Sustainer guitars anyone?


Yeah, the roofers didn’t secure a temporary roof drain the day before this occurred. Woke up to my cell phone going apesh!t because all that rain collected in the drain before it gave out into the 2nd floor of the building and then worked it’s way into the suite underneath it. So far we’re up to $33,000 in restoration costs. Not coming out my company’s pocket, thankfully, as the roofers fessed up to it and are footing the bill for it all.

The forecast for the week ahead is just about perfect...which is all I need this trip...(gotta go back for a while to chi town)..My travel karma is usually Ok, so I’m sure I just borked it......and if it rains a bit, all the more reason to twiddle my new rig.

My wife drives down to Miami regularly, I think she was at Lincoln Road over the weekend and said it was fine, while the weather in Ft Lauderdale was pretty shite. Then again, if you’re coming from Chicago, you should be just fiiiiine with the weather down here!
 
Had to look up Vigier Fretless. Yup, that’s cool.
yes, and damn hard to master...the metal fret(less) board and little indication of where you are on it made it rough for me, but the Vigier Excalibur Surfreter
is a beautifully built guitar, and maybe someday I will be able to make a sound with it that doesn't resemble a sick puppy....BTW I purchased mine right off the floor of NAMM several years ago..but due to customs, etc. it had to travel back to Europe and be shipped back to me ........
 
The Sustainiac I have has 4 modes and can be accessed via a push/push or a push/pull pot. I use a push/push pot.

In the “in position” turning the pot counter clockwise increases intensity in the hyper feedback mode. Turning the pot clockwise increases fundamental sustain mode.

In the “pulled out” or “pushed out” position there are 2 types of “mix modes”. These are more subtle mix variations of the hyper feedback mode and the fundamental mode. To a certain extent these can keep hyper feedback mode on the lower strings and more towards fundamental on the higher string registers. Also the intensity comes in more gradual as opposed to the the first 2 modes where the sustainer comes in more immediate.

Turning the pot counter clockwise is 1 type of mix mode and turning the pot clockwise is the other.

I tend to lean more towards use of the mix modes.

Can they all be set up this way?
That seems amazing compared to the toggle switches
 
yes, and damn hard to master...the metal fret(less) board and little indication of where you are on it made it rough for me, but the Vigier Excalibur Surfreter
is a beautifully built guitar, and maybe someday I will be able to make a sound with it that doesn't resemble a sick puppy....BTW I purchased mine right off the floor of NAMM several years ago..but due to customs, etc. it had to travel back to Europe and be shipped back to me ........
I also play Shamisen (a fretless Japanese banjo) so some of that carries over to playing the Surfretter. Still not an instrument I'd want to be seen playing in public yet though :)
 
Hey! I use an Ed O'Brien Stratocaster. It's got a Fernandes Sustainer setup in it. Pretty awesome. Works as advertised. It'll do a fundamental or an octave overtone. There's a middle mode that, honestly, I've not yet figured out that's supposed to combine them somehow and morph it from fundamental to octave or something like that. But mode 1 and 3 are sweet.

Combine it with a silent recording setup around an Axe-Fx and it's really cool.



What do you think of the normal sound of the O'Brien? I mean the sound of the guitar and pickups without the sustainer. Does it sound like a real strat?
 
Has anybody else had any issues with getting the sustain on the EOB (Fernandes) to work on the high E string, and certain areas of the B string?

I've had two of these guitars. The first one just never worked right, and I checked the specs from Fender - it was set up properly. The PCB board on this one had the adjustable knobs - all were pretty much maxed out to get it to work. I ended up parting that one out, and the bought another one.

I assume this second one was a later version; no adjustment knobs on the board. It seemed to work a lot better, but I still can't get it to work all along the fret board as mentioned above. Adding a COMP block on the Axe III seems to help some.

I did install a on/off switch for the battery, though. This second guitar would have a drained battery after a relatively short period of time. Works great!

Also; why put the little red LED on the board when it's buried in the cavity? It just uses battery...
 
Has anybody else had any issues with getting the sustain on the EOB (Fernandes) to work on the high E string, and certain areas of the B string?
Hmm. Not really. Though I have found the middle mode, the "mixed" mode, only sustains the higher strings, not the lower strings. I've been scratching my head wondering what that mode does exactly.

I did install a on/off switch for the battery, though. This second guitar would have a drained battery after a relatively short period of time. Works great!

Good hack. I should do something similar. Drain is minimal when the cable is unplugged but I don't always remember to do this.

BTW, I got around to swapping the neck on mine: https://forum.fractalaudio.com/threads/nnd-new-neck-day.157786/
 
I use a digitech freqout and an ebow. Gets the job done for me.

It gets the job done, but an ebow takes up one hand that could have been used to add some vibrato with a whammy bar. And ebows don't like it when you add vibrato to a string with your left hand. They're different approaches and techniques basically that produce results that are similar but also have subtle differences.
 
