onelastgoodbye

I had the same results with 0.3 mm wire, bad to no response on the high e. that was only a 4 ohm coil too. My guess is the ohmage mostly influences the power of the driver (8 ohm being more efficient with the lm 386), while wire diameter tailors frequency response. That 0.2 mm diameter seems to be pretty crucial. I'm hoping we can get to a design that has an internal magnet, and doesn't need the steel core as it's a lot less work (you don't have to cut up any steel). It seems to work just as well, my only cocern is that the magnetic field might stray more thanwith a steel core (so it's harder to shield). I'm pretty sure I can cook something up that doesn't involve making bobbins either. That seems to be correct, LK We're almost there, Tim

I think I can answer this for you.. 1) It's better to feed the amp directly from the bridge PU yes. Taking the signal from the output cable might be easier for some initial testing though, as you don't have to fiddle with the guitar's wiring. 2) Just be careful when using headphones to not turn the amp up too much, it puts out a lot of power (you can easily drive a 2 x 12 with this) and you might blow them out (or your ears );I hooked it up to a guitar speaker but headphones should work if you keep the volume down. You won't hurt your guitar. 3) a trim is just an abbreviation of trim-pot, so yeah it's a pot. These are often mini trimpots though, something like 5 by 5 mm so that's why you sometimes can't see 'em. basically the same thing as a big pot, just smaller. Actually the idea behind a trimpot is that it's set and forget, while the full blown pots are more geared towards continuous use, so they're a bit sturdier. Welcome to the forum, tim

Hi String pull on emg's is pretty weak. It holds a screw, 'just', I'd say it's about 50 % of a passive humbucker. Because of their lower magnetism, EMG suggests you put the pickups as close to the pickups as possible (as it doesn't hinder sustain or string movement too much anyway). Mine is pretty close, about 2mm from the low E. moving it further gives you more of a mellow sound, less attack, less output. Not a bad sound for the neck position probably. I've read about your natural synthesis stuff actually, and experimented a bit with it too. While it's a cool idea, the effects of err.. the effects on the strings is pretty unpredictable...those bird chirps and such. I think I've gotten something similar once by running a really hot distorted signal into a flanger into the fx loop or something...then there was the german radio stations as well... pretty crazy Tim

ooo nice I feel the box is gonna come back just shows that simple is almost always better well, with a NCP2820 you could put all the electronics inside the driver (it's only 1 x 1mm) but then you'd better sharpen your solder iron! me, I'd keep it in a box Tim

Now if you'd want to make the install ultra-simple and perfectly reversible, maybe it would be worth exploring a fully independent system, as in a driver with it's own pickup coil (and that pickup coil sits on top of the bridge pickup, or it might be some sort of piezo system, what sepultura999 said) It would cancel out the need to adapt it to each guitar's wiring. Problem is you'd might change the stock sound of the bridge pickup. Think of it as a big ebow with 6 cm wide coils that sits on top of the pickups well, just a thought Tim

oops

You're an industrial designer, right? me too...well I will be in a year or so. Those guitars are pretty interesting. I don't really get the semi-vintage look though, and I would 've made those aluminium supports 'flow' along, rather than putting 'em perpendicular to the center section. I don't buy the 'ergonomic' knobs either. Then there's the idea of opening up the body, but from a distance, the whole design is pretty monolithic. And they're just wayy to symmetrical. I hate symmetry, it just takes all of the tension out of a design. However they do put me off less than say...Teuffel guitars. I think the main problem though is that it's really hard to come up with something innovative and make it appealing to most guitarists without loosing that contemporary edge. We've all been brainwashed for so long by traditional guitar looks...most people don't even like parker guitars (personally, i think they're one of the few that were able to create something modern and unique yet still classic) Tim

You seem to be experiencing the same thing I am: audible distortion coming through the signal, even on clean sounds. I always figured it was the driver amp leaking into the output signal somehow, presumably some faulty grounding. Though last time I tested the setup I actually used an fx send on my amp (you'd think that would be sufficiently isolated from the guitar's controls) to drive the input of the driver amp, and guess...same thing . And my emg isn't even grounded anyway, nor is my driver amp, so i'm starting to believe this is not really a hard-wired problem; but rather a shielding problem. The way I see it, the driver signal is actually induced into the pickup, then amplified to the main amp. I think we are underestimating the size of the m-field the driver puts out, heck I can hold the thing 1.5 ft away from the pickup and still make it squeel . So tomorrow I'll be taking up some of R.G. 's advice and have a go at shunts and the like. I actually built a new 8 ohm driver today, but f***ed it up (managed to break the magnet in half). I'm hoping it'll also facilitate driving the strings from underneath ( oddly enough still getting better results from above). More to come, Tim

http://www.geofex.com/FX_images/Magdriver%20and%20shunt.pdf here you go guys.. Ohh psw, now that you have your driver/pickup combo, have you considered using it like a big e-bow; as in wiring the amp directly between the pickup and driver and not connecting anything to the guitar electronics (thus isolating the sustainer from the rest of the guitar circuit)? Tim

i'll just add basslab catalyst guitars

great stuff man, great I'm out for the moment (because I'm building a emm...toaster) but in a few weeks I'll be all over this..just wanted too say great job on the tutorial Tim

Do you have a bit more intel on the class D amps? seems like what they're using in cell phones and sorts, right? i took a look at the Sustainiac patents and.. whoa didn't know they used 2 separate coils. what's up with that. separation of high and low strings? On the high-e string not working, I think it's a matter of the driver not being powerful enough, or not being close enough. It has to be reeeeeally close to that string. Also seems to help if you put a big slub of iron underneath (which I guess focuses the field a bit bettter). My crude designs (even without an iron core) do drive the high e, just that some notes perform better than others because of a crappy fretjob. A good starting point for a sustainer IMO: 1. wide core, say 3-6 mm, can be iron or just the bar magnet itself 2. a flat and wide coil ( 3-4mm high?) 3. 0.2 to 0.3 insulated wire for the coil. 0.2 is easier because it makes for a smaller package. 4. coil wound to 8 ohms (seems to get the best response from the lm368) 5. good potting (epoxy, nail polish, wood glue, wax, errr...polyester filler, paint whatever ) 6. some sort of amplifier, the Ruby seems to be pretty adequate. 7. some sort of gain control on the amp..too much gain will result in squealing Keep on sustaining, Tim

I vote orange

I actually quite like it. You might waanna try thinning those horns a little, and make 'em a bit pointier. Right now they're more like 'blobs' , which makes the design loose it's edge. You need a bit more tension in there. Maybe more along the lines of a reversed Ibanez js?

The thing is I don't even have a neck pickup. It's a one pickup guitar, only a bridge pickup. I originally had pins 1 and 8 jumpered and it seemed a bit strong. pins 1 and 8 open was too weak. I can hear a distortion buzz on clean sounds, yeah. It's not overly dominant, but definitely there. It's there on distortion patches too btw (well evidently, since the driver circuit's response doesn't change anyway). Come to think of it; this guitar has an aluminium pickguard. You said somewhere aluminium was sort of 'anti-magnetic'. Maybe that's a factor too. There's no real point in me making more assumptions before I can test it further though, so I'll check back later. I think we can get it wrapped up before the thread hits page 100 Tim

Errrr..seriously? because that's exactly what I'm hearing and the whole reason why I'm looking for a cleaner driver amp: I can hear the distortion of the driver amp when I'm using the sustainer on clean presets... Maybe I wired the Y-cable wrong . I'm use the 'semi' balanced type cables; which are essentially stereo cables, where red and blue carry the positive and negative part of the signal and the shield is only there for well..shielding. The jack also fuctions as a switch for the emg, so the wiring is a bit different there. Maybe the pickup IS sharing the magnetic field with the driver. Contrary to your designs psw, my driver only works in this one position: 25-th something fret for harmonic mode, 24-th something fret for fundamental mode. Anything else is just screaming feedback, so either yhe signal is to strong or the pickup is to sensitive or.. lol... I just found out I wired pins 1 and 8 on the lm386 with a 10 ohms resistor...should have been more like 10K guess that might explain the massive gain. Apart from that, you'd think the strings would be driven more efficiently if the driver signal resembled the natural 'movement', of the strings. As in a clean amplification of what the pickup senses. of course, the pickup colours the sound plus it's also located in a different place from the driver, so the harmonics are different and whatnot, but still. thanks LK for pointing out the headbanger won't work. No free ride indeed Off for some further headscratching and testing when I find the time, Tim

Sounding good, transient! I've found this: scroll down a bit for the schematic I think I'll build this (well atleast half of the circuit ) to replace the little gem amp I'm using now. It's really a toss up between this and the ruby or the ebow circuit. But since the headbanger is designed to produce little to no distortion, and I need a CLEAN amp this might be the way to go. I'm worried about it not being powerful enough though...It says 375 mW output...probably enough, but can someone confirm? Also, up to now I've been using the y-cord trick to connect the driver to the pickup. How would i go and make a permanent connection to the pickup. I know ... just splice of the output, but since this is an active emg; aren't the batteries of the pickup (18v) going to act funny with the driver battery (9v)? Like, ummm when i connect them both to the same ground? So if anybody can help with that it'd be greaty appreciated. It's a single emg 81 going directly to the vol en tone pots , into the jack btw: first schematic. Greetz, Tim

