# Thoughts on Sustainiac?



## ToneLab (Aug 11, 2014)

My GAS has me sniffing around a guitar with a sustainiac. Never played one - seems cool to combine with a Floyd for ambient or shredding. What are everyones thoughts on these? How do they sound? Are they worth the hassle of the battery and all the extra buttons? Do you really use it?


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## MoshJosh (Aug 11, 2014)

I've been curious about this as well, I'm also wondering where can you buy them if your guitar doesn't already have one and how much wood do you need to hack out of your guitar to accommodate the system?


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## aneurysm (Aug 11, 2014)

Hi,

i have one in my Schecter Kenny Hickey and i absolutely love this Thing.

Here´s a recent Video i made a couple of Day´s ago, there are discuss, perform the Sustainiac as well.
Hope i could help you a little bit ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xim1miImETA


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## yingmin (Aug 11, 2014)

You don't necessarily need to make any permanent midi cations to your guitar to install a Sustainiac. The switches for on/off and mode can go on push/pull or push/push pots for things you already have, instead of requiring their own switches. The control board is pretty small. I'm installing one in a Parker Fly, which already has a very cramped control cavity, and I think I can make it work without any additional routing (aside from deepening the pickup cavity).


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## pondman (Aug 11, 2014)

I've got one in a Jem custom that Rich Fey did for me quite a while back.
I absolutely love it.
This is the one v





He put a dummy cover underneath to make the humbucker.


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## Given To Fly (Aug 11, 2014)

Schecter makes a 6 and 7 string model with a Sustainiac in the neck position. I'm not a Schecter fan but that guitar was a whole different playing experience! It can be addicting though, kind of like using a wah for the entire guitar solo on every guitar solo you ever play.


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## Jarmake (Aug 11, 2014)

I had sustainiac on my charvel mod5. It was a nice toy to play with. I installed it with push/pull pots and it wasn't too convenient that way. Sold it eventually, just before I sold the guitar.

Now I have one on my jackson dk2s. It's a floyd guitar, but I have blocked the trem. I like to use the sustainiac on many solos for spicing them up. I don't really need the functioning floyd to play with sustainiac, so there's no problem with that. I do recommend on at least trying the sustainiac unit for a bit, as it can be quite inspiring tool sometimes. It's also fun for some ambient-ish stuff. Just play some chords on clean setttings, put on some delay and reverb and you're set for some nice soundscapes.


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## Jason2112 (Aug 11, 2014)

I had one on a Fernandes Revolver a few years ago. It was kinda cool for instant feedback and that whole steel guitar effect, but I got bored with it after a while. I have an ebow for when I want to experiment with sustained notes.


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## tmo (Aug 12, 2014)

Hi.

I am a Sustainiac user. I got it from their website Sustainiac Home Page (they are good to trust, though their site is quite outdated...) and installed it on my Ibby RG7321 (yes, 7 string sustainer). This guitar is also defretted, so its tone is a little different from what is to be expected from a conventional guitar. However, here are 3 videos I made featuring this guitar and the sustainiac in action, on both sustain mode or pickup mode. This guitar is equipped with a DiMarzio D-Sonic 7 and Graphtech's Ghost saddles+ Acoustiphonic preamp. Flatwound strings were used in all these videos.


solo improvisation over a back track. This solo features the sustainiac in action in both modes sustain and pickup. In the sustain mode it also features the normal and harmonic mode.


This is a tune I made for this guitar. It does not features the sustain mode of this "pickup/driver/hardware", but there is a lot of action with the pickup in the "single coil" option.


completely free playing without any sense of composition or musicality. The purpose was to test the sustainer. There are NO effects nor overdriven sounds, just the triaxis on LEAD 2 green with clean sound settings, plugged in directly into sound card. Fooling around for 8 minutes or so with some interesting sounds in the middle.

I have never experimented this sustainer with a fretted guitar, but have done so a long time ago on a Fernandez Revolver (I guess, it was more than 8 years ago). Fernandez does not sell 7 string sustainers as far as I am aware of.

My opinion on these "gadgets": If one is into experimenting his playing and expression limits on the guitar, it surely is up to the task, worth every penny and loads of fun to play with. Supper expressive and that's were it reins over all other gadget, ebow included.

Compared to ebow, this allows the player to keep his playing approach and attack to the guitar, improving one's expressiveness. Extra muting may be needed on some more extreme guitar/amp settings.

Downside of this gadget is battery consumption, it drains a 9v battery really fast (sustainiac website has some reference to it), so if one's up for gigs, take one extra for the sustainer.

Last but not least, if you are up to the challenge and want to dive into infinity, do measure well your guitar's control cavity, for the preamp module takes some space. Dimensions are on their website.


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## Señor Voorhees (Aug 12, 2014)

I've got an avenger with one in it. I absolutely love it. You can get some weird as shit sounds out of it both distorted and clean. You can also get a lot of practical sounds out of it. The sustain on it's own is really useful, and as just a standard pickup it sounds good too. I don't see a reason why not to get one, but if you're getting it to retrofit into a guitar, you're in for a bit of a headache. Best to take it to someone and have it done. I'd honestly just buy a guitar with one in it already. After the labor, parts, etc, it'd end up being pretty damn expensive on it's own.


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## ToneLab (Aug 13, 2014)

Thanks for the comments everyone - very helpful


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## edsped (Aug 13, 2014)

Nothing sounds cooler than putting some nasty wide vibrato on a bent note while it turns into a screaming harmonic.


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## BigBriGuy247 (Jan 9, 2021)

I know the driver is supposed to go in the neck position, but will it work in the middle? Less string I know. Also, different harmonic location etc.


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## Winspear (Jan 9, 2021)

I very much enjoyed one in a Schecter. I don't think they are gimmicky, can be very useful! 


BigBriGuy247 said:


> I know the driver is supposed to go in the neck position, but will it work in the middle? Less string I know. Also, different harmonic location etc.


*
. Why does the driver have to go next to the neck? My neck pickup on my (blank) guitar is my favorite pickup!

A.* There are a couple of good reasons for this. First of all, the driver works best in the neck position. Second, it is the location on the body that is furthest away from the bridge pickup. Here is why this is important: The magnetic type (*STEALTH PRO*) sustainer has to have an input signal from one of the instrument pickups. The pickup must be as far from the driver as possible. The situation is much like we have with PA systems: If you put the microphone (pickup) too close to the loudspeaker (driver), you get an uncontrolled, obnoxious squeal. The same thing happens with a magnetic sustainer.
Now, that being said, we have done some successful installations (mostly Strats) where the Sustainiac driver replaces the BRIDGE pickup, and receives its input signal from the NECK pickup.

Often, people ask why the middle pickup position can't be used for the driver instead of the neck pickup position, because the neck pickup is the favorite of many players. The main reason that the middle pickup position can't be used is because of Harmonic Mode. The strings are driven "out of phase" with the pickup signal for harmonic mode. Placing the driver in the middle pickup position forces harmonic string vibrations that are very high in frequency, and are "out of range" of the pickup signal because of high frequency phase shift. You need the greatest possible space between driver and pickup to produce good harmonics. For this reason, 21-22 fret guitars produce a better harmonic mode than do 24 fret guitars.


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## ScottThunes1960 (Jan 9, 2021)

Edit: Ninja’d by Tom. Aw well.



BigBriGuy247 said:


> I know the driver is supposed to go in the neck position, but will it work in the middle? Less string I know. Also, different harmonic location etc.



The driver operates based off a signal fed from the pickup furthest from it. In the Fernandes version, this pickup must be a passive humbucker. In the Sustainiac version, it can be nearly anything else except for piezos and odd pickup designs such as the Lace Alumitone. The driver must be a minimum of several inches from the pickup feeding it in order for the feedback to be controllable, or else you’re producing uncontrolled, inconsistent feedback.

In short, you’re free to mount the driver and pickup feeding it anywhere you don’t want them to work. But if you want it to work: Driver in neck or bridge position, pickup feeding it in bridge or neck position.


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## BigBriGuy247 (Jan 9, 2021)

Winspear said:


> I very much enjoyed one in a Schecter. I don't think they are gimmicky, can be very useful!
> 
> *
> . Why does the driver have to go next to the neck? My neck pickup on my (blank) guitar is my favorite pickup!
> ...


Thank you! Neck it is.


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