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Dean 
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
 Posted: March 29 2008 at 15:14 |
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I've read the three main patents (EBow, Floyd-Rose & Mainiac) and I've browsed the Guitar Project forum. But, No, I haven't actually used one (that obvious huh?) - and I cannot afford one either, that's why I'm doing a scratch build
 (I have used an E-Bow, but don't own one.)
In my original post I said I was putting the driver in place of the neck pickup - I don't plan on changing that, but I am intending to build a thin driver that I can try in different positions to find the optimum position for myself rather than blindly follow what everyone else does.
My comment about the middle position fitting was based upon the patent: the original Sustainiac patent has the driver in the middle position, even though in all production units they are fitted in the neck position. I would imagine that the prototype units were fitted in the mid position and worked adequately enough for them to think they could take out a patent for their invention. I also suspect that the Sustianiac designers found it was more efficient at the neck position after the event.
(I also suspect they had to make the patent substantially different from the Floyd-Rose design for it to be granted).
... but then the patent is shot full of (deliberate?) errors so I would not recommend copying the design from it - it simply won't work.
Acoustic feedback is not quite the same as electrostatic feedback - you can null electrostatic feedback with magnetic/electrostatic screening - the Sustainiac is fitted with electrostatic shunt plates to minimise magnetic coupling between pickups. These were mentioned in the original patent and they were still fitting them to their Stealth (neck) drivers before they stopped production, so they obviously worked to some extent.
Also, (and I know it's a different device - but the principles are the same), the E-Bow's pickup and driver are barely inches apart so electrostatic screening is evidently possible, however for a full-width driver the EM-field will be 6 times stronger, so a split driver alternating N-S-N-S-N-S poles would be preferable (but harder to wind).
The harmonic modes move dependant upon the note being played - as you move down the frets and the modes move closer together so the mode near the neck on an open string will move closer to the bridge for a fretted string. For maximum efficiency you actually want the driver at an anti-mode, anti-modes are halfway between the modes so obviously occur at various points along the string dependant upon the harmonic content of the note. The anti-mode for the 1st harmonic on an open string is going to be at the 24th fret (ie near the neck pickup) and since that harmonic is going to be the most dominant, it is the logical place for the driver.
A perfect 5th is 5/4th of the fundamental, so it is its 5th harmonic and is between a mode and an anti-mode at the neck position, but at an anti-mode at the bridge, so even though it is not the optimum position for the driver, it is the optimum position for the bridge pickup to pick up the harmonic, so will be the largest harmonic fed to the driver (regardless of where it is) so will be the dominant drive frequency.
One other reason for putting the driver as close to the 12th fret as possible is because the force needed to move the string is less, so you can get a bigger deflection for the same current drive, which means higher efficiency.
But if you do all your playing around the 9th fret (or whatever) then all that theory goes out of the window.
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Petrovsk Mizinski
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: December 24 2007 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 25210 |
Posted: April 04 2008 at 04:55 |
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How's the project going so far?
And BTW, a lof of that info I got, was from the actual Sustainiac website. Although I understand the sustainer driver will probably still work in the middle position, if it really were effective in that position I don't think Sustainiac would have strongly recommended it be used in the neck position.
Not sure about this one, but I imagine it being in the middle position combined with high gain would squeal like a dying pig. It doesn't make matter's any better that you use single coil pickups either (unless of course you plan to switch to a noiseless single coil or put a noise gate in the effects loop and one before after the preamp). But then again, if I were playing high gain, I wouldn't be using squier single coils anyway  Edited by HughesJB4 - April 04 2008 at 04:55 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 04 2008 at 05:56 |
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The pickup kit has arrived from the States, but I neglected to order extra flatwork to make a split coil so I am looking for suitable materials to make my own - and the magnets are delivered unmagnetised so I need to find a way of magnetising them. It looks like a second order to Stewart MacDonald is needed
 , but I'll wait to see if there are any other components and/or tools I need first.
