JohnMcChavs

Hello Pete,

as I wrote earlier in the sustainer idea thread, I find your guitar absolutely gorgeous!

I can't believe what you achieved : you put a trem, a sustain-harmonic unit, locking tuners, rolling nut, bridge humbucker plus a lot of switches, pots and tortoise covers on a vintage-looking Telecaster... and it still looks great and vintage!

So vintage that you guitar even evokes me a Jaguar although I clearly see my beloved Telecaster shape.

Well, if this isn't a miracle....

And moreover, I'm sure it feels and sound good. What are you till doing here? GO AND PLAY THIS BEAUTY, you genius

Best regards,

Gilles

Yes...now I want one...

But it does beg the question, if it can do all that (and I was really excited to hear about the Workbench aspect of the thing) why would you want a bunch of extra pickups, fancy switching and electronics. Does the base model have all the functions of the more expensive ones and full editing?

Absolutely. The electronics are quite the same, and the modeled guitars and the controls ARE the same : Variax 500 and 700 share the same initial 1983 circuit, while Variax 300 and 600 have more integrated pots and selector but the same motherboard. So, the only differences between two physical Variax models are the woods used, presence or absence of a trem and the quality of lute-making.

Quite amazing to think that a 400$ guitar can sound like the 2000$ one . Not the same playability though.

The only thing you need to have the biggest custom shop on earth is either buy the Workbench software with its USB interface or owning a POD XT Live, POD X3 Live or Vetta II amp. In this case, it is free to download, you just need a standard USB cable to plug into your computer.

A limitation, though : you can only use the bodies, pickups, switches, pots of the 28 vintage guitars modeled, but in any combination. That is why Workbenchers use tricks like two humbuckers seried on the bridge position : it allows more "modern" soundings. Oh, I forgot : you can also create every open tuning you could think of, and have it stored (associated with a guitar) in the banks of the guitar. Alternate tuning with the speed of a switch, even EVH wouldn't have dreamt of it!

Oh, and you need a Variax, of course

The Variax 300 has just been discontinued (I think Line6 realized how stupid was the difference in price while there is so less difference in sound). I think they are preparing the next step as all Variax owners received a poll to know what we would like in a hypothetic new Variax. Well, lot of us asked for separate electronic parts ieasely transplantable into a custom made guitar, but I think they don't care.

Sure, it may be not the originals (well, two Stratocasters from the same year does not even sound the same, so how a modeled one could sound like all of them?), but it's great for a guy like me. And well, if it's OK for Steve Howe, I think I can cope with it.

The big draw backs are the look and feel of the guitar.

This thing is ugly. Even the high level 700 is. But I found a surprisingly good neck on the 300. When I close my eyes, I can imagine this guitar is wonderful

This is why I want it in another body. Why magnetic pickups? For I prefer the look of a guitar with real pups, and that I want to have a functional guitar even if the Variax thing stop working, or if Line6 does not make a support to it anymore. This guitar will be my main one, and I want to feel good about its look too.

Perhaps an easier way to switch between a selection of sounds (I have seen but never played one mind you) and interfacing with outboard effects units would be nice.

Well it's the case if you have the devices listed higher. When I change a sound on my POD XT Live, it changes (only if I want BTW) the modeled guitar I use. I then can choose the best sounding guitar with each sound or modeled amp. That is why I am so found of this system.

Ideally you'd probably want to run the guitar into a very neutral amp or even small stereo PA to get the best out of it as well.

That's what the PODs Live are intended to.

By the way, I made a mistake : Jeff Miller did realize a sustainer Variax with magnetic pickups, a link you put in the Sustainer Sound thread.

Have you heard him play also? This guy is killing me : so gifted for lute-making, electronics and playing... should be forbidden.

I'm going to pay a visit to your new thread, I had noticed the new link in your signature because I am reading the monster thread at the moment, and am very moved by the human events that happened along these years. Joys, pains... life.

Sorry for my extreme enthusiasm for Line6 products, it is not the place to discuss about it, I know. But when I first heard about the guitar, a friend of mine told me : "well, it must be cool, but it's the kind of guitar you can't fall in love with". I agreed. I'm not shure about that anymore, after 8 months of cohabitation.

Best regards,

Gilles

Hehe, you respond while I was editing the end of my post (nothing important changed).

The good thing about Variax is that you are not forced to have the same sound as other Variax players, as far as you can change everything in the guitar with the Workbench software. And when I say everything, it is not an image.

Apart the real strings and the useless body (except for a bit of sustain and playability), everything is doable : I made one guitar model that is a Firebird body with two LP humbuckers in series AND in bridge position (yes, just like the were at the same position, which is impossible in a real guitar), and I can choose the pots, positions etc.

It's quite illimited. You have 10 custom banks of sound you can store in the guitar without deleting the original sounds. The harder part is to try it, and being curious

Gilles

I wonder if Jeff Miller has ever added a sustainiac to a Variax guitar...might give some clues to the problems. Belew has a sustainer parker artist model...but even this doesn't have a variax in it!

Hehe, Jeff Miller made a guitar with a sustainer, but without Variax guts into it! So it may be a bit too tricky (with the commercial models, that's for sure).

Wait till the guitar arrives...you may not want to alter it at all once you get it. Routing out for the Variax will surely result in a dramatic change in the performance of the instrument. It may not be "bad"...a bit like a hollow body can be good" but it will most likely be different...

I intend to rout as less as possible : I saw some transplants with very few routing - even some with no routing at all. Variax circuitry is smaller than one may think once you've dismounted the metal shell and unsoldered the pots from the board. I know that routing is likely to change the guitar's acoustic proprieties, although Variax circuit doesn't bother that much lute-making.

BTW, one thing keeps coming to my mind as far as your driver is concerned. You use permanent magnets as the base of it in order to "grab" the strings, and then modify this natural field to make strings ring. My science lessons are far behind me, but I recall something like : "a conductor moving in a magnetic field creates an induced current that induces a force opposite to this initial movement" or something like that.

Is it then possible that, when the "Sustarmonic" is off, the natural magnetic field created by you driver's magnets prevents the movement of the strings (in other words : does it decreases the natural sustain of the guitar)?

sorry to be a kill joy...

Believe me, you're not! All advices are good to read, and I really think that as far as drivers are concerned, you're very well informed!

Being unable to put a "Sustarmonic" in (or on) my guitar is something I am prepared to, as well as losing a bit of acoustic proprieties of the Peavey if I have to rout the body (lightly or substantially). But he Variax 300's body is made with agathis (very cheap wood for very cheap guitar bodies). I'm quite sure the Peavey's basswood body will give me more sustain than it

Anyway, I'll keep you posted with the project's progress.

Best regards,

Gilles

Perhaps it will work if you can get the right help where needed and you obviously have done some studdy. I'd really like to see a Variax version so if all goes well for the transplant, then perhaps then I might be able to help you out a little more.

Looking at the guitar a bit more, there is not a lot of room. However, the fingerboard actually extends beyond the end of the neck if you look carefully and a part of it could be removed to get a little extra space for a driver like my tele has. Further, there isn't a lot of height but there is the potential to cut out a bit of the scratch plate under it to get another 3mm which may be enough. If not, there is also the option of shimming the neck a little (BTW I think there is a piezo in the neck joint as well!) as it is a bolt on design.

I think you're right, Pete. Peavey says the guitar has 10 pickups... let's count : 3 magnetic ones, 6 piezo saddles... well it makes 9 for me. As far as cheaper versions of the Generation -the EX ones- have got ACM circuitry as well (Analog Acoustic Modeling) but no piezo saddles, I figured that there must be a global piezo pickup in the neck.

