robert fripp actually uses a fernandes sustainer which pretty much functions similarly, but former king crimson guitarist/singer adrian belew does use a sustainiac too. also fun fact, when recording "heroes" by david bowie, robert fripp didn't use any sustaining device (meaning no sustainer pickup nor ebow); he actually swiveled around in his stool to certain positions where the notes would sustain best, using pieces of tape on the floor to help him.
@@the_construkction_of_light I did the same thing for years on stage. I had at one time measured distances from the amp that evoked certain notes to sustain - when I set up for a gig I'd measure and mark those distances. Physics is fun!
There’s actually two different systems out there, the other is the Fernandes Sustainer. The Fernandes offers the same functionality, but it’s an older and less refined system than the Sustainiac. General consensus seems to he the Sustainiac is superior, but the Fernandes still has it’s fans like Reeves Gabrels (who’s been using them for 30-ish years now) and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.
Yeah Fernandes held the patent for many years. IIRC Sustainiac licensed it off them. But the patent is expired now, so anyone can sell them. I have a Fernandes Jaguar with a sustainer. It's a fun toy to muck around with for about five minutes, but you have to live with whatever neck pickup is bundled with it. Not that it's a bad sounding pickup in it's own right though.
I've desperately wanted one of these since I discovered them from muse a couple years ago, I always felt like the options were so limited, I'm hoping they become less niche and more people put them in their production guitars
Proud owner of two Sustainiac drivers in both of my main guitars, dual Jackson Kellys! These things are absolute game changers for me, makes solos more dynamic and they can give you those awesome rock star moments on any stage you’re on. WARNING AHEAD: The only issue I have with them is wiring them. My guitar tech called it “wire pasta”. