latest half-baked, hair-brain scheme... diy sustainor idea with a twist..

[pinkjimiphoton]

my latest idea is this...

guitar into box containing: fuzz>>envelope follower>>buffered splitter.... one side of splitter to ruby or something similar with an output jack, the other side to your normal guitar rig.

here's the cool part... find an old telephone handset, and steal the speaker out of it. the cheap ass plastic ones usually have a foam gasket around them,

hook the ruby to the telephone speaker, and clamp the speaker to your headstock with a small c clamp or something. hook the other output of the box to your normal guitar rig.

now, when ya play, the signal is split ... half to your amp, and half to the ruby driving your headstock. by dynamically varying your attack, you can sweep the envelope filter to hit different frequencies to control the feedback going to your headstock.

in reality, an inductorless wah would probably be easier, cuz ya put the whole mess in a wah shell, and can sweep it to whatever frequencies make the guitar sustain, scream, or feedback.

kinda like the old sustainiac system. you could probably jump octaves of feedback with the wah, and find whatever frequency you need with the treadle.

and since it's going to your amp, too, you can use it as a "feedback helper"...cuz the amp, once the resonances of the guitar are excited, will feedback whatever frequency you want, controllably. maybe even harmonized. i dunno.

just an idea, again, standing on the shoulders of giants... (dead astro comes to mind)

do you think it would work?

ideas? yay... nay... better ways to implement this?

spilkus in your genechtogozoink?

[ashcat_lt]

I have one of these:

(It's a link.  You can click it!)

It worked pretty much the way you seem to be wanting.  Didn't mess with it a whole lot, and didn't try with a wah like you describe, but it was pretty cool. 

It is a bit weird having a cable hanging off the wrong end of the guitar and trying to get in the way of my fretting hand.  If you find a good solution for that particular issue please post.

[pinkjimiphoton]

that looks like it would do it.

i'm thinking the phone speaker, cuz it's closed back, 8 ohms, and very midrangey... should be perfect i'm imagining.

when i was a kid, i learned about feedback induction by pushing the headstock of my tiesco del rey directly against the cone of the speaker.

not reccomended.

but MAN!! what a sound!

[ashcat_lt]

Well, if you're running the thing through a wah anyway...

The Vibe It (mine's called a Boombox, but exactly the same thing) is a contact transducer meant specifically to vibrate whatever you stick it to and make that into a speaker.  It makes almost no acoustic noise of its own.  Really great for getting "amp feedback" when recording through an amp sim and headphones.

I've never actually pushed the headstock against the speaker cone itself.  Usually just touching it to the cabinet works well enough, and far less chance of damage.

[pinkjimiphoton]

well, that was 40 some years ago...