Sustain?

[dan321]

Hi i was just wondering if you put EMG's into a tremolo guitar, would it have the same amount of sustain as a guitar with EMG's which had a fixed bridge? And if not then how much difference would there be in sustain between the two?

Thanks

[Rgt_Lover]

I don't think there is a definable ammount between them. It will very much depend on the quality of the guitars neck/body/parts/wood.

I'm guessin some people will argue fixed bridges have more sustain, but if you've got an average to descent guitar it will SING with EMGs in it. Hope your talking bout 81s

[Ibanez-Mag]

Well, the sustain will be as it is in the guitar now. Pickups don't add or remove sustain.

/Magnus

[jeremyrozario]

Originally Posted by Ibanez-Mag

Well, the sustain will be as it is in the guitar now. Pickups don't add or remove sustain.

/Magnus

actually they do, theyre magnets and strings have iron in them, so it does affect sustain

try adjusting your pickups really close to your strings, then test for sustain

then repeat again after lowering your pickups, there will gbe a noteable differences

[Ibanez-Mag]

Originally Posted by jeremyrozario

actually they do, theyre magnets and strings have iron in them, so it does affect sustain

try adjusting your pickups really close to your strings, then test for sustain

then repeat again after lowering your pickups, there will gbe a noteable differences

Good point.
If you adjust them to close, then they will kill some sustain, that is true. But your guitar will also be sounding out of tune if you do, so I just took for granted that no one wants to have them that close. Using a pickup “normally” and it won’t affect sustain.
Also EMG have almost no magnetic pull at all, so it would be even harder with them.

So normal use of pickups will not add or reduce sustain in a guitar, strangely used, they can reduce sustain. But you can never get more sustain from a pickup, unless you buy a Sustainer pickup.

/Magnus

[dan321]

What about putting a tremolno in to it?

[Ibanez-Mag]

Originally Posted by dan321

What about putting a tremolno in to it?

Installing a tremolo in a guitar will defiantly affect both sustain and sound of the guitar, if that is what you mean? Odds are about 90 to 1 that you will get less sustain doing that.
Not a night and day difference, but defiantly noticeable.

If what you mean is that you have a non tremolo guitar with EMG and one tremolo guitar were you want to install EMG and are curios for if the sound and sustain will be the same in both guitars? Then most likely no, it will not be the same. Not necessarily because of the fixed/floating bridge (even if that makes difference too) but more in that all wood (even the same kind) has different frequency response.
But if the two guitars sound exactly the same unplugged (but it very unlikely that they do) then they will sound the same with the same pickups.

As an example, I have one RG3120 that is one of my favourite guitars so I wanted one that is exactly the same (or as close as possible). So I went to Ibanez and went through about 25-30 other 3120’s and did not find any that sounded exactly the same (the closer they were in weight, the closer the where in sound, in general).
Now I have a bunch of 3120’s at home and none of them sound the same, but I have gotten two to sound very close, but then I had to use different pickups in them.
With the same pickups (the original ones) did they not sound close at all.

What I’m saying is that all guitars are different and sound different.
So get the EMG in there and try and sell them again if you don’t like it.

/Magnus

[Bocephus]

When the Tremol-No™ is locked, you will not only increase sustain, but also expect an improvement in overall tone as well.


taken right off of the tremolno site.. whether or not its true.. well i dunno!

[Phishphood42]

Pickups absolutely affect sustain. Thats what puts the Air in the Air Norton pickup. Pickups wound hot will have a stronger magnetic pull and therefore less sustain. The air buckers were designed to be weak but with a relatively high output so you can get tone and sustain. If you're dealing with EMG gain I'm sure that you'll have enough sustain coming from your pickups and amp that the actual guitars acoustic sustain wont matter.

[GAZ]

My understanding is that it's the strength of the magnet that affects string pull, not the windings, they affect the resistance ??

[Ibanez-Mag]

Originally Posted by Phishphood42

Pickups absolutely affect sustain. Thats what puts the Air in the Air Norton pickup. Pickups wound hot will have a stronger magnetic pull and therefore less sustain. The air buckers were designed to be weak but with a relatively high output so you can get tone and sustain. If you're dealing with EMG gain I'm sure that you'll have enough sustain coming from your pickups and amp that the actual guitars acoustic sustain wont matter.

I don't agree with you and gets very curios on where you get this information or from what experience you draw these concusions?
Like I said before, a pickup that installed to close to the strings (I mean to close for normal use) will affect the sustain in that way that it will take some of it away.
The magnetic pull will affect the string to move freely, and reduce the sustain.

The Air pickups where not designed to give sustain, they where designed with a reduced magnetic pull so you can adjust the pickup closer to the strings then normal without killing your sustain. Less magnetic pull is less reduced sustain, it is how pickups work.
But it won’t add any sustain, no matter what pickup you install.

I think a lot of people confuse sustain with drive (gain).
Sustain in a guitar is how long the sting will sound when you hit it unplugged (how much the wood vibrate from the movement of the string). That is the sustain you have in your guitar, and it is constant and at max, reduced by pickups magnetic pull.
It is a fact that a pickup, any pickup, cant pick up any sound from a string that don’t vibrate, so if there are no sustain in the guitar, the strings wont vibrate and there is noting for the pickup to amplify, no matter of how much or little output the pickup has.

Do you really mean that if you play EMG in an amp, then the amount of sustain in the guitar wont matter? That must be the strangest thing I heard in a long time.
If the strings don’t vibrate on the guitar (the sustain), then what is the EMG and the amp gone make the sound from? Is the EMG hitting the strings again for you, so they will vibrate longer? Please explain what you mean.

It is a fact that pickups (or any sort of microphone) can’t amplify/pick up a sound that isn’t there. No matter how loud a vocal microphone is, you still won’t get any sound unless you make any (in a guitar that means, the strings vibrate, sustain).

/Magnus

[Ibanez-Mag]

Originally Posted by GAZ

My understanding is that it's the strength of the magnet that affects string pull, not the windings, they affect the resistance ??

You are right, to strong megnets will reduce the sustain.
The amount of windings will affect the drive/output and sound you get.

/Magnus

[Phishphood42]

I got my facts from a repair book by Dan Erlewine from guitar player magazine, so sorry if my facts were wrong, I was simply misinformed. I'm not saying that EMG will make a guitars natural sustain irrelevant,bt distortion will add sustain and people who use EMGs often play with heavy distortion.

[Ibanez-Mag]

Originally Posted by Phishphood42

I got my facts from a repair book by Dan Erlewine from guitar player magazine, so sorry if my facts were wrong, I was simply misinformed. I'm not saying that EMG will make a guitars natural sustain irrelevant,bt distortion will add sustain and people who use EMGs often play with heavy distortion.

No need for being sorry man, it is just a discussion about two different opinions.

I understand what you mean with distortion adds sustain, and that is what I meant with people confusing sustain with drive. Distortion don’t really add any sustain, but the more you amplify a signal (in this case, the moving sting) the louder small signals will sound.
So a very high output pickup will get more power from very little string vibration the a less powerful pickup will do, and there for drive the amp harder, and give a impression of more sustain. But it really only is that the pickup gets more power from the small vibrations you get from a sustaining note then the amount of power a weaker pickup will get from the same amount of string vibration.
But when the string don’t vibrate (the sustain in the guitar has run out and that it is not affected by the pickup, unless you have it to close) then the guitar will stop sounding, no matter what pickup you have or how much gain you have.
Unless you play so loud that the sound (air movement) from the speakers makes the strings move, but then they will move the same amount no matter what pickup you have.

/Magnus

[Phishphood42]

Originally Posted by Ibanez-Mag

No need for being sorry man, it is just a discussion about two different opinions.

I understand what you mean with distortion adds sustain, and that is what I meant with people confusing sustain with drive. Distortion don’t really add any sustain, but the more you amplify a signal (in this case, the moving sting) the louder small signals will sound.
So a very high output pickup will get more power from very little string vibration the a less powerful pickup will do, and there for drive the amp harder, and give a impression of more sustain. But it really only is that the pickup gets more power from the small vibrations you get from a sustaining note then the amount of power a weaker pickup will get from the same amount of string vibration.
But when the string don’t vibrate (the sustain in the guitar has run out and that it is not affected by the pickup, unless you have it to close) then the guitar will stop sounding, no matter what pickup you have or how much gain you have.
Unless you play so loud that the sound (air movement) from the speakers makes the strings move, but then they will move the same amount no matter what pickup you have.

/Magnus

Absolutely correct