Some pics... prototypes 1,2 and 3 close up of 2nd one notice the wide laminated core Little Gem PTP wired! The first prototype has a narrow blade and didn't perform too wel, the second has a wide laminated iron blade, 4 ohm coil, and worked better than expected but is pretty big. The third one (4 ohms) is a bit less powerful than the 2nd, but it's only 5 mm high, because I've wound the coil directly round the ceramic magnet(It's a lot less work too,so I'll stick with this one). I used some scrap plastic for the bobbins, and potted the coil with PVA glue while winding. I can drive all 6 strings in fundamental mode and more or less in harmonic mode; save some dead frets, but that's probably my shitty fretjob. The high e needs to be really close though. Low e (which is actually d) and a act a bit weird, as if they can't decide between fundamental and harmonic mode. i'm gonna build one using 0.2 mm wire and beef it up to 8 ohms, then I'm gonna start fiddling with the amp circuit. It really needs more clean volume, so the ruby circuit will most likely perform better. The ebow circuit looks interesting too. So peeps, start winding and experimenting, it's pretty easy really (to get started, but then it doesn't stop ) Tim

Here you go It is commonly known that an electric guitar can produce sustained sounds as long as we are positioned close enough to the speakers at a high enough volume. Even without this somewhat brutal technique it's possible to play sustained notes on stringed instruments with magnetic strings. For that, since many years there's a tool on the market called the e-bow. we hereby give you the full text and drawings of the original patent. file1 file2 .. *picture of e-bow* Building this device yourself is quite easy for any good handyman. To start out the ones who like to experiment (see chapter two of this course for a deeper understanding of the project),here are some practical pointers and schematics. In the schematic below we used an LM386 ic. For some more power you can also use an LM386-4, but that one has to be fed by a 15 to 16v DC source, instead of the 9v battery *picture of schematic* the amplification of this design is about x200, or 46 dB. For optimal performance, the electro-magnet of the driver (the output end) needs to have a low resistance (about 8 Ohms). You can use an output transformer of an old transistor-radio, where you remove the iron core and replace it by a permanent magnet. The pickup-coil can be of high resistance. For use as an ebow, the driver and pickup coils need to be mounted close to eachother, but so that they barely keep from oscillating when idle. You can verify this by means of an oscilloscope (easiest), but also with a current meter in series with a battery. When the current is large (over 10 mA), and there is no metal object resonating, you can be sure the device is oscillating on it's own. In that case, the distance between the two colis needs to be larger. If you can't get it to work woth lower frequencies, it might be necessary to place an RC-network in parallel over the input. Evidently, you can also test the principle by using an ordinary audio amp,where you connect the pickup coil (which can also be the pickup of an electric guitar) to the input and the speaker out to the driver coil. dr.Godfried-Willem RAES, course on experimental music Tim

Well I'll be... That's actually part of an instrument building course...and the school where it's teached is like...20 km from here. Small world isn't it? If anybody wants a translation, lemme know Tim

I actually think the tiling idea might work best. Say you route a complete fingerbord with the jig, then cut it up and tile it, making sure the tops are aligned and spaced, glue it, then you shave the bottom of your glued assembly flat. It's quite a task getting it all lined up, but it might be less work than trying to get all the individual steps routed correctly (setting the router for correct fret spacing) if you tried to do it in one go. Maybe if you had a counter-form or a negative mold where you could fix the tiles, the gluing process would become easier.

a wide blade is definately the way to go..I'm getting pretty impressive results with proto nr.2. The driver output actually needs to be turned back now, otherwise it's feedback galore. The driver also needs to be in this EXACT +/- 25th fret position to work properly and avoid feedback. It's easy to drive individual strings, and you can jump from string to string given proper string dampening technique; chords are a problem tho. Lots of phasing(?) issues here. I'm not sure if it's the strings or the driver feedbacking. The driver is epoxied pretty tightly, but I guess I can do better. Then there's the phasing. It seems like some strings are easier driven wihen the driver is flipped (rotated 180 degrees). Also, there's these situations where everything below the 12th fret sustains fine, but the notes above are just dead; sort of like the driver is inducing a negative signal and cancelling it out or something... Ill do some proper testing tomorow, might try to clean the driver amp up a bit too. Working on those FEMM diagrams as well.. ears ringing, Tim

hehe seems like I'm stalking you psw Just wanted to add a little something about the actives..if you can track 'em down, mastertonepickups are the absolute best actives on the market. Sort of like what an emg should sound like if they'd continued improving their stuff over the last 20 years. It 's an australian company, but they seem to have vanished since about a year and a half or so . My buddy ordered one from Germany recently, so atleast they're still some in stock somewhere. Bout the pickup...maybe one that slides back and forth? or a 'split' bucker where one coil is fixed and the other can move position.

Ok, that's your longest post yet The stepped board concept is interesting but I'm really not sure if it's feasible without high-end machinery; not so much because of the shape of the board, but because of the materials involved. I think you're basically looking at a complete metal board or something with steel inserts (and maybe some exotic nasa stuff). Now, epoxying from a mold is 'easy' enough, but adding metal inserts into that proces, whilst keeping within tolerances etc... might wanna build a cnc first (actually it just so happens we had a demo at school this week featuring laser-welding...that stuff is soooo cool and would be perfect for the tiling idea). What I'm basically saying is that the cost of research and production might not weigh up to the benefits of the final result. That said, the hard way is the fun way, I'm all up for it! That cilindrical nut is intrigueing, but I'm having a hard time visualising it..