Ways To Significantly Increase Sustain?

[Holy Katana]

^Heresy!

Actually, I don't really care how thick the neck is. For example, I LOVE the Strat-like neck of the JS, as well as the chunky neck of a Les Paul, as well as the Wizard.

[Distantshore]

Originally Posted by waylay00

Raise your action just a hair. It works wonders.

I just recently realized that,,,after being a low action junkie for years!

[waylay00]

Yeah, it's definitely weird at first. But after you get used to it, high(er) action is the way to go. You don't necessarily have to raise it to SRV height, but raising it about .5mm works well.

[Drew]

A lot of good advice here -

-a thicker neck really DOES sustain better than a thin one.
-Thicker strings are more compressed, acoustically, and thus will have a less pronounced attack and more "body" to the sustain.
-locking down your bridge with something like a tremol-no will give you a noticeable boost in sustain.
-ditto with raising your action. If you have ANY fret buzz, even so little that it doesn't get picked up by the amp, that;'s your strings vibration getting impeeded by the frets, which dampens vibration and in turn sustain.
-volume, to induce feedback, can help too, if it's an option.

Also, try lowering your pickups a hair - 2-3mm will give you a nice hot tone with little intonation issues, but the magnetic pull of a hot set of pickups WILL hinder string vibration. If you have enough gain to make this feasible, lower your pickups a bit further and adjust preamp gain to compensate. The result will be more sustain.

But, to be perfectly honest... How much sustain do you really need? I remember playing this bar gig Wednesday nights where there was this old guy who was in the audience most nights, and he'd always tell me about his Les Paul and how it had so much sustain that you could play a chord, go out to lunch, come back and it'd still be ringing. He kept insisting that one day I'd see the light and switch from floating bridges and thin necks (I was playing a 7620) to something like a Les Paul. However, the thing I kept trying to explain to him is, with a 7620 with a hot set of Dimarzios and a high gain Mesa (Rocket-44, at the time), I already had more than enough natural sustain from my rig where I didn't really NEED any more. Sure, it might be fun and all, but I wasn't exactly sitting up there and cursing because notes jkept dying on me.

Basically, chasing sustain can be a dangerous thing. If you constantly look for more and more, well, make sure you step back every once in a while and ask yourself if you really NEED more for the music you're playing, or if you're pursuing it for the sake of pursuing it.

[heffergm]

Originally Posted by JJEMMER777

Get some Breeds and a mirror top

I thought it was just me... but oddly enough, I've found my BRMR has a lot more sustain than my UV. Go figure.

[waylay00]

Originally Posted by Drew

A lot of good advice here -

-a thicker neck really DOES sustain better than a thin one.
-Thicker strings are more compressed, acoustically, and thus will have a less pronounced attack and more "body" to the sustain.
-locking down your bridge with something like a tremol-no will give you a noticeable boost in sustain.
-ditto with raising your action. If you have ANY fret buzz, even so little that it doesn't get picked up by the amp, that;'s your strings vibration getting impeeded by the frets, which dampens vibration and in turn sustain.
-volume, to induce feedback, can help too, if it's an option.

Also, try lowering your pickups a hair - 2-3mm will give you a nice hot tone with little intonation issues, but the magnetic pull of a hot set of pickups WILL hinder string vibration. If you have enough gain to make this feasible, lower your pickups a bit further and adjust preamp gain to compensate. The result will be more sustain.

But, to be perfectly honest... How much sustain do you really need? I remember playing this bar gig Wednesday nights where there was this old guy who was in the audience most nights, and he'd always tell me about his Les Paul and how it had so much sustain that you could play a chord, go out to lunch, come back and it'd still be ringing. He kept insisting that one day I'd see the light and switch from floating bridges and thin necks (I was playing a 7620) to something like a Les Paul. However, the thing I kept trying to explain to him is, with a 7620 with a hot set of Dimarzios and a high gain Mesa (Rocket-44, at the time), I already had more than enough natural sustain from my rig where I didn't really NEED any more. Sure, it might be fun and all, but I wasn't exactly sitting up there and cursing because notes jkept dying on me.

Basically, chasing sustain can be a dangerous thing. If you constantly look for more and more, well, make sure you step back every once in a while and ask yourself if you really NEED more for the music you're playing, or if you're pursuing it for the sake of pursuing it.

Yeah that's true. For me though, it's not really as much about the sustain as it is the clearness and thickness of the notes.

[nickcoumbe]

Originally Posted by Drew

A lot of good advice here -

he'd always tell me about his Les Paul and how it had so much sustain that you could play a chord, go out to lunch, come back and it'd still be ringing.

His name wasn't Nigel was it? That story sounds familiar

[waylay00]

Originally Posted by nickcoumbe

His name wasn't Nigel was it? That story sounds familiar

[markg5150]

Originally Posted by nickcoumbe

His name wasn't Nigel was it? That story sounds familiar

I think the key thing for this individual was that his amps went up to 11 !!

Use Boss Compressor/Sustainer CS-3 stompbox effect. Try it

[Magical Muffin]

Get a better (and/or) neckthrough guitar.

[Timbaline]

Originally Posted by Quiksilver98

giving timbaline all your guitars should work

I like the way this guy thinks!!

[skins345669]

I'd be careful about turning gain up too high. Compressors have worked well for me. Barber Electronics Tone Press is the best, in my view.

I've got a fat finger on my S series too.

However, it is up to a point, luck of the draw with some guitars. My best sustaining guitar is a modded Squier Affinity with locking machineheads, new pickups and a lot of neck work done.

[philly]

grab a nice 70/80's Artist.

[Manticore]

Sustain.....believed to be the holy grail of solo playing
actually nothing could be further from the truth
every note plucked has an envelope that determines how it is felt , heard and expressed by the player.(as well as the listener; difficult to say how important this part is) this envelope is commonly refered to as ADSR http://ems.music.uiuc.edu/beaucham/s...intro.ADSR.png
Attack
Decay
Sustain
Release
most times when one of these parts of the envelope is a voltage greatly differing from the rest it causes the player great discomfort
commonly in guitars and mostly hot pick ups, attack is a very high voltage leading to a steep decay
and sustain is then perceived as being unsatisfactory.
compressors correct this to a degree as dose overdrive with the customary loss of note quality
Emg's also go a long way towards flattening the curve with some loss in the tone dept.
this is also why volume seems corrective as you amp turns up the adsr voltage flattens out as clipping begins in the component chain. ie pre-amp , amp and speakers
sustain buy it self is highly over rated and by it self won't make a guitar sound good to you or the audience.

when you understand the ADSR you then are able setup any attractive sounding pickup/guitar to perform the way you want it.
assuming of course you have the tools ( quality amps, OD's delays ect....)
quality guitar Ibanez esp have all the meat in there you need you just have to know where to look.