New DIY Sustainer Telecaster with SOUNDS!!!

[psw]

Hi fellas...well the infamous Sustainer thread over at PG continues...

Here is my latest creation, a telecaster with a surface mount sustainer and a bunch of unique mods...



It has a Vintage fender "Wide Range" HB in the bridge and a new SCn neck pickup, a Khaler tremolo and a lot of mods...and of course the latest version of my sustainer.




For more details about the guitar see...
http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=37370&st=15&start=15

The quick link to the sounds is...
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/default.cfm?bandID=869409
but worth a look at the above link to get an idea of what you are hearing...

It is also entered in October's "guitar of the month" competition...
http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=37712&pid=391567&st=0&#entry391567
So if you are a member and like this guitar (it has strong competition) and appreciate the work that has gone into getting the sustainer project this far...

The battery for the sustainer was running a little flat so lacked the clean headroom it can have...hence a bit of a fizzy distortion sound but not a bad thing and if I had used any kind of distortion you wouldn't hear it and the harmonics and response would emphasized. It does give a fair representation of the guitar, all through headphones with no overdubs (except the bass, it is only a single one take guitar throughout with the same sound), no amp just improvising along to a drum machine!

Unfortunately, the track cuts short before even wilder stuff (more sci-fi theremin kind of effects) but this is probably more than enough to get the idea...

pete

[liddokun]

Sweet.

[tranceracer]

Sweet.

"DITTO!"

Great tune!  Those harmonics and feedback technique Sounds really nice!

That 8 stringer Axe looks interesting!

Great job!   

-bK

[liddokun]

seeing this makes me really want to get a start on my sustainer, but time is a huge concern for me.  So busy now these days.

[psw]

Thanks...it was a quick and dirty demo. There is just one guitar playing all the way through and I purposely used a dry direct signal (little echo but no noise reduction or compression) on it to show what it really sounds like.

I may get better at this recording thing and demo some of the other things it can do. It takes effects particularly well and the ability to play high notes and long sustained things opens up other areas to explore. A clean picked chord with chorus like effects sounds like a guitar and organ kind of thing for instance...you could use reallllly long flanger sweeps.

Distortion really makes the sustainer come alive the compression and enriched harmonic content really makes it pop...but in a good way!

This driver was made especially for the project and is only 6mm high and sticks to the scratchplate. The coil was wound in epoxy with tempory bobbins so it is pretty minimalistic...just magents, steel core, wire and glue!



pete

[composition4]

Hey thanks for the demo Pete, your hard work on the sustainers over the years has really paid off.. I've been quietly following your thread on projectguitar for a long time, and have wanted to build a sustainer. I have everything but the wire.. I ordered some from Altronics as they were the only place I could find. It was $5 or something, then I had to fill my order up with other stuff to bring the order to $20. So $15 of stuff I didn't need and another $13 postage later, I end up with a package with 5 opamps and 10 transistors, and an invoice stating they no longer sell the wire and have no replacement.  Needless to say that was the last I dealt with Altronics...

Oh, sorry to vent! SO anyway do you know where I can get my hands on 0.2mm wire in Aus (I'm in Tasmania but there's none at all here, just likemost other electronic components)? Best I can find is 0.25 which won't cut it by the looks of it!

Thanks for the samples, you've inspired me to resume my search for the wire so I can finally get it happening!

Jonathan

[psw]

Hi Jonathan,

It seems to be getting scarce...dick smith used to stock it and sometime you can find a small reel...in recent times I used so much that I bought a commercial reel so if you still can't find any...send me an email or PM...I'm in Victoria! I am having trouble working out what to wind it on to though as people often ask this question.

The thread has gone for a long time and got too big, but it seems to be coming along...I may be doing something more in the future with the thing...who knows

Glad you liked it...the whole guitar worked out great, the sustainer is a bonus!

pete

[composition4]

Oh! I didn't even realise that you put the guitar together, I was only looking at the sustainer!  Sounds and looks great, top work

Thanks for your offer, I'll take another look around and if I can't find anything (DSE in tasmania stock about four resistors at a time and maybe a capacitor if I'm lucky) I'll take you up on it.  Happy to pay whatever it takes to make it worth your while.