Hi I have a Fernandes guitar with built in sustainer. I had the middle and neck pickup changed for a Dimarzio DP175S True Velvet and Dimarzio Tonezone. Very unhappy with the result! The luthier explained to me that the neck pickup is just the sustainer.As especially the clean sounds are not good sounding I assume I should have rather picked a neck pickup for the middle position? The Tonezone souds ok but alltogether I am starting to think that the original Fernandes pickups were optimized to work with the Sustainer? Should i put the original pickups back on?
 
A buddy of mine swapped a pickup on a Ed O' Brien strat and the results were not good. The pickups are matched to produce best sustain yet balance. He now has a Schecter and wants to swap and got advice directly from the factory on which pickups 'will and won't work'. Ask the manufacturer directly if possible. In the case of Schecter there are many pickups that will work great but one component on the board has to be changed.
 
I‘m considering having one installed in my JEM. I love what they do and I’m a feedback freak in general, so any way I can manipulate it or the sound of it, I’m game for.

For those who have used more than one Sustainer, have you noticed a lot of differences pickup to pickup? Vai said the biggest reason he hasn’t put them in the JEM line is because they’re so inconsistent he didn’t feel comfortable doing so. I really love how my JEM sounds and am cautious to mess with that, especially if I happen to get a dud that will only sound decent when it’s doing it’s sustainer thing.

While his main axe "EVO" doesnt have sustainer, several other of his JEMs has it installed. And several of his new "PIA" model as well.
 

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Hi I have a Fernandes guitar with built in sustainer. I had the middle and neck pickup changed for a Dimarzio DP175S True Velvet and Dimarzio Tonezone. Very unhappy with the result! The luthier explained to me that the neck pickup is just the sustainer.As especially the clean sounds are not good sounding I assume I should have rather picked a neck pickup for the middle position? The Tonezone souds ok but alltogether I am starting to think that the original Fernandes pickups were optimized to work with the Sustainer? Should i put the original pickups back on?

The neck pickup is both the sustainer driver and your neck pickup. It's most definitely not just the sustainer. Anything else, middle, bridge pickup you can swapped to find something to your liking. But your neck pickup setting will always be the sustainer driver pickup and the bridge pickup always has to be a humbucker. You can stick a traditional neck pickup in the middle position, but as its middle position it will never sound the same as when stuck in the neck position.

A buddy of mine swapped a pickup on a Ed O' Brien strat and the results were not good. The pickups are matched to produce best sustain yet balance.

Which pickup did he change? Because if he switched the bridge humbucker for a single coil he should be shot for being too stupid too live. (DISCLAIMER: BAD ATTEMPT AT HUMOR HERE!) Sustainers need a bridge humbucker in order to work. Also with the sustainer all pickups are wired to the sustainer PCB board, not the pickup switch. Instead separate outputs of the sustainer board arewired to the pickup switch. If you swap a pickup and then wire it directly traditionally to the pickup switch it probably won't work right and you should again be shot for being too stupid to live. Which is (AGAIN) hyperbole and jest of course, but this is not your normal regular pickup change you're dealing with. And truth be told, the Sustainer manual pdf is not the most clear and simple to comprehend.

He now has a Schecter and wants to swap and got advice directly from the factory on which pickups 'will and won't work'. Ask the manufacturer directly if possible. In the case of Schecter there are many pickups that will work great but one component on the board has to be changed.

If my Google Fu skills are any good Schecter uses the Sustainiac system for its guitars, not the Fernandes system. It's similar in how it sounds and operates but different in its wiring. It might even be better. Matt Bellamy used to use the Fernandes system in all his guitars but seems to have switched over to Sustainiac. He started using them on his 7 strings since the 2nd Law tour and ever since all his new guitars come with Sustainiac, not Fernandes.
 
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Dude 100% uncalled for.
I did add the disclaimer I was using hyperbole and jest. I guess I should have added smiley faces, which I will. But people not taking the time to read the manual, fiddling with things they shouldn't and then complain that a product doesn't work as advertized is a major source of bad press on a product. Which was why the guy selling Sustainiac acts like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. He REALLY wants you to order the right thing and be sure about what you order. Because people had ordered the wrong thing and then bitched about it online.
 
I did add the disclaimer I was using hyperbole and jest. I guess I should have added smiley faces, which I will. But people not taking the time to read the manual, fiddling with things they shouldn't and then complain that a product doesn't work as advertized is a major source of bad press on a product. Which was why the guy selling Sustainiac acts like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. He REALLY wants you to order the right thing and be sure about what you order. Because people had ordered the wrong thing and then bitched about it online.

Seriously soup Nazi. There is a lot of reading there. Really informative but kind of scary
 
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