I also noticed that the Peavey's fingerboard extends beyond the neck pocket, and this is my best shot for your driver, as far as I would like any modding to be as stealth as possible. I have searched long a way of transplanting the Variax guts into a decent guitar body without having more than 3 pots, one switch and a 5-way selector (which is already the case with the Peavey), and found it.

Now I must think about the controls for the "Sustarmonic" (that's the name I give to your DIY driver, as far as I read you dislike the registered "Sustainer" name, which I understand very well : too limited ). We're not here yet, and there's always the possibility of an external box, like the ones imagined with your fellow DIYers earlier in the thread.

The probem is with the three pickups and the switching system but there may be a way of doing it using the passive pickup for the sustainer signal but only having it work while the Variax is on. However there is potential...I dare say it could be done if you have the will and a bit of help. See how the transplant works and take it from there before modifying the actual instrument.

I will posts all the steps of the transplant in another thread, I promise! It is so cool for beginners to find how the others have done, and a picture is worth a thousand words!

Oh...I want to do a proper thread on this guitar and enter it in GOTM (though the competition is consistently strong) but as soon as I showed it at the telecaster forum obviously people want to hear it so I want to get that sorted first. I hope to get a few sympathy votes from you guys as in five years I have never entered

Be sure I will. Your Telecaster is gorgeous although you put a (great) trem and a(n incredible) sustainer into it. A masterpiece! I saw it first on the Telecaster.com and found it was really something, which led me... well, you know where

Best regards, keep us informed for the GOTM contest !

Gilles

Ah Gilles...maybe your clearer writing style will rub off an me, your posts read very well...clearer than most, and certainly mine!

Thank you very much, I read a lot through what I have written for it makes me practice English a pleasant way

[...] this wonderful baby will even have Variax guts in it when I will have courage (and money) enough to do it ... (I may be naïve)

Maybe you are...that is a lot of work and a lot of routing and modifications...adding a sustainer even more so. I doubt that the original piezos will work for the Variax, so you are likely to transplant the bridge of the original as well [...] It is not a project for the faint hearted!

Surely not, although the original piezos will definitely work. I read a lot about that, and fortunately every type of piezo saddle works for a transplant (Ghost Tech, Fishman and of course LR Baggs, event the T-Bridge!), it just sometimes gives a slightly lighter or warmer sound according to the pioneers that have done it.

Moreover, I have the Variax 300 model, and the wiring is much simpler with this one than with the usual 500, although I will have to make custom pots (like these ones, middle of the thread). The big thing will be routing : I neither have the equipment nor the skills to do that, so I will certainly go and find some help from a luthier when time comes to mutilate the poor Peavey... when you don't know how to do things, it's time to rely on professionals. When you see some butchers rout their guitars, you understand that everyone should consider his own limits before doing something irreparable

It is one thing to want to mix the analogue and digital systems...but to add even more is really asking for trouble even if you have an idea of what is going on.

The Peavey probably has active electronics to provide a proper mix between it's pickups and it's piezo systems and adding pickups if this is the case may be disastrous tone wise no matter how good the replacement pickup.

Asking too much from one guitar often works out to be a lot less...Jack of all trades, master of none!

Fortunately I intend not to do that : it will be either the Variax or the mag pickups, not a mix of both. A simple push-pull pot will select one system or the other. None of the Peavey's original active circuitry will be used in the final guitar. I fully agree with you : asking too much may be completely disastrous.

I was approached by a US luthier about a project, and later by the customer, for a guitar which has a similar number of features [...] One thing this project has tried to get through to me is that some things are not possible and others even if they are (like the mid-driver) may not be worth the effort. Another lesson is that, just because you can do something, does not mean that you should...

There are a lot of different forces going on...the sustainer driver puts out considerable electromagnetic interference, we don't know what effect this might have as far as noise with the Variax for instance. We do know that it can be hard to do even with standard pickups. The quality of the driver construction seems to play a big role too as far as success.

Still...it isn't a bad idea to dream, as long as you don't have nightmares over it! The best strategy is to take one step at a time. Anyone attempting the DIY sustainer project should build a driver and circuit and test it by holding the driver over the strings above the neck to be sure that they can at least get to this stage before they even think about modifying a guitar or installing one. A lot of people find that they don't even get to this stage. After doing this a while now, I am pretty sure of designs I have done, but still do this all the same. It took me an entire day to get the thing into the guitar successfully...more time than it took to build the driver and circuit!!!

Wise thinking, again. I am quite a beginner, and I intend to go for an Everest... But I am a very careful guy

I will proceed very slowly, step by step. I will first do the Variax transplant, for I have studied the process a lot the former months. That was my initial dream project.

Then, if it is successful, I may think about a driver, with the help of this thread and its advices (at least the ones I understand). The good point is that the circuit can be tested outside the guitar, and believe me : I will not try to put it in the Peavey's body before I am sure I can work and that I WANT it into. Your surface-mounted last project seems to be appealing to this point of view.

Thanks for your concern and this very inspirational work, and still my recovery wishes.

Best regards,

Gilles

"NO, middle pickup position can't be used [...] because of Harmonic Mode"

In fact it is possible. In the sustainer sounds thread "Dizzyone" made one for a strat with a fantastic sound clip offered as proof. He was not a part of this thread and developed it separately and has long gone along with all traces...I still have this sound clip but had not saved the picture (it was very much along the lines of the sustainic) so if you can't find a link that works, let me know and I will try and find a link...it is a pretty cool track.

Mmm... challenging me? Great! I have time

I'll do a search, it sounds very interesting.

I built one again more recently... it is pictured a page back or so I think on a red tele. It does work but perhaps suffers a little from the kind of things that Sustainiac mentions. [...] This last mid-driver of mine particularly had trouble with the combined pickup selection...but then is was on a cheap tele with single coil pickups so there were already a lot of high frequencies present.

Yes, I saw it and thought that you abandoned it for a good reason... It seems to be the case indeed.

Well, too bad for me, it would have beeen a great thing on my future gorgeous Peavey Generation EXP, but I keep faith in the human spirit to find impossible solutions!

That does look beautiful...congratulations. You would probably need another battery and things and may even be difficult fitting all the wiring and extra switches in anyway...it may not be a guitar you want to hack into anyway for such a project [...] Still...why a mid-driver anyway?

Well, this wondeful baby will even have Variax guts in it when I will have courage (and money) enough to do it. I bought The Peavey for 3 main reasons :

1) it already has piezo bridge saddles, so it is VERY simple to transplant Variax guts into it (I read a lot about these "transplants" this year and a half, there are real masterpieces done by guys like Jeff Miller). Well, at least it will be much simpler with this guitar.

2) I really fell in love with Variax abilities (yes, I know, it is modelization, not the real thing, but we all know that love is blind) but I also really hate the look of the Variax 300 I own : the neck is OK, but the shape of the body is so ugly to me that I have hard to call it a guitar. Moreover, I want a guitar with "real" pickups too, and even good ones. The day the Variax motherboard dies, I will still have a great working guitar (besides the look, more conventional with magnetic pickups)

3) I just love the Telecaster shape. So the Peavey was some kind of a miracle to me. Not the exact shape, but good enough for a guy like me who has already made a pact with the devil (yes, the modelization thing )

The Peavey has a HSH configuration. I already have great vintage sounds from the Variax (to my ears, let's not start a debate about that). I also heard about the new P-Rails pickups from SD labs (check the video, it's amazing) and though about having a pair of these to replace the Peavey's not-so-good active humbuckers (I know, best is good's worst enemy). Yes, you've just figured out what passed through my mind : "what about a sustainer in the middle pickup position?"

I then started to read a bit about existing solutions, but Fernandes and Sustainiac are not what I am looking for.

