down-to-earth issues like "how do I build it" so this is the best I could come up with.

Power amp requirements

A certain amount of power is required to keep a guitar string sustaining. When using a battery the amount of available power is limited. So efficient use of the available power becomes very important. An lm386 will deliver the most power when the load (sustainer driver coil) is 8 ohms. Lower than 8 ohms will only heat up the lm386 more, higher than 8 ohms will decrease the current.

Sustainer driver coil considerations

How do you judge a guitar pickup? Not by the amount of turns of windings or the diameter of the copper wire. What matters is the sound of the pickup which is characterized by its resonance frequency which depends on the self-inductance of the pickup. There is a peak at the resonance frequency and above that peak the signal gets weaker and weaker (high-cut filter).

The story is more or less the same for the sustainer driver coil. The extra concern is whether or not the high-cut filter will prevent sustain to occur in higher fretting positions or in harmonic mode. As a matter of fact we're not talking about the same high-cut filter as in case of a guitar pickup. (The resonance frequency of the sustainer driver coil is very high.) The high-cut filter we're dealing with consists of the real component R (8 ohms resistance of the driver coil) and the imaginary component X(L) which is 'caused' by the coil. X(L) increases with the frequency, so the higher the frequency, the higher is X(L). And X(L) increases with the amount of windings.

And here we have to find a compromise namely:

1. The driver coil is most efficient at a certain frequency when X(L) is small compared to R.

2. More turns of windings on the driver coil makes it more efficient at low frequencies.

Or in the analogy of the guitar pickup, more windings give more output but you lose some highs.

Another issue is the rest of the stuff being used. It makes a difference whether you build a bare bones sustainer device (lm386 + driver) or a more sophisticated one with agc, eq, all-pass filters and so on.

I don't think there is an optimum target it's merely a matter of personal taste. Perhaps some minimum requirement, every note has to sustain?

This is how I measure the self-inductance of a driver coil. The oscilloscope is actually a simple HandyProbe.

(d) and (e) are the negative consequences of the self-inductance.

(e) Because the signal at the driver coil is somewhat out of phase with the signal detected by the guitar pickup the efficiency is reduced. This could theoretically be compensated by means of all-pass filters.

(d) The load is not 'ohmic', impedance Z is bigger than 8 ohms, less current (power amp requirements).

a. find resonance frequency F(res) (maximum voltage drop on oscilloscope)

b. calculate inductance L of driver coil (L in Henry, F(res) in Hertz, C in Farad)

L = 1 /(4π² * F(res)² * C)

c. Calculate reactance X(L) for a specific frequency ( X(L) in ohm, F in Hertz)

X(L) = 2π * F * L

d. Calculate impedance Z for that frequency (Z in ohm, R in ohm)

Z = √(X(L)² + R²)

e. Calculate phase shift for that frequency

ArcTan (X(L) / R)

So there are 2 ways to go. By ear, build a driver coil and if the behaviour for the high notes is still acceptable take thicker wire and use more turns of windings.

By spec, work towards a certain self-inductance.

Cheers

FF

Thanks, but i doubt that's the problem:

I don't have the humbucker split, and i don't have a fully working coil yet. I was just testing the sustainer amp, by hooking it up to a small 8 ohm speaker. By splitting the signal i meant sending it to both amps, not splitting the humbucker. So i got the buzzing without a driver coil, and even when i just replaced the guitar with an mp3 player, or when i didn't even have anything plugged in to the amps, with just the 2 inputs connected, so it can't be feedback.

I've wound my new coil today too. I have a headache from all the glue fumes, but i think it's the most promising of all so far, so it was worth it

If you have any more ideas for the amp, then i'd be grateful for any further help.

I get the picture. The output (speaker) seems ok to me because it's buzzing. (You're using a battery, right? Not some unregulated net adapter.)

How about the input of the lm386? Any schematic here that resembles your design? Check if pinout 3 goes to signal (taper of trimpot) and pinout 2 to ground.

FF

okay guys, i've started again. I've got me some proper 0.2mm wire, and i'll be winding it tomorrow, nice and neat, and potting it with a ton of glue. I have a question though: When i have the signal from my pickups split, and have 1 going to the sustainer amp(fetzer-ruby), and one going to my guitar amps, i get a loud, annoying buzzing sound from the guitar amps when the sustainer amp is on. what causes this? (I noticed that adjusting the trim pot in the fetzer-ruby amp reduces this, but only a tiny bit, and it's still very loud (louder than the sound of the guitar))

So you have a sustainer driver coil in the neck position and the bridge humbucker split? If that's the case I would advice you to not split the humbucker and send its output signal to the guitar amp as well as to the sustainer amp. The humbucking functionality should reduce/stop the magnetic feedback, the buzzing sound that you're hearing.

cheers

FF

I am sure that statistically, more posts under the banner of "sustainer threads" are totally off-topic. Just saying.