I did make a full-width low-profile driver-coil but made it too thick to slide between the scratch-plate and the strings (which kind of defeats the object of making it
 ) - I could try it on my daughters LP copy as there is enough height between the body and the strings for that, but I don't think I'll be able to get it far enough away from the bridge humbucker to prevent cross-talk. However, it might be a good way to experiment with shunt plates to control the electrostatic feedback and to play with phase-shifting the signals. I also want to use this coil to experiment with driving it from another instrument (such as a keyboard or a theremin) so the guitar will respond with sympathetic vibrations (left-hand fretting the guitar, right-hand on the keyboard...). I also want to try this driver on my Long Thin Wire installation, (http://members.aol.com/CacophonyOfLight/instruments1.html).I've also started building a Class-D drive amp for the diver coil - this has several advantages over a standard Class A/B amp - least of which is that it can drive the LED to full brightness
- at the moment I have all the semiconductors and resistors needed, but cannot find enough suitable capacitors in my spare components to complete it. Moving the signal into the digital domain opens up a whole world of DSP possibilities, but that's for another day. |
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darren
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: October 31 2005 Location: Canada Status: Offline Points: 452 |
Posted: April 12 2008 at 02:12 |
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Maybe I missed it in the previous posts but there is a similar idea at: I'm only posting this hoping this could help. This sounds like a great project that I might attempt myself when I have a bit of time this summer. Edited by darren - April 12 2008 at 02:14 |
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"they locked up a man who wanted to rule the world.
the fools they locked up the wrong man." - Leonard Cohen |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 12 2008 at 03:20 |
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Looks interesting Darren.
it works on a different principle to the one I'm building - the feedback is acoustic through the piezo speaker rather than electromagnetic through the coil, which is closer to the feedback you get between guitar and amp, but less controllable. The peizo speaker has a dreadful frequency response (they are often used as tweeters in cheap two-way hi-fi speakers) which is why the circuit doesn't need any filtering making it a lot simpler than mine. I have some of those lying around somewhere from an earlier project (sensors in an electronic drum-kit) and they use them as keyboard bleepers in some PCs, so if I can find one I'll give it a try. Unless I am missing something (like capacitive coupling between sounder and pickup) I don't see why they've glued the sounder to the pickup - I would imagine that it can be placed anywhere near the strings.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: April 20 2008 at 19:13 |
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Here is the 1st attempt at the proper driver/pickup
The top section (above the white spacer) is the driver coil - 130 turns of 28awg giving about 8.5 ohms dc resistance - a bit high but it's easier to take some off than to put more on. The bottom section will become the normal neck pickup coil when the sustainer is not being used - and that is as many turns of 43awg as I could get on the bobbin - it comes out at 4.7Kohms dc resistance, which means the output will be about 60% of a standard pickup, but the driver electronics could be modified to make an active pick-up circuit when not in use if needed. The magnets are polarised south-up and the coils wound clockwise to match the original pickup, so hopefully the phase of the signals will be the same as before.
 I haven't potted it yet as I've not finished the evaluation, so I have no doubts that it will be highly microphonic until then, but that's not a major issue at the moment.
I have made a Class-D amp to drive the driver- there is a lot of HF break-through (of the PWM clock) at the moment because the circuit is built on patch-board and not a neatly art-worked pcb, but this can be cured easily enough. The real problem is that it is physically larger than the first amp I used, which may be more of a problem. I had worked out how to remove a small amount of wood from the body between the pick-ups to fit the old amp electronics, but it won't fit this new one - I was also hoping that I could fit the battery into the trem-spring well on the back of the guitar, if not then I'm going to have to make the hole under the scratch-plate bigger anyway.
Having decided to mod the Squier, I've invested (very little cash) in a new EMG twin-coil bridge pick-up to replace the original Chinese single-coil one. On first listen the tone is softer than the original and the output lower - not sure whether that's a good thing or a bad thing yet, (it's not a Strat any more - then it wasn't really one before either), but it certainly looks nicer
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Petrovsk Mizinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 24 2007 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 25210 |
Posted: May 24 2008 at 22:22 |
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It's been more than a month with no updates! I'm pretty curious as to what's happened in that time. |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 25 2008 at 07:09 |
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I've been away on business for most of the month, so no chance to work on it. Unfortunately before I left I removed the pickguard assembly from the guitar so I could install the electronics, when I returned I discovered I'd left it in direct sunlight and it had warped to buggery - I ordered a replacement from Axesrus.com and there isn't a single hole on the damn thing that matches the original - which is annoying because I've already routed holes for the extra controls and lined the cavity with copper shielding.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 07:41 |
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** UPDATE ** It's finished
 - well Mk-1 version is Since I was taking the guitar to pieces I thought I'd re-vamp it a little at the same time. I've improved the screening of the guitar to reduce noise and stray interference by lining the cavity and pick-guard with foil. I've upgraded the middle and bridge pickups to twin-rail units by EMG, fitted black pick-guard, trem-cover, jack-plate and strap-locks... budget didn't run to upgrading the trem-unit or tuners for black jobbies, but one day...
Here's the new pick-guard with the two EMG Select pickups, the new neck pickup/sustain driver and all the electronics - the back-side of the pick-guard has been covered with aluminium cooking-foil glued on with spray-mount - I've cut strips of foil away between the pickups to reduce induction-loops that would load the coils:
  The old volume control is now the sustain drive control and the volume pot is now the one near the middle pickup. This is to allow me to tweak the volume using my pinkie finger while playing to make 'violin' swells. The two extra switches switch on the sustain and switch the phase of the driver-coil. The coil phase determines whether the sustain is on the fundamental note or the harmonic. The LED (near the neck pickup) is dual-colour - the blue side shows battery power and the red side is the sustain signal.
This is the copper-screening in the enlarged body cavity. The routed cavity looks huge here, but very little wood was removed, just the 'land' between the neck and middle pickup and and widened the area around the selector switch to make room for the new pot.
 The battery-box fits just behind the new trem-cover, the two wires from the battery go through a small hole drilled through the battery cavity into the jack cavity, where the earth-lead is switched by the jack-socket:
 And here is the finished guitar:
 Seeing it here I think I will upgrade the trem-unit soon, simply because I think the chrome spoils the overall effect - I know that's cosmetic but then a replacement Wilkinson/Gotoh has to be an improvement on the original one. The only down-side is that Stewmac won't ship black units to the EU. I could order these from Axesrus.com, but I am a tad reticent as neither the pick-guard nor the trem-cover fitted my guitar and I had to drill new holes for them - I'm not criticising Axesrus here - my guitar is a Fender Squier, not an original Strat so the fittings may be different and with a 6-hole baseplate that's a lot of re-drilling
 So... how does it play?
Very nicely
With the sustain switched off the new pickups are amazingly good compared to the Chinese originals - they are almost as bright with a slightly warmer tone, which I actually prefer. The home-made neck pickup works surprisingly well, with the reduced number of turns matching the EMG output - it also has a warmer tone compared to the original pickup. Overall the noise is significantly reduced and there is zero hum, buzz or fizz from mains interference.
However, the bottom-line is that it is still a Squier - even though the body wood was better quality than I imagined, it's natural tone is still a little dull.
With the sustain switched on things get a little difficult to control - drive levels are hyper-sensitive and palm & finger muting of unwanted strings is essential - but it works - notes can be held indefinitely, which is the basic idea
. The only problem at the moment is that some strings and notes sustain better than others - this is a question of pre-amp filtering which I still need to do some more experimenting with. When I get confident enough in using it I'll upload some audio samples.For those interested in the electronics, the circuit schematic is here: http://i198.photobucket.com/albums/aa289/darqdean/guitar1.gif Edited by darqDean - May 31 2008 at 08:11 |
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Petrovsk Mizinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 24 2007 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 25210 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 08:03 |
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When you say, "Some strings and notes sustain better than others" I'm not sure what you mean entirely by that. As in some strings/notes swell into sustain better, or that the actual sustain per se eventually cuts off on some notes entirely after a period of time?
EDIT:, BTW, Looks like you did a really good job!  Edited by HughesJB4 - May 31 2008 at 08:04 |
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 08:10 |
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^ some notes swell into sustain better than others... notes around the 12th fret and the A, D, G & B strings are best. The 12th fret thing I'm sure is pure physics (Mr Pythagoras) and the two E strings not sustaining might be because they are on the ends of the driver coil so do not cut the magnetic field as cleanly as the other 4 strings.
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Petrovsk Mizinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 24 2007 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 25210 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 08:26 |
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Ahhh.
My personal experience with the Sustaniac is that the low E, A and D swelled into sustain better than the unwound strings, but I guess that might vary ever so slightly from individual experiences and guitars and other factors I may or may not be aware of.
Ah well now that it works, you have only one choice left: to have some supreme fun mucking around with the sustainer
 .
And the seriously good fun starts when you get one of those babies into a locking trem equipped guitar, absolute sonic mayhem . Not sure if your into that style of guitar, but if you ever get the chance to try out a Jackson DK2S or something similar, don't pass up the offer.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 08:28 |
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^ my Kramer has a locking Floyd-Rose trem, but I'm not going there
- I may fit locking tuners on the Squier sometime.
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Petrovsk Mizinski
Prog Reviewer
Joined: December 24 2007 Location: Ukraine Status: Offline Points: 25210 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 08:44 |
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Ah locking tuners are nice, but I'm not so sure whether that's a particularly good use of money on something like a Squier. My current axe, a Brian Moore Guitars I12000 series comes with a knife edge based 2 point trem (like the ones you see on Fender Standard and Fender Deluxe Strats for example), which is a hell of lot of smoother than the old style 6 screw trem like that on your squier. I once had a strat copy with a 6 screw trem, no matter how much pencil lead lubrication and careful string winding at the tuners I did, I couldn't get it to stay in tune for more than 30 seconds of whammy bar abuse
 . But back to the main point, my I12000 comes with Sperzel locking tuners, a Graphtec nut and my trem could survive well over 20-30 minutes of pretty heavy trem arm abuse before needing any tuning, and even then compared to my strat copy which went out of tune several semi tones, the I1 would only need a half semi tone at most fine tuning. But inevitably, the weakest link in my trem system is the steel bridge saddles, which is where the point of friction really occurs most (given that a locking tuner+graphtec nut is pretty much as good as a locking nut). I've heard many people say even if they upgrade from non locking to locking tuners to locking devices, when they use the trem arm they barely get anymore tuning stability, because of binding at the nut and bridge saddles. So bear in mind, locking tuners alone won't make much difference to a 6 point screw trem, unless you get Graphtec saddles and a nut, which will add a bit to the cost as well.
And you don't even get the fun of the awesome dive bomb range of a locking trem with a 6 point trem or even the 2 point knife edge trem, which takes a bit of the fun out of it too
.I can understand you not wanting to do the sustainiac with the Kramer though, Kramer has made some pretty darn nice guitars, which is probably the reason you can get super strats with sustainers put in at the factory.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 09:14 |
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The Squier is shown with the trem-arm removed for a reason - I never use it, if I want to do some serious whammy abuse then I'll get out the Kramer. My Kramer is not a quality one, but the shear mechanics of modding it to fit a sustainer is too much work and I like it as it is (anyway, I can always buy an Ebow). I agree with you on not spending too much on the Squier - that's definitely a case of over gilding the lily - what I have at the moment is better than it was, but it will never be a real Strat so probably enough is enough (and I'll heed Trademark's advice and not even attempt retro-fitting a F-R to it
). Still, I'd like it to be all-black sometime just for pure aesthetic reasons.
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N Ellingworth
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 17 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1324 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 09:43 |
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You've done a great job with that mod, just to clarify one issue you raised, yes American Fender parts are different to Mexican and Japanese Fender parts and Squier parts, you're lucky that all you had to do is re drill a few holes.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 09:49 |
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^ I realised that when I fitted my first black pick-guard several years ago (the original was 8-hole white) - I had assumed that having drilled 11 new holes for that I wouldn't need to do it again - I now have a choice of 30 screw holes should I wish to change it again
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N Ellingworth
Forum Senior Member
Joined: April 17 2006 Location: United Kingdom Status: Offline Points: 1324 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 09:50 |
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Well the good thing about that is that you can fit whatever pickguard you want.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: May 31 2008 at 10:01 |
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^ this is true - my real beef with the axesrus replacement is that the selector switch is in a completely different place and only just fitted the cavity - which gave me less room for my extra switches. Of course, I don't know which pick-guard is 'wrong' since neither are original, but it fits now so all is well.
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Infinity Sustainer Project
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HughesJB4 wrote: