I want more sustain

[zener]

Just finished building a Ross Compressor. I tested it followed by a Hot Silicon then a Little Gem amp. It's actually my first time to hear a compressor working. At first, It seems nothing's changed. Maybe it's just because the circuit doesn't have bypass switch yet and I can't hear the difference simultaneously. Upon closer listening, there I noticed just a bit of additional sustain. I turn the sustain knob at full but at about 3/4 way of the pot's rotation is where the full sustain/gain is. Beyod that , is as if you turn the knob back or towards low (to the left). There's a 2K trimpot and I keep on turning it hoping to find more sustain but there's nothing. I still don't know what the trimpot controls.

Yeah, there is sustain but I want more :twisted: . Would adding another compressor in the signal chain give more sustain? Something like guitar-compressor-distortion/overdrive-compressor-(distortion/overdrive to follow?) Does it make any sense at all?

Thanks for any help you can give to this sustain-craving guy.

Zener

[M.D.]

What kind o amp u running?

mike :twisted:

[petemoore]

try the compressor after the Fuzz...
 the Ross [I just finished TBing and boxing mine couple weeks now..]
should bring small signals up, but if the strings signal drops, so does the volume...
 air pressure waves influencing the presence of harmonics of a [amp with 'push' to it] sustaining string is different horse [IMO] to signal processing sustain.
 Alot of how long a note sustains is in the guitars resonance/damping characteristics,  especially at low volume levels...

[aron]

Alot of how long a note sustains is in the guitars resonance/damping characteristics, especially at low volume levels...

Yep. Some(most?) sustain problems are the problem of the guitar.

[M.D.]

Yes guitars like neck-through body type construction are famous for this i have an old rick and it sounds like it was a light compressor,still the gain of different amps do a little here and there too(imo)so I agree with you guys that some guitars just don't do it well,but youd still think we can still manipulate the signal to over come this quite well?But than again I am new at this bag and These guys have never steered me wrong.Thanks guys.


Mike. :twisted:

[bwanasonic]

I hate to repeat the cliche, but sustain starts with the fingers. If you are not getting a sustaining tone unamplified, no little box is going to help. As mentioned, guitar setup is a factor, and things like old strings can really kill your tone. Using two compressors in series can work, but is noisy as hell (Lowell George used to use two Dyna-Comps for slide). I find the best way to really hear the effects of compression is with a super clean sound. It makes it much easier to make out what the compression is doing to the attack and decay of a note. Dial in a clean sound and play maybe an arpeggiated chord with some open strings, varying the dynamics of your pick attack from soft to hard. Play the same *riff* with the comp and without. This should make the compression effect pretty apparent. It should *squash* the hard notes a bit and bring out the softer notes.

Kerry M

[Samuel]

Also, you'll hear it more with a clean tone because distortion, by its nature, acts as compression. Compressors, like distort, uh, -ers, affect the signal by cutting back the loudest bits of the signal they receive. Compressors just do their signal limiting it over a longer period (like seconds) where distortion is more instantaneous, and compressors are gentle about it, sloping the signal down and retaining the basic waveform, where distortion chops the heads of the signal off, making the end result more traingle or square wave-ish. So putting a compressor on a distorted signal will have a great deal less effect than putting it on a clean signal, since the clean signal has more variation of level to act on.