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Post by Mr.Tepes on Jan 27, 2011 23:14:02 GMT -6
Hey all,
I was looking at installing a Sustainiac into one of my guitars, and was wondering if anybody had experience with sustainers in general (not stompboxes). I have a hard time getting consistent sustain sounds from my fullstack, and would love to have something more predictable. Now, my main question is, is it worth it? Is it actually possible to get consistent sustain sounds in any environment without a sustainer? If my touch was better, could I control it as consistently as a sustainer can? Thanks to anyone that can help!
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Post by roboblaze on Jan 28, 2011 4:26:51 GMT -6
I had a Rockman (I know I say this a lot) and you get that endless sustain, it was a rackmount though. I find that a pre-amp helps with sustain on some rigs.
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Post by Mr.Tepes on Jan 29, 2011 19:56:00 GMT -6
I'm looking for the endless sustain, but I like the control that the sustainiac allows, with the option to fade in and out of harmonics and stuff. I'm having a hard time getting the perfect control out of the notes that I crave. My amp feedbacks in pretty unpredictable ways sometimes. It could just be in my fingers, who knows?
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Post by Maxxxwell on Feb 1, 2011 23:31:24 GMT -6
A sustainer (sustaniac) would be the most "usable" option, imo, but you could also get an Ebow.
Also a good compressor combined with a lot of gain from your amp should make a big difference. The compressor will turn up the guitar's output signal as the note starts to die out.
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Post by Mr.Tepes on Feb 2, 2011 2:56:14 GMT -6
Yeah, the Ebow was one of the products I originally had in mind, but it didn't seem as practical to use in the middle of solos, and I don't intend on playing an entire song with the thing. The Fernandes sustainer and Sustainiac seem like the two best options, but I'm not really sure which would be better for me.
I have an old compressor laying around that I got for cheap, but I never experimented with that enough to see what it was capable of. I'll screw around with it, and hopefully it'll prove to be a cheap and effective option. Thanks for the advice!
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Post by S-H on Feb 4, 2011 18:00:45 GMT -6
If your control was better, you would be able to sustain notes longer on the same guitar. A friend of mine who is better than I am can sustain notes longer on my RG through the same gear setup than I can.
But having said that, certiain guitar woods, construction & components don't lend itself to great sustain so that is likely part of the problem.
I wouldn't use a sustainiac personally. While you get predictable feedback, you also sabotage your tone buy not having an excellent neck pickup. Your overall tone is surely more important to your overall sound than "holding" a note for ages?
I suggest you post a question about sustainer pedals on the nkown stomp box company forums (if you haven't done already) and get recommendations for a pedal rather than kill your tone.
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Post by Mr.Tepes on Feb 4, 2011 20:49:02 GMT -6
The pickup problem was another concern for me, although I was under the impression that the Sustainiac was decent-sounding. I'm only using stock pickups in my RG already, so I don't feel like it would take too much away. That being said, I'm not going to spend 300+ dollars dropping one into my guitar if I can get decent control without one. I'm having 2 main problems with my feedback right now. The most annoying one is that once a held note starts to feed back, it's never the same note twice. I can't figure out why this is. Another problem is that the feedback does ring out strongly...until I touch the tremolo bar, which causes it to lose a considerable amount of volume. Pinch harmonics are more predictable, but I also have a hard time sustaining them once I touch the tremolo. I think Maxxxwell is on the right track with the compression pedal, but I rarely get the chance to experiment at adequate volumes, so who knows if that'll solve it.
In a similar vein, Michael's rig seems very simple at clinics, yet he manages to hold that note in the blues song for over a minute. Is that ENTIRELY in the fingers? I get pretty good sustain through my Marshall rig, but that is just ridiculous!
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Post by S-H on Feb 6, 2011 18:45:15 GMT -6
I'm a bit of a ***er for neck pickup tone so I would personally go for a stand alone pup. Having said that, most pups are a step-up from the stock Ibz ones. Haha
You also have to realise that there are limitations of particular guitars. A production basswood RG with a floyd rose syle trem & bolt-on construction is pretty much the WORST guitar for single note sustain whereas a USA made mahogany set-neck guitar with a string-thru bridge is close to the ideal guitar for single note sustain.
I'm not sure what Mike was using, but a ML through a 100w Marshall amp with OD pedal would result in richer sustain than an RG through a low wattage amp.
If you improve your touch, and especially your vibrato on single notes, then you will be able to sustain a note for longer, but even the best players would struggle to hold a note for ages on a RG I'm afraid.
Even me! Lol
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Post by Mr.Tepes on Feb 7, 2011 19:22:57 GMT -6
Perhaps this would help in understanding my problem: I'm running a stock Ibanez RG (not sure what model, but somewhere around a 450/550, it's quite old and doesn't say) through a 1978 Marshall JMP MKII 50 watt head on a 1960 lead cabinet with an Ibanez TS9DX (stock, unfortunately; I cannot afford a vintage pedal, nor the mod to make this one sound better). There are various other pedals laying around, including a suppressor, compressor, delay, another TS9, and a couple stupid distortion pedals, but like I said, I don't get the chance to mess around too much with it yet; I can only play it at my friends house, as my neighbors would most certainly not be too happy with me blasting that in the apartment. Now, my main problem with this setup isn't sustaining regular notes, but sustaining the feedback, as well as making it more predictable. When a note feeds back, it's not always the same note, which is proving quite frustrating to me. Feedback and harmonics both die out very fast as soon as the tremolo bar is touched, making the screams and divebombs sound very lackluster. From what I've read about the sustainiac, the harmonic setting is very predictable, always ringing out a 5th from the original note, or something along those lines. I would love to have that predictability and control to make the guitar sing exactly the way I want, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't get it yet, and it's driving me crazy  |
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Post by Maxxxwell on Feb 7, 2011 22:45:29 GMT -6
Perhaps this would help in understanding my problem: I'm running a stock Ibanez RG (not sure what model, but somewhere around a 450/550, it's quite old and doesn't say) through a 1978 Marshall JMP MKII 50 watt head on a 1960 lead cabinet with an Ibanez TS9DX (stock, unfortunately; I cannot afford a vintage pedal, nor the mod to make this one sound better). There are various other pedals laying around, including a suppressor, compressor, delay, another TS9, and a couple stupid distortion pedals, but like I said, I don't get the chance to mess around too much with it yet; I can only play it at my friends house, as my neighbors would most certainly not be too happy with me blasting that in the apartment. Now, my main problem with this setup isn't sustaining regular notes, but sustaining the feedback, as well as making it more predictable. When a note feeds back, it's not always the same note, which is proving quite frustrating to me. Feedback and harmonics both die out very fast as soon as the tremolo bar is touched, making the screams and divebombs sound very lackluster. From what I've read about the sustainiac, the harmonic setting is very predictable, always ringing out a 5th from the original note, or something along those lines. I would love to have that predictability and control to make the guitar sing exactly the way I want, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't get it yet, and it's driving me crazy You probably already have the gear neccessary, you just need to spend more time messing around with it. Even if you did get the sustainer, it will take time to work it into your playing and get used to it. I think you just got to find the time to flip switches and twiddle knobs!  |
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Post by S-H on Feb 8, 2011 9:51:16 GMT -6
Perhaps this would help in understanding my problem: I'm running a stock Ibanez RG (not sure what model, but somewhere around a 450/550, it's quite old and doesn't say) through a 1978 Marshall JMP MKII 50 watt head on a 1960 lead cabinet with an Ibanez TS9DX (stock, unfortunately; I cannot afford a vintage pedal, nor the mod to make this one sound better). There are various other pedals laying around, including a suppressor, compressor, delay, another TS9, and a couple stupid distortion pedals, but like I said, I don't get the chance to mess around too much with it yet; I can only play it at my friends house, as my neighbors would most certainly not be too happy with me blasting that in the apartment. Now, my main problem with this setup isn't sustaining regular notes, but sustaining the feedback, as well as making it more predictable. When a note feeds back, it's not always the same note, which is proving quite frustrating to me. Feedback and harmonics both die out very fast as soon as the tremolo bar is touched, making the screams and divebombs sound very lackluster. From what I've read about the sustainiac, the harmonic setting is very predictable, always ringing out a 5th from the original note, or something along those lines. I would love to have that predictability and control to make the guitar sing exactly the way I want, and no matter how hard I try, I just can't get it yet, and it's driving me crazy What Mike does with the 1 note is actually sustain (as I thought you meant). That is down to control AND gear. Feedback is entirely a gear thing so ignore the points I made earlier about control. I must say I haven't experienced what you currently are so I can't even hazard a guess. I assume you are covering every other string barring the one you're playing? I would go to a guitar technician, explain and actually demonstrate the problem. I can't see it's a fault in your playing since divebombs aren't exactly the hardest thing to pull off, so there's an issue of some sorts with your gear (more than likely your guitar). A good tech will know what's wrong and fix it. I know it's more pay-out, but it will fix your problem and more importantly- save your sanity. All the Slayer guitar positions are filled! |
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Post by Mr.Tepes on Feb 8, 2011 23:24:23 GMT -6
Yes, sustain was part of the problem, and I appreciate your advice on it; I have been working on that as well. I just restated my other problems since no one had really addressed them all that much. I managed to use my compressor for a few minutes today, and it helped with the feedback a lot, but also destroyed my tone and made the amp extremely noisy, even with the volume knob rolled off. I'm sure if I experimented with it more I'll be able to achieve what I want eventually. I may have to start looking into new pickups as well  . Thanks to everyone that posted help! |
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Post by S-H on Feb 9, 2011 7:37:22 GMT -6
A quality noise gate like the ISP Decimator will k.o a lot of the noise. I noticed you don't have 1 (unless you forgot to list it?) so stick that on the never-ending list of gear to buy. Ha.
As for destroying the tone, is that only when the pedal is on? If so then it's possibly poor quality (what make is it?), if not, you will find it doesn't have a true-bypass & will as a result *** the life out of tone.
I would still (when you have the dough) take your guitar to a tech to see if there's anything wrong with it and I also would HIGHLY recommend putting new pickups in there. The RG, for me, is 1 of the easiest playing guitars around but with the stock pickups, 1 of the worst sounding. Lol.
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Post by Mr.Tepes on Feb 9, 2011 22:39:15 GMT -6
Most of my pedals are Boss, including the compressor and the noise gate, which is one of the many pedals not listed. I know they aren't the greatest quality, but I got them for free; you can't beat that price! Lol.
The compressor only drastically alters the tone when it's on; it lowers the volume and makes it sound much muddier, even with tone, etc. turned all the way up. The noise gate does a good job of cutting down on the hissing, but I haven't been able to dial it in right to where it still allows the amp to feed back. I also have cheap little cables between the pedals; are high-quality cables that size even available?
I'm not looking forward to buying new pickups either, lol. That seems like a big investment and a lot of work, and as far as I can tell, there's no way of knowing how it'll sound until the deed is already done. I can't really think of an artist's tone that I'd like to emulate exactly, so I don't know what pickups I would even want. I feel like I'd just have to buy a bunch of them and experiment, haha.
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Post by themaidenmaniac on Feb 19, 2011 18:21:46 GMT -6
Had a quick skim of this one Mr Tepes, looks like you're all bang on the money. Ive thought about toying with sustainers but like Steve says, sabotaging the neck pickup etc...
The recipe usually goes, good pickups, good compressors (you might want more than 1 at different stages in the chain), a tube screamer esque box, and a nice loud amp or two to feed back off eachother.
The big players actually look for feedback "sweet spots" on stage I think. A sustainiac is much less hassle ;D
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