Does anyone own a fernandes sustainer kit 101 ?

[Angelo777]

Hello everyone,

I was thinking if it was possible for someone who owns a Fernandes Sustainer Kit 101 ( the simple one ) ... to give us some photos of the circuit so that we reverse engineer it with the purpose of learning this kind of technology and how it works... For educational and curiosity reasons ONLY !!!

Thank you all in advance!
Angelo

[Angelo777]

I don't know if by giving photos of the guts of this system is against any laws of this forum 

So i guess I'll wait for someone of the higher levels to provide me with clearance to procced 

Best Regards,
Angelo777

[wordstep]

Anything can be done, but...

the fernandes sustainer has a small PCB( 1*5 cm) welded on the main PCB. The small one uses all SMD parts and it is covered by black epoxy or print.

[slacker]

I can take some photos of mine if you want, it's the 401, but I don't think there's much difference. Like wordstep said though part of it is gooped so if you wanted to attempt to reverse engineer it you'd need to find someone prepared to rip theirs apart.

[psw]

There have been quite a few photos and discussion on the fernandes circuits and such...perhaps not so much on this forum  ...for instance, the mysterious transformer under the circuit board is to help the impedance matching of the driver so it can be used as a pickup when not in use. Otherwise, as noted, there are parts that are covered in goop and other bits that are SMD...but for a good idea of the overall circuit, do a patent search as the details are in there at the USPTO as well as the sustainiac, floyd rose and a number of others.

The patents, many of which go for in excess of 50 pages, plus the promotional stuff and the active DIY crowd give far too much information for educational purposes. Start with the very basics of how it works before you get tied down in the details and watch for mis information. The concept is extremely simple, but many feel there is some kind of circuitry voodoo going on and get bogged down in that, in my view the driver is by far the more important part of the system...got to make a device that will put out enough force to drive the strings and stay in sync with their vibrations to resonate, but not so much that it becomes sluggish and starts working against itself (and so at least require compensation circuitry for phase) and puts out so much EMI that the source pickup sense noise or squeals itself silly!

In the last year, most of my DIY sustainer stuff was removed over at project guitar but it's back (though many threads have been closed as the topic is politically sensitive)...so there is quite a bit of information there as well as stuff on these things...hmmm...there is a bit here and at other forums too, though it mostly sources back to the original giant sustainer thread at PG.

If you simply want to understand the principle for education purposes, I'm happy to discuss it and I am sure there are plenty of others here that have a fair idea about these things too...but the 'secret' won't be found in the 'circuitry' of the fernandes or other devices, but in the overall system.

Otherwise, it is not just a circuit and the driver part is critical...even if you did make a copy, the development might cost more than buying one and no doubt be bigger in size than it already is...it would be a tricky task for something you can buy relatively cheaply. The driver though is a very important part of the 'system' and the circuit doesn't mean much without it, reproducing those specs and quality is going to be very hard to do...

The DIY Sustainer things do work surprisingly well, some are more like the fernandes and sustainiac in response (very controlled and even) while others branch into different territories, part ebow sound, part loud amp feedback guitar with control or a mix of the variations possible. The harmonic and mixed modes can also be varied a lot too. There are more to these things, at least potentially, than simply sustain and there continues to be development in the technology...commercially I suppose the Moog guitar is an example...my personal versions tend to have a different more dynamic flavor than you generally find on commercial units...but there is a wide range of possible varaitions. (as there should be of course, there are many types of compressors and distortions and effects devices of course while things continue to move in the digital realm into different kinds of technology and potentials)

Again, it is not just a circuit but the ability to make an effective driver, installation and the circuit. In the simplest form, with an effective driver and adequate bypass switching of a single bridge pickup guitar....you are really only requiring a small stable amp with a buffer or preamp to avoid loading and an efficient well made driver that is matched to that system. I developed a very simple formula for such a driver for instance that will work with something like an LM386 with buffer.

The more sophisticated versions circuit wise need to delve into AGC or compression of various kinds and this features on commercial units to give them an even response...there can be a bit here, feed forward AGC has its advocates for instance. The driver designs can vary a lot, they can be simple single coil designs, compact or combined with a conventional pickup as I developed, or a range or dual coil styles like fernandes and sustainiac use...all can be tricky to make and give different responses and so the circuits may need to be adjusted to suit such propositions.

Other considerations are the switching and I suspect a fair bit of the gooped circuits on the fernandes is to facilitate this kind of thing. Many of these kits require or advise their own pickups in the bridge position so they have control over the input signal as well as the driver output and the potential for interference between the two.

If considering DIY, it is probably better to build of a known DIY system and tailor it to your pickup and guitar and your abilities and tinker from there than to try and reproduce something which is near impossible to replicate the variables of (pickup, driver, circuit and installation).

Best of luck though...pete

[Angelo777]

WOW Pete is here !!!!

Hi,

I read your posts in other forum but never thought i would be able to actually find you here .... !!! Thank you.

Now about what you wrote...

First of all, I want to make clear that i'm doing this only for hobby and for educational purposes ONLY.

I have a lot of questions...

1) What is a "AGC" ? ( noob question ... i know ... but what is it )

2) how a guitar pickup works ? I mean it is a coil which gets power from the movement of the strings and how it translates it to audio signal ?

3) The driver is a circuit that ( i guess ) give voltage to the coil ( pickup ) and creates a magnetic field that sends magnetical vibrations to the strings and as the string move all the time then you have a true infinate TRUE PHYSICAL sustain ?

4) You said

got to make a device that will put out enough force to drive the strings and stay in sync with their vibrations to resonate, but not so much that it becomes sluggish

So... if someone can make a circuit - driver that keeps sending steady vibrations to the strings then it will work correctly ? OR it will become "sluggish" ? ( what "sluggish" means by the way..  ? My English are good but not that good apparently  )

5) You also said

and starts working against itself (and so at least require compensation circuitry for phase) and puts out so much EMI that the source pickup sense noise or squeals itself silly!

What do you mean "starts working against itself" ... ? You mean that it gives a feedback very soon like a squel ? And what is EMI ?

6) When you say synch ... you mean send a steady vibration to the strings all the time ? Then you can say that it synchs? Is there a way to measure the synch and know that you are in synch ( between driver , pickup and strings ? )

Thanks a lot !

Best Regards,
Angelo

[psw]

Yes, I get around...but it was an accident as you had replied to another thread that gave me an email alert to look, and so found this thread.

I am in the process of moving so short of time and may be off line in a bit for a little while...

Anyway...lots of questions...

If you want to know how it works and all the many details and considerations then that's easy enough, putting them into practice and building one, that can be another thing entirely. Discussions it seems can get heated and all kinds of problems have emerged in recent times...so I am a little more wary...but what the hey...

AGC...stands for "Automatic Gain Control". A compressor is perhaps the most obvious application of this. Once the device has the strings sustaining, the strings vibrate more and sends more signal to the circuit and the system can run away with itself a bit...ptotentailly. So, more advanced sustainer circuits will have a 'limiting' section that will apply only enough power to provide an even response. It could be a compressor or limiter or both, or it could be one or a combination of types. Col on the other forum argued convincingly for a forward feed circuit that is relatively rare and tricky to design.

That said, it does not necessarily need one or you may like a different response. A well designed system may well do it by itself to a degree....the circuit can only amplify so much on a battery, that in itself will 'limit things', there are all kinds of factors.

The other thing to consider is that  higher frequencies and thinner strings will be harder to drive, so you may well want to give them more power and the bass strings less..this could be achieved through some kind of tone filtering, driver design, or the AGC control...or a combination...but this gets a little esoteric.

...

Hmmm...well, guitar pickup works...this kind of thing is vital to understand and you may wish to do some research. Basically, the metal strings of the guitar vibrate in a magnetic field (magnets in a pickup right!) and this induces a tiny current in the coil around the magnetised core. This is induction is much like electric motors and transformers and such work...that's a quick and dirty explanation on the fly. The tiny signal induced in the coil is then amplified at the guitar amp...the strings make a signal in the pickup coil that is an analogy of the vibrations in the magnetic field, the amplifier multiplies that, the speaker then moves by a coil and magnet there in the same way, to more air so we hear an analogy of the strings as sound...follow?

Now the "sustainer" kind of reverses this process. The pickup sense the strings vibaration, turns it into an electrical signal (it goes off to the guitar amp as usual so you can hear it). In additon, the signal goes to a small amp inside the guitar (the circuit) which sends this amplified version of the strings vibrations to the driver. The driver is also a coil, similar to a pickup (note a conventional pickup will not work!) with it's own magnetic field. This coil increases or decreases the magnetic field and in so doing, moves the strings...as they are a copy of the same thing it forms a 'feedback loop'...the strings vibrate, whcih makes the driver move teh strings, and round and round it goes endlessly...if all is well!

Now, I often try and describe the driver as like a speaker coil, and the strings like the cone of a speaker. The pickup is like a microphone...if the speaker coil and driver get to close, all you will get is squeal...not goo and not going to be driving the strings. Hence, in almost all sustainers, only the bridge pickup can be used with the driver up by the neck far enough away not to squeal in this way.

...

Hmmm...well, you need to get a handle on a few basics here. Unfortunately I will have to run...but understanding how a pickup works, a speaker works and such will be crucial...so a bit of googling perhaps

There is the pickup in the guitar, it is amplified by a circuit (so basically a small amp, but may contain AGC and other extras to control response) and the signal from this amp is sent to a driver in the neck position.

The driver is built like a pickup, magnets, coil, etc...but it is designed differently. It uses much heavier wire and less 'tirns' to create an electromagnet that matches the circuit/amps output impedance (not you need a buffer or preamp to match the pickups input as well), say 8 ohms like a speaker (not 9,ooo ohms like a pickup) as it needs to be able to handle the current and voltages of the amplified signal and provide enough force to more the strings.

...

Other comments, like sluggish, etc...

One of the difficulties in designing an effective system can be that there will be delays. The strings are vibrating but by the time it is amplified and transformed into a magnetic force, the string may be in an 'upswing' while the driver is sending the reverse signal...so the driver may even attempt to stop the string instead of move it!!! This is what I mean by being "in sync"...if the system is not 'fast enough' it can work against itself.

The higher strings are important consideration. They have less metal in them for the electromagnetic driver to work on them, but also they move at a higher rate of speed...higher frequencies mean faster vibrations. Now, can a system be built that can keep up, or compensate for the phase the strings are in...phase being that part of the cycle the strings are vibrating.

Hope this makes some sense...these are the considerations of designing these things successfully.

I guess what needs to be understood is that these things are not a simple "effect" like a stomp box, though they can be quite simple. It is not a "circuit" but a whole system that includes electromagnetic driver and even the installation. This driver in my work at least, is the vital component. It can not have any loose wires and needs to be made to work effectively with the system.

In developing my simple designs, I came up with a 'formula' that is known to work. A single coil, thin in profile (ususally say 3mm) wound on a magnetized core with 0.2mm wire to a resistance of about 8 ohms and well potted (wound in glue so the coil becomes solid and vibration free) and coupled with an amplifier circuit (an LM386 type is popular) will provide infinite sustain and harmonic effects and is a proven design. (note that a preamp or buffer is necessary in the circuit to prevent loading of the pickups).

There are tutorials at PG and of course the giant sustainer thread over there.

But this is my approach, there are other driver designs, some use multiple coils, both sustainiac and fernandes do, which are like a reverse humbucking pickup to reduce EMI. Some drivers provide force but need circuitry to adjust the phase with frequency to compensate for lags.

oh...EMI is "electromagnetic interference". "Squeal" is an oscillation feedback, EMI can take a few forms here, basically the driver coil will be putting out powerful magnetic forces, you do not want the sensitive guitar pickup or any other pickup coils "hearing" or sensing that magnetic signal. So, you need to keep the signal high enough to move the strings, but not so high that the pickup hears it and so distorts or squeals itself silly. Many get the idea that if I just put enough power into the system, something will happen, but this is not the case...its a balancing act...but it can be done!

My ideas were to develop drivers that did not require compensation to work. The system (circuit and driver) work in synch, in phase, close enough to the vibrations of the strings, that these complications are not really that important considerations...so the circuitry is far simpler, the drivers far easier to build for the DIY'er and a broader range of effects are possible with tinkering. But a lot depends on the design and not deviating from it unless you know what you are doing, of course people are free to go their own way...there are many ways to catch the mouse!

Anyway...got to run...hope that helps a bit, perhaps I provided too much too soon, get a bit of a grip on how electromagnets work...pickups, speakers...and ideas like feedback loops to get the basics of how these things work. Unlike 'effects' these things don't just process a signal (distort or phase or echo, etc) but actually move the strings, the circuit then is only a small part of a bigger system and it generally requires quite a bit of modification to the actual instrument to install it (at least extensive wiring and switching of the actual guitar as well as making and installing a driver).

As such, it takes a range of skills beyond successfully making a circuit and it is this that generally people have trouble coming to grips with. Not just any coil will work for a driver, a pickup is not a driver though mechanically seems much the same, and there are all kinds of difficulties and forces that need to be balanced to get sustain over squeal. A lot lot consider, but it can be done fairly easily if you can muster the skills to successfully navigate the pitfalls.

People do get addicted to the things, or so it seems...

[Paul Marossy]

Someone recently gave me a used FSK-401, which the next day I put into one of my older electric guitars. It's kind of cool, but it's not something that I find addicting. I certainly wouldn't want to try to and reverse engineer the thing. As pointed out, there is a small epoxy covered board with SMD components on it that you would have to crack, too.

My curiousity about it was satisified after I printed out the 50+ page copy of the patent for informational purposes. I actually learned more about how sustainers work by studying the Ebow and its patent documents than the one that applies to the Fernandes Sustainer.

[Angelo777]

Hi Pete,

Thank you very much for the info. I understand all of it ... pretty much... Could you teach me how to built a coil ? I have the equipment... machines and stuff ...for building transformers and coils ... pickups too... I actually have a very good friend of mine who is letting me using his labs and workstations... Any help with a video or some tips maybe ?
And one question... How can i measure how many ohms a coil is ? or a pickup is ?

Thanks a lot!
Angelo

[slacker]

Someone recently gave me a used FSK-401, which the next day I put into one of my older electric guitars. It's kind of cool, but it's not something that I find addicting.

Yeah I found the same thing, it's not really as cool as I hoped it would be. it's nice for creating big ambient  sounding things and using it with distortion to fake amp feedback is fun for a bit. To be honest I prefer the EBow.

[Paul Marossy]

Someone recently gave me a used FSK-401, which the next day I put into one of my older electric guitars. It's kind of cool, but it's not something that I find addicting.

Yeah I found the same thing, it's not really as cool as I hoped it would be. it's nice for creating big ambient  sounding things and using it with distortion to fake amp feedback is fun for a bit. To be honest I prefer the EBow.

I tried using it once with a clean amp to get nice volume swells (like I was getting thru my digital FX unit with headphones on), but it makes the amp distort, which is NOT what I wanted. So I have decided that it will really be useful for recording direct into my digital multi-track recorder thru my digital FX unit which is dedicated for such purposes, and not for playing live.

When I was doing the rock opera production that I was playing for this last Easter, I got just as good results using feedback the conventional way with my Parker Mojo Nitefly and a 15 watt combo amp with various pedals - we were playing kind of loud anyway because the drummer likes to KILL the drumset and all of us were crammed into about a 13'x10' space on the stage, in the garage part of the set. But I have found ways to get that feedback in a controlled manner without having to have an extremely loud amp, been using that trick for years.

[Angelo777]

I tried using it once with a clean amp to get nice volume swells (like I was getting thru my digital FX unit with headphones on), but it makes the amp distort, which is NOT what I wanted. So I have decided that it will really be useful for recording direct into my digital multi-track recorder thru my digital FX unit which is dedicated for such purposes, and not for playing live.

When I was doing the rock opera production that I was playing for this last Easter, I got just as good results using feedback the conventional way with my Parker Mojo Nitefly and a 15 watt combo amp with various pedals - we were playing kind of loud anyway because the drummer likes to KILL the drumset and all of us were crammed into about a 13'x10' space on the stage, in the garage part of the set. But I have found ways to get that feedback in a controlled manner without having to have an extremely loud amp, been using that trick for years.

Thats very interesting.... A very good overdrive pedal is Fatal Tube from AMZ Electronics.... I just bought one and i crancked my marshall MG 15 Watt R with the distortion half way up and volume about 9 o'clock and i got true infinet sustain....  Though it started to create a squile after a while but when i started moving the string the squile was stopping and it was going from the start all over again .... Possibly the best overdrive out there !!! Does anyone got schematics of it ? I could reverse engineer it though i'm kinda' busy with reverse engineering the iSP string Decimator with Phil and it will take a while i think ... untill Sunday at least.

So anyone there with the Fatal Tube ( AMZ electronics ) schematics

Thank you in advance!

Cheers!
Angelo

[Angelo777]

 
Damn the AMZ Electronics Fatal Tube is FULL SMD !!!!

I WILL REVERSE ENGINEER IT UNTIL NEXT SUNDAY 

No circuit hides from me gggggrrrrrrrr


Cheers!
Angelo

[psw]

Hmmm....well...

you should be aware of a couple of threads at PG besides the monster thread at the top of the electronics section....