The next sustainer topic will be called Sustainer Builders Pub in the off topics chat sessions. Lower the level of expectation. Take the rants and BS for granted. Just behave like you're in the pub.

Moderators do this purely on a voluntary basis, FF. We rely mostly on the forum users to report issues via the Report button as it would be both intrusive and impractical to "police" every thread. Our job isn't to force users into complying by some Big Brother overseeing of every keystroke, it is to keep the board on a reasonable track and address complaints as they are reported.

I understand. But what if a moderator gets acquainted with abuse on the forum in an alternative manner and not via some report button that's been pressed?

FWIW, my post wasn't directed at you (only the poking the animals bit) so I apologise if you construed it as being so. Must remember to proof my posts :-\

No need to apologise for a post that is perfectly understandable for an attentive reader.

O you mean make sure it's take-finger-not-the-whole-hand proof. Sorry.

I see that therizky is still around, of course you shouldn't be hiding, and you did nothing wrong. Sell as many sustainers as you can.

Sorry, but I don't understand the bad guy - **** hole thing, do I want to know this?

FF

Fizz - try not to poke the animals through the bars please?

Not in the way you mean it, I guess. Or do these animals of yours start to curse in finnish when poked?

You're making the mistake to think in terms of good mods, bad forum members. That the good mods use the forum rules to keep the forum members on the right track.

Not so long ago there was a "prove to me you're not a sociopath" incident where the hunter became the hunted. A very nasty event that only stopped after Drak and I intervened. Can you tell me why there wasn't a moderator prepared to take action?

You say that abusive behaviour will be addressed directly. Can you tell me that there was a verdict or some conclusion reached after this event took place?

Read it back in the topics, more abusive behaviour by one and the same person was never addressed. Afraid of him?

Don't know about Drak but I never got a thanks by the mod team for acting in a critical situation.

Greetings

FF

On the improvement thing...there is some scope but there is more to these things that some expect and a lot of work exploring areas that are not profitable, or are just based on some faulty ideas. It can be a long road. Always, the best approach is to try to achieve the best possible response from a simple system. There are also 'value judgments' about what you actually want the thing to do, respond and sound like. Col's circuit was particularly aimed at low power and a very 'mild' controlled sustain and good fundamental response on the lower strings...mine is a very dynamic system generally, the newer ones have a different kind of 'drive control' as well. That is not to say one approach is 'better' just a choice...so be careful on the notions of 'improvements'. Also, you need to set some strong criteria for things, and in my case there has always been a lot more criteria that I tried to meet and generally achieved than just 'performance'...for instance, my homemade circuits are 1/4 the size of the commercial units. they are significantly smaller and adaptable to many types of guitar, combinations with pickups or stand alone drivers, various driver designs adaptable to different situations, power only required when the guitar is on, conservative in power use for increased battery life...etc.

Now, some have gone for "improvements" and often just come up with bigger power hungry circuits that require guitar modification, power on all the time, even some requiring remote power as a battery isn't practical...all these kinds of things of course break my personal criteria and so couldn't be regarded as an improvement...and they don't sound significantly better either...but each to their own in that regard, as long as you have something to aim for and if you want it enough, if you can create custom circuit designs (and not just crib together other known circuits that are not for this purpose specifically which has some unique qualities) there is some scope. However, the basic design accredited to me is that of a coil that will run from just about any suitable amplification that can power it...no phase compensation or agc and such are absolutely necessary. It is one of the reasons that circuits are kept 'secret' in that some may take a design such as mine that took a few months to develop, change a few none critical components or replace with a virtually identical op-amp and call it their own...which of course is not the case. The driver coil is the heart of things anyways and took quite a bit to develop despite it's simplicity, the circuit is virtually incidental by comparison. It is not the only design that could work, but to develop those, you'd have to go all the way back to scratch and test and retry everything...and to be really impressive, get a demonstrably better result for the effort. You will notice that I only used muti coil designs, like the bilateral, rails and even hex things...in an effort to install say into the middle slot or even by the bridge on some...or in the pickup ring in others. When tested as if a single coil, they generally worked, but were so much harder to make and some were darn right quirky! So, some scope with 'improvements' but it is a crap shoot and you need to ahve a good idea where you are headed and prepared to forge your own road I suspect.

Therizky, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!

Can't you be happy standing in the shadow like the rest of the bunch.