Well keep up the good work, I'm going to resume the hunt again tomorrow!

Thanks
Jonathan

[petemoore]

   Swell Tele !
   

[psw]

Auto- "Swell Tele !" even!

Thanks...the sustainer went through a few different guises to get to this point. Originally I never intended to have the sustainer but a challenge was put to me while I was working on it for the possiblity of a very compact driver for a different kind of project. This one was a kind of feasibility for such a device. Unfortunately, for other reasons, I don't think it would work out on that project but I thought it would work without mods to this guitar without taking anything away from it.

Previously I installed a GF Modboard optical onboard tremolo but was most unhappy with it. I did consider an "auto-swell" as I have an old Boss Slow Gear and love that sound (is their a simple circuit like that here?) but since then, besides perhaps a preamp, effects are probably best left outside the guitar.

The tele and this one in particular worked out to be a good candidate though for some creative wiring...



I was able to move the volume control forward and fit all the switches in by angling them about 30 degrees (which also makes them easier to use and the tele control cavity is exactly the right size to fit the battery in under the tone pot and sustainer switch. The little sustainer circuit hides under the HB pickup.



The three way toggle worked out really well and the push pull volume to activate the out of phase is a useful almost strat like quack on this guitar...



I even added a "kill switch" from a tiny SMD switch next to the LED above. I do get a little clicking at the start of the "kill" when pushed...anyone have any ideas on how to cure this? Also, the kill (which shorts the output) also kills the sustainer's drive...interestingly, the guitar happily sustains away with the volume on zero...ideally, the guitar would sustain away so it could be "cut up" by the switch...any ideas? Could the hot be happily be lifted rather than shorted, for instance?

Otherwise, the guitar is a lot of fun to play and generally I have tried to cure myself of too much sustainer stuff...it has been a while since I made one. Interestingly...in regards to previous "sustainer switch pop" this one does have it on switch off, but only if you switch it off while no sound is being played...the trick is to switch it off while sustaining a note or chord which is probably more common and you can hear (or not hear) that while playing in the sound clip, there is very little or no switch noise when switching between pickups or sustainer modes.

I have another project that tries to incorporate the sustainer in a modified strat which will be more of a challenge and uses my thin coil built into the neck pickup unlike this one. Wiring these things will always be something of a nightmare though...even though the circuit is small there are ten wires coming off it and the pickups or selector need to go to the main switch for the bypass function. I seem to have got a working solution so far...at least on this guitar.

Thanks for the complements...any tips on the niggles appreciated...

pete

[psw]

Hi there...thought I would bump this back up...voting has started for the "guitar of the month" but unfortunately for the tele there are so many cool entries these days. Presently I am just holding on to third, though it started a 3 way dead heat...with an acoustic steaming ahead followed by the 8 string guitar...still not bad, it is holding it's ground against two custom made 335's...

You can see the competition or vote if you are a member and join up...http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=38357&st=0...

Otherwise, the guitar is still going fine and influencing others to make their own. Someone at the Guitar Nutz 2 forum is doing one on a complicated strat and a few others are looking to do some different versions...so the thread that never dies is still going!

pete

oh yeah...I added the last part of that sound demo that got cut short...

[~nick~]

I apologize if this angers anyone for reviving a thread from 2008, But I MUST learn more about this project. Link in the first post are not working for me. I'd love to know what that schematic for the sustainer is. Any updates on a sustainer upgrade? What became the fate of this tele?

[bluebunny]

Try plugging the URLs into the Wayback Machine.

[ashcat_lt]

The OP of this thread has passed away 7 years ago yesterday.  He had kind of been flamed and trolled out of projectguitar, and moved over to guitarnuts for a while.

This link seems to work for me, but I didn't surf all the way through to make sure everything is still there:
https://www.projectguitar.com/forums/topic/7512-sustainer-ideas/

Here's a thread on GN2 that he started:
https://guitarnuts2.proboards.com/thread/799/diy-sustainer-blend-phaso-caster

I'm pretty sure the driver circuit he used was just a LM386 based preamp, maybe a little bit of low pass involved, and a polarity flip for harmonic mode.  IIRC, driver specs are the important part, with the actual amp circuit being just dead simple.