One is a tutorial on making such a system based on my ideas but carried out by a few. This introduced the Fetzer/Ruby as a suitable circuit and some have had success. I have been frequently criticized for it, though it was never my idea and have in fact never built it. It will work, but would be better with the mods continuously suggested by me or alternative battery powered, low watt poweramp circuits with a non-loading buffer or preamp section as a minimum. The mods I suggested included the caps for stability suggested in the LM386 data sheet and a 100uF output capacitor. More elaborate circuits including col's forward feed AGC with 4 modes are also posted...

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=16984

Anyway...a pictorial on the coil winding process I originally used is here...

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=24211

This one has a coil mounted on top of a normal single coil pickup,, an idea that I used successfully many times and is unique to my work. The principle is exactly the same though for stand alone models or any coil winding. There is no need for machines to do this as they need to be wound in glue and there are only 200 or less turns of fairly thick wire that can easily be done by hand, probably better!

Of interest may be my later projects like the blueteleful telecaster project, this remains my main guitar and features a sustainer of my design that is independent of pickups and shows a fair bit of the installation in pics...

http://projectguitar.ibforums.com/index.php?showtopic=37370&hl=blueteleful

hope those links all work...here are some pics of the sustainer from the tele though...



the mini toggle activates the sustainer, the middle knob is a unique 'drive' control and pulling up on this activates the harmonics function. The mini toggle is a 4pdt switch that turns on the device while selecting the bridge pickup and completely isolating the neck and other wiring while the sustainer is on regardless of the selector position.



This shows a driver, pretty much as the original design...0.2mm wire wound around a 3mm steel blade core with some ceramic magnets below. Much more diffiuclt is that these coils are set in epoxy and not the kind of thing that your average person is going to be able to wind easily or even safely...5min epoxies and such will not cut it...but that is not necessary really as long as the thing becomes solid all the way through to avoid vibrations in the coil...i normally suggest wood glue as per my originals. The need for epoxy is that this driver had to be compact, it surface mounts with double sided tape to the scratchplate, so that even bobbins for the coil would make it too thick for this low/no mod application.



Another pic of the controls, I have a blue LED that shows when the sustainer is on...the tiny circuit fits under the HB bridge picup and the batter fits inside the standard tele control cavity under the tone control. Tight, but it does fit...



this shows the extent of wiring required, not that simple really, but it does work. Much of the complexity is to isolate the neck pickup from the system...the wiring was not complete when this was taken and things tidied up a fair bit in the finished job.

...

There are lots of things about these devices, sustainers, ebow, etc that are often not told and experiences relate largely to personal interplay with given instruments...for years fernandes did not offer their devices outside of their guitars for good reason...control of the elements, particularly the source pickup and the installation and qualities of a given guitar.

Once you get into the DIY realm...well there are a lot of variables, opinions and even mis-information now.

Firstly, from a personal perspective, I had quite a few aims about the DIY sustainer project beyond 'infinite sustain'. I don't even like the term 'sustainer' as it can do more than sustain a string. As other people got involved and made their own versions, their results and approaches varied considerably.

For me, clean sustain was always the aim and this is possible. I am surprised if the fernandes is not doing that, it indicates an EMI problem possibly related to the instrument install or 'tuning it' to the pickups and such...I've heard a sustainiac give good clean sustain. It could be driving the strings so hard that it is overloading the input of your amp, that is certainly a 'feature' of mine if driven hard, FX units will often limit these things and a compressor may solve that problem for live clean use. There are examples of the fernandes working well by Vai and the EDge amongst others that make use of it's controlled sustain.

However, I have tested mine against the sustainiac and found that the commercial units to be somewhat sterile. Ebows are far more dynamic and my systems are more like an ebow in character I suppose...far more dynamic and expressinve. But it goes beyond that in some ways, later versions have a surprising amount of variability with the drive control.

But clean, got to aim for clean sustain. It sounds great distorted, aided considerably by saturated distortion, but these things are a different animal...better to add distortion of choice than to have some fizzy EMI distortion forced upon it from the sustainer!

So...lets see...other aims I had was something low to no mod on the instrument, retaining the choice of pickups for both the bridge and neck, avoiding cutting holes for drivers and such (hence things like the pickup driver or compact drivers like my tele), simple controls, low battery drainage or reliance on a battery (mine only use a battery with the sustainer on and work as normal without a battery at all or flat...these things can drain a battery pretty quickly and performance drop as it does so)...lots of things...

The other side of things was not to copy what was already available but to explore the options of the technology a bit more fully. So, my devices have always tended to allow a more dynamic response and later designs more varied responses. The infinite sustain thing is cute, but only a part of the appeal for me. These things can produce harmonics on any note and controlled, clean and at any volume...more dnamic systems like mine have the potential to swell like an ebow if picked very softly, notes can be cut short and so produce reverse envelope (backwards guitar type effects) and of course the usual 'loud guitar' feedback kind of 'live' response regardless of the use of the infinite sustain idea...and again clean if wanted! But there are also a range of other more subtle effects that are possible with a good system. For instance, you can run the systems like mine at a very low power meaning that the lower strings of chords sustain, with a bit of chorus or such it can sound like a string or organ pad over a clean guitar at the same time. Another little effect can be to have the drive low, so the sustain is not really longer than a normal guitar, but with the harmonic feature on, so that when notes naturally fade out, they rise and fade into a harmonic of that note...all on a clean guitar. The device can also be very effective on slide, higher up a very david lindsay 'running on empty' kind of effect.

Really there are a lot of possibilities, but everyone's aims may well be different. The commercial units focus on the sustain angle and are designed to produce a very even almost sterile kind of effect. Many DIY'ers with elaborate AGC's and multi coil drivers have aimed for very controlled 'polite' clean sustain of a similar type...this is not my preferred response, but I can see the appeal. Some have created things that wouldn't at all meet my criteria, learned to live with errors and faults or even promote them as features...it distorts and is fizzy..."I like that sound"...ahahha...some squeal a lot..."oh, but that's the effect I was after!"...lol! These kinds of things were never my intention or those of serious developers and successful versions don't have faults as features.

So, there has been some misunderstanding about this technology and not the appreciation of the potential that the things hold if done right...and beyond what the commercial units offer up. You see that on this forum of course all the time I am sure, endless commercial units out there for distortions, but always a new flavor from the DIY'ers.

...

I sense that there is still the idea that if you cloned the fernandes circuit you'd be ahead, this I am afraid this is just wrong. I have had these questions before...it is a system. In most it even includes the pickup choice to match the circuit, certainly the driver. In my systems, being DIY it can be tailored completely to the individual...but my ideas won't work with a commercial driver or just any coil or driver style...though it is surprising the range that it can work with. So, making the fernandes circuit, even if it were cloned, does not clone the driver which is a serious more daunting proposition.

There is also a common mis-conception that the circuit is where the magic happens, personally I find this also to be misleading...the system matters, the driver is a big part of this as well as the installation and source pickup. If anything, the design of the commercial units indicate in the patents that they need to compensate for the driver efficiencies (phase, etc) and that they put a lot into creating that even sustain that lacks dynamics to my ear. Good results can be achieved without all that and many even prefer the sound of the device without any kind of AGC built into the circuit itself. Some of the complexities of the circuit is in the switching and pop and noise suppression, this can be overcome with mechanical switching in most instances...just some personal perspectives.

Honestly though, there is a lot of background info and skills that you will need to know, this is not like rewiring a guitar or building a circuit successfully. The resistance of a coil (pickup, speaker, driver, whatever...transformer...
is measured in ohms. Get a multimeter, set it for ohms of the relevant value (in the region of 8 ohms for a driver or typical speaker) and measure the 'resistance' from the end of the coil to the place where you are wound too...be aware that the wire is enameled so this insulation will need to be scraped a bit to measure it at that point...keep winding till you get it about right before thinking of cutting it. Winding in glue can be messy as well, but it is the only way really to be sure of a vibration free coil easily and safely...if you use a machine, this glue will be sprayed everywhere most likely, so by hand is probably the best and easiest and it should not take that long.

But reading the resistance of a coil is one of the most basic things to know, so you know, the skeptic in me wonders whether you could clone things if you can't read the actual measurements of components for instance. Such knowledge is even important for the installation process and trouble shooting. Getting help may be the best bet to succeed.

Also, I always advise and generally do even after building these things for years, TEST these things before you make any modification or elaborate plans for a guitar. Simply build the circuit, wire it to the bridge pickup and hold the driver above the neck, far from any pickups and make sure that the thing works for you...many, many have failed by one reason or another, trouble shooting is hard in a guitar and practically impossible by people like me trying to advise from afar...in the end trouble shooting needs to be done by the DIYer that cause the trouble or is having to do the shooting after wards.

...

Hey Paul...better forum to discuss things here I suspect 

yeah, these things can be addictive, mainly from the people who get hooked on making and developing them of course, but much like building stomp boxes does here for the rank and file. The reality is that it is a very clever device and potentially useful to any number of players, but it is a kind of "effect", it won't make you a better player for it, it will even require changes in technique to get the best from it (so you may already need to be a good player to begin with, certainly damping skills are a must) and some imagination to put it to use musically. I've made quite a few and my main guitar has one I can use any time...but I rarely use it musically. I do think that if I get more into recording I will use it a lot more, but these things have been around for a long time and are very rarely heard...so one has to wonder what that tells you about it's musical potential generally.

But you know, I fly the flag for these things, so I should be more positive. If you put a hard timed tremolo on the thing and set it to bloom through the harmonics, you get a kind of baba o'reilly syth sound thing...that can be cool...obviously a volume pedal can do wonders with continuous notes for envelope shaping in a synth like fashion, as can a wha for that matter. Umm...atmospheric pads can be cool, with or without effects ('with or without you' is a song that has that kind of effect...or 'heroes' for that matter). Looper people love the things of course...a lot of the newere electric fretless players love the thing...there is a clip of Vai plaing fretless around which is a good example. Basically, the fretless has a problem with sustain...no longer with a sustainer, right?!

So, don't judge the technology by the hype or the standard forms of the things, or see it as simply a way of creating feedback or endless sustain...it is in fact another way of vibrating strings, much like a bow is to a violin in some ways...and a perfectly valid way of exciting the strings as a pick. My aim though was never to compromise the integrity of the basic instrument that we know or love, just to add an "effect" like this to it...others may purpose build a guitar just to do this, many have.

As for developing your own 'flavor' of sustainer...a lot of material about my work and others is freely available, but it takes a lot of work to go out on your own...cloning circuits will not get you there, neither will making wild assumptions. My methods may not be universally approved, but it did get results. However, some of these results took years, people whop go their own way will find they are up against the same problem I had to over come...many seem to have found their way right back to my basic designs and specs because they work...but not till a lot of insults and mis-information has been flung about.

So, as I say, a lot more wary personally about how involved I get in these things. The DIY Sustainer project did bring about many replicated and positive results, all that is still available, but it can't deal with quality control or endlessly going over these things for each individual I'm afraid. I do love to see someone succeed, but many times I am being invited in to reinvent the wheel again, I have opinions, I know that there are many ways the results can be achieved...but many times people seem captivated by the idea without even knowing the sound they want from the things or the use they would put it to....let alone the skills and knowledge required to make that happen.

Still...I have had emails from people who appear to have gotten results like mine from my designs without ever contributing to the threads or asking questions, just to drop me a line to say thanks and that they too got the things to work...I hope I may hear of many more in years to come and that the OP here or others will be amongst those who do!

best of luck...

pete

[Paul Marossy]

Hey Paul...better forum to discuss things here I suspect  

yeah, these things can be addictive, mainly from the people who get hooked on making and developing them of course, but much like building stomp boxes does here for the rank and file. The reality is that it is a very clever device and potentially useful to any number of players, but it is a kind of "effect", it won't make you a better player for it, it will even require changes in technique to get the best from it (so you may already need to be a good player to begin with, certainly damping skills are a must) and some imagination to put it to use musically. I've made quite a few and my main guitar has one I can use any time...but I rarely use it musically. I do think that if I get more into recording I will use it a lot more, but these things have been around for a long time and are very rarely heard...so one has to wonder what that tells you about it's musical potential generally.

Yeah, I could see it being addictive in that way - trying to crack how to make it actually work, and work well. You have done a great job on that. You do have to change your technique a little bit, but if you are used to always muting the strings like I am, it's not that much of a switch. It's more of a challenge for me to get it started than to stop it, because there is a little lag before it actually starts sustaining. It's cool to use it with a whammy bar, I can get those Joe Satriani "Flying In A Blue Dream" intro/outro feedback sounds I have always thought was very cool.

On a sidenote, it cracks me up whenever I see someone ask "what's the resistance" of a coil? Pickup manufacturers usually only list the DC resistance as if it were the answer to everything when in fact it's hardly worth anything except being some kind of gage for how "hot" it is. The really important things are inductance, the resonant peak, pickup configuration, the magnets, eddy currents, etc., which they don't tell you a thing about. I suspect these things are just as important in a sustainer system. Asking for the DC resistance of a coil is a meaningless exercise when you need to know all of the other things, too.

[psw]

Yes paul, the sustainer invites the use of the tremolo, and extreme tremolot too at times, my tele has a khaler that alows for a full range up and down and to stay in tune but strat types trems are good too. I mean, holding a note is one thing, what you do with it is important...being able to scoop in and change pitch in a theremin kind of way is pretty cool.

Mine don't seem to have too much of a lag, depends on how much drive and how hard you hit the strings...some strings can be a bit more responsive...the g string particularly on mine, you can see it playing itself pretty strongly in the photo above just sitting there unplugged for the picture. But, perhaps fernandes takes a bit more given the controls to even out sustain. At higher levels of drive all AGC is kind of remeoved and a fair bit of power able to get to the driver...this is much like the more simpler appraches ironically and a great sound!

On a sidenote, it cracks me up whenever I see someone ask "what's the resistance" of a coil? Pickup manufacturers usually only list the DC resistance as if it were the answer to everything when in fact it's hardly worth anything except being some kind of gage for how "hot" it is. The really important things are inductance, the resonant peak, pickup configuration, the magnets, eddy currents, etc., which they don't tell you a thing about. I suspect these things are just as important in a sustainer system. Asking for the DC resistance of a coil is a meaningless exercise when you need to know all of the other things, too.

Well...yes, still it is an indicator and important to understand how to do that if you are going to make coils. There are a huge range of factors in coil design and sustainer stuff makes them all the more apparent...but no easier to measure.

A lot of recent "discussions" seem to have centered around my approach to these kinds of factors. Why do I suggest a certain type of wire or coil shape or magnet strength and field shape or core material or potting method?...especially the wire guage and hance the number or turns. Well, inductance and such is hard to measure and a driver can't be "heard" so you can't tell by ear. My work was mostly trial and error seeing what worked best to come up with a formula for a driver that could work with a basic circuit. It is not the only forumula that I came up with that worked or method...but it does work. Most reasonable alternatives were tried.

The forulas that work are a balance of things, particularly things like the resonant frequencies of coils which directly relates to the efficiency of the electromagnet to excite tuned strings.

But there are so many aspects...many think that more power is the solution...but usually what you get are more pproblems, more EMI, more Squeal, more distortion, less control. Then they turn to AGC, tamer, less high string response, etc. Then they use dual coil drivers, cancel out some of that EMI like a humbucker principle...sure, but also less drive through counteracting forces of opposing magnets...or at least less "throw"...and so it goes!

It is not something that can be treated too naively, yet the ultimate solutions (and there are many) tend to be elegantly simple...

But people do get into a bit of a mind set about things, especially pickups, and at times when in sustainer-land, it gets nasty, clearly...who would have thought!

Yep, many people think that more turns = more power = good...but the resonances of such coils can just sound bad regardless if they can put out a tiny milliwatt of power more. Here, on this forum, there are any number of projects to boost "power" in so many creative and controllable ways, the pickup should be the source of 'tone' or good clean signal or whatever it is that the artist desires. But then, I grew up in the era of the 'super distortion pickup' 70's where a lot of this stuff started...all those fine pickups removed to put in that high powered pickup...a booster or overdrive or a modern preamp section or fx unit can all do these kinds of things now with more flexibility and ease...but that's not the way people think.

I suppose we do tend to fetishize the instrument and see the pickups as the "engine". We change a pickup and see what a difference it can make to the sound of the thing...some start to think, well...more power, more good. It's only natural, but not at all rational!

It's worse with sustainers because some of these things just make problems or the difference between working or not at all. It's interesting to note that all detractors over the last year are having to plug their guitars directly to a power pack to run these circuits and what is not often revealed is that they run so hot that they will shut down quickly from over heating protection in the chips! The reality is that if you get something that works efficiently in the resonant range of the strings, it should take very little power to get the strings virtually jumping off the fretboard. Less power, less EMI, less distortion...more sustain, cleaner sustain, quicker response, more range of effect.

In my approach, I looked at it more as a giant full string built in ebow thing...the ebow is a fabulous and simple device on this same principle. So, typically the things I make and others can too, can be a lot more ebow like and dynamic and expressive...commercial sustainers kind of lack that side of things. I suppose though you'd know paul having both ebow and sustainer technology...mine are kind of between the two I suppose...the circuitry remarkably similar, cheap and small..but like the ebow it is getting the simple design right and balanced to work in a stationary position on all the strings. But with this comes more techniques and options as well...the ebow can produce endless stain, but it is as much a new way to excite "bow" the strings as it is about that. A good violinist can poduce endless sustain, but the bow is used for more than that...I kind of see the potential of the "sustainer" in the same way too. Perhaps the commercial units focused on that aspect and controlling it more than the expressive potential and the need for greater technique?!