My latest tele-driver is working pretty well and could almost fit on that peavey next to the neck for instance [...] The peavey may also have an added benefit by allowing the use of the piezos for the drive signal...something I suspect the new Moog guitar is doing...

It's exactly what I wondered... Is there enough place between the neck pickup and the neck it self? I can't wait for the guitar to be here (I just bought it on eBay).

I also thought about the piezo signal, but I'm not qualified enough to figure how to do anything with it, as well as how to use the 9V powering Variax circuitry with the "sustainer" device. The power is indeed coming directly from the POD XT Live I use (I know, I just made my case worse), so it could be a nice feature.

The real reason that a mid driver is so desirable are not the reasons people think...choice of pickup selection, replacing a seldom used mid pickup...but the ease of installation IMHO. Without the need to bypass, all you have to do is switch the power on, as with a single pickup guitar...soooo much easier.

Well, that's quite the only part that I don't fear (I may be naïve )

But the will to keep the stock look of a guitar without sacrificing the beloved bridge and neck pickups seems also a good motivation, although sacrificing the middle pickup of a Strat is stupid, as far as a great part of this guitar identity lies in the 2nd and 4rth position of the 5-way selector, as you mentioned it further in the post.

Of the experiments I have done, in every case I have had to make drivers so focused that the drivers virtually touch the strings (like an eBow) right in the place where most people pick...It is just not worth it to have this in the way. The neck driver works and is probably going to always be the more practical solution.

So be it. Besides, your neck driver is thin and good looking; I really like what you have done with this 25th anniversary Squier of yours. I will think about solutions... after a succesful transplant in the first place.

If I were to collaborate to design a "sustainer guitar" I may well suggest a single pickup guitar with neck driver and a piezo bridge plus active circuitry to get a wide variety of sounds and few of the complications of pickup switching as well. You could make a very streamlined guitar in this way that could do a lot of things simply and well.

More or less my project. Except I want it all (why not a great vintage middle pickup AND your slim neck driver?). I know : glutony is a sin.

I feel your pain as well because I have fallen ill again and as I write this it is 1:39am...so I will be returning to bed myself in the hope of a little more sleep.

Well, receive my sincere recovery wishes. Sleep is often a good medication, so sleep well.

I am glad though that the thread has inspired people and maybe entertained or got people thinking and I know that I hear from people all over the world which is simply amazing still to me. It certainly provided a much needed distraction, kept me thinking and entertained...so I guess it will stick around for as long as people are interested...

We'll be waiting for you

Best regards,

Gilles

Pete, you're such an inspiration! I just discovered this thread and found it very interesting. And I found answers to my main question : would it work with a driver in the middle position?

"NO, we haven't succeeded so far in this Grail quest" was the answer I found here

"NO, middle pickup position can't be used [...] because of Harmonic Mode [...]. Placing the driver in the middle pickup position forces harmonic string vibrations that are very high in frequency, and are "out of range" of the pickup signal because of high frequency phase shift." according to Sustainiac FAQs.

Well, too bad for me, it would have beeen a great thing on my future gorgeous Peavey Generation EXP, but I keep faith in the human spirit to find impossible solutions!

BTW, I am sure your wonderful minimalistic driver would interest lot of guitarists (along with the circuit plans, that would interest lot of companies, Fernandes and Sustainiac on the first place), even if chances for it to work depends a lot on the installation (yeah, I noticed that). I think you could have a nice business here, with admirers for clients

Well, I'll continue to read this fascinating thread, even though I understand nothing to electronic devices (except for some simple switches and selectors, a very important knowledge for a guitarist with modding ambitions )

Thanks to you all (I may even have the courage to read the 268 pages, for I suffer at the moment from a quite painful sciatica which imposes some days in bed, from where I'm typing right now).

Please excuse my approximated english which is not my mother language (bonjour! from France, BTW)