Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

[DonP]

I'm curious if anyone has put one of these in. I bought a DK2, but would like to see what a DK2-S would be like.

I've looked for these on ebay, but couldn't find any. Is there a place to buy a sustainer? Can you guys hook me up with their web site?

Thanks,

Don

Edit: Sorry, this should go in the tech forum.

[mhalsey]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

Here ya go: Sustainiac

[dfvxc]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I just looked into these... they seem interesting but troublesome. Too bad it also takes away the neck pup.

Anyone love these things?

[Metalcop]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

The Sustainiac Stealth Plus also acts as a passive pickup for the neck position. They are quite difficult to install, I just completed an installation and it took me just a shade over 4 hours. I used the basic Stealth, with a single coil/blade pickup installed next to it, in a humbucking neck position. Sustainiac actually provided the sustainers to Jackson for the DK2S guitars, so a retrofit should be a fairly easy fit at least, actually hooking it up is pretty difficult task.

[quiksilver]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I've been thinking about one, too. I don't use the neck pickup, so that's no loss to me. I've heard the novelty wears off. Seems like it could be pretty cool, though. I understand you can get sustain without an amp, too, by just plugging a cord into the output (to complete the circuit) and turning the Sustainer on (makes sense, as the driver creates sustain at the strings, not at the amp). That could be cool for us family guys who have to play quietly. No need for an amp!

[mudkicker]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

Recently I bought an older Fernandes revolver with the Sutainer in it. I bought the guitar originally for the neck for a project. But I started to play around with the Sustainer. One position gives the guitar a thicker overdriven sound which holds he note as long as you want it to. The lower position is controlled feedback. As long as your playing the guitar sounds normal, but a few sconds after you quite strumming you get the coolest controlled feedback. Think Ace's Shock Me solo on Alive 2. The middle position mixes the two which I don't care for.
The stock Fernandes hum is weak, I have thought about replacing it with a Distortion or JB.
I spent the entire first day running scales and playing with the feedback to cool. However after the first week I did get tired of it and went right back to playing my 83 SD. I would recommend a Sustainer but not in your main guitar.

[THETRIUMPHOFSTEEL]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

The Stealth Plus drivers can be quite troublesome in the harmonic mode.

There are two trimpots on the circuit board that control the sustain and gain, and you gotta set them just right for the harmonic mode to work well: set them too low and you get "Dead spots" on the fretboard, set them too high and you get a motorboating earthhum sound..

I've noticed that some work much better than others (possibly depends on the guitar itself), and when they do they certainly go off!!

As for installing them, Ive never tried!

[Hollywood]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I've know Alan, the owner of Sustainiac, since I worked with him in 1988-89. He's a real nice guy, and has installed both of my Sustainiacs. He put the original one in, in 89, and finally upgraded to the Stealth a few months ago. He was in R&D at Thomson Consumer Electronics (RCA TV's) for quite a while, but now does Sustainiac fulltime. I love mine, and have used it a fair amount both live, and studio. I also have the Model B floor model, which is where I first heard of them. George Lynch used the Model B floor model on Back For The Attack. http://www.georgelynch.com/rigs/stud...forstudio.html
He has also used a Sustainiac as recent as 2002 on Lynch Mob recordings.
It's not something you would use a whole lot, but I think they have their place. Find someone who has one, or a store that has a guitar with one, and try it first if you aren't sure.
I haven't installed one, and probably wouldn't (I've just never really worked on guitars much). Unless you're good at that type of thing, I would just send your guitar to him. You're in Cincinnati, and he's in Indianapolis, so the shipping shouldn't be too bad. Who better to install it, than the inventor? Or just buy a guitar with one in it. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Leo Chang]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I wouldn't recommend installing it by yourself, 'cause I kinda scrweed up mine after I changed the bridge pickup on my DK2S myself... something in the process screwed up the Sustainer unit (maybe I didn't discharge static from my body before hand properly, maybe my soldering iron was too hot, or I held it too close to the unit for too long...etc)

Nothing TOO major... just that now my DK2S has a slight hum all the time whereas it was quiet when unplayed before.

I know changing the bridge pickup is different from installing the unit, but I just want you to know that the Sustainer unit can be screwed up quite easily if you are not very careful with it.

That said, I don't have much experience with soldering anyway, so maybe it was just me [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Newc]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I installed a Stealth Plus that I bought directly from Alan at Summer NAMM - he forgot to put the pickup and the board in the box, and all I got was the miscellaneous hardware - I politely emailed about it and he was glad I did email. He said when they were packing up at the end of the show he realised the stuff I bought was his display stuff, and he still had it [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] - sent it out straight away.

Anyhoo, it took about 2.5 hours to hook it up because of the double-checking you have to do - there's like 30 friggin wires on it [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

Also, the colored diagram they include has two wires confused, but it's easy to figure out if you look at it long enough. Can't recall which ones they are offhand, and can't find the installation diagram, but it's really simple to install, just time-consuming with all the wires.

As for "loving" the thing? Ehh. It's like a Floyd, y'know? You can live without it, but you do get neat tricks. Wouldn't mind running one through a Roland GR/GK2 - could probably do the violin solo to Dust In The Wind easily [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

But it's not an "on/off" type thing - you can vary the intensity of the effect with the Volume knob, but I don't recall if it's sharing a connection with the bridge pickup of just cutting the output of the unit (mine's now uninstalled).

Anyhoo, if you've got a spare knob, you could do some more complex wiring and have a separate Volume knob for the pickups and a Level control for the Sustainiac.

[DonP]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

Interesting discussion.

I remember these when they came out at the 1989? NAMM show. Pretty cool, but I didn't know if they would ever catch on. It's cool to see he did good and that these come standard on Jacksons (and others?)

Do you guys know if it can go in the middle single coils position? I guess I need to read his web site.

I built tube amps, so electronics is not an issue. I've swapped more pickups than I can recollect.

I'm fearless as well - keep that router away from me! LOL!

I think the most interesting opinion - it's like a Floyd, a novelty item. I think that will probably be the case with me. It will be cool for a while, then I'll never use it. I hardly every use the whammy bar.

I think the thing that really shoots this deal down is price. I'll have to check ebay, but I think I might be able to get a DK-2S for less than the price of my DK-2 ($285) and the Sustainer (another $200).

[Leo Chang]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

if I remember correctly, their site says that the unit works best the further away from the bridge pickup it is... so they don't recommend putting it in the middle position.

[Newc]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I intend to try it in the middle, as I don't need the infinite sustain (really, who does?).

Another thing that deserves mention; you have to physically mute the strings that you don't want sounding if you're doing Michael Angelo type stuff (one handed, etc).

However, that's in the neck position. In the middle position, I would assume that since the string tension is not as loose as it is at the neck that you'd actually get a more useable effect, and eliminate a practically unused pickup to boot. You might not get the infinite sustain in the middle position but the harmonics should still be there.

[ChlorineRR4]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

how are these VS the fernandes one?

[KevinDguitar]

Re: Has anyone put a sustainer in by themself?

I use my sustainors a lot and I use an E-bow on my acoustic as well. I have on old Hamer Chapperell Sustainor Custom and a Jackson PC1. By manipulating the tone knob and varying between clean and distorted sounds..there's lots of cool sounds there.
On the PC1, the sustainor also serves as a neck pup and in the Hamer (which has an older version), its mounted in the neck route along with a single coil.
One of the coolest things I've found is that it allows you to play extrememly long slow notes during times when you need things to stretch out a bit or when you need a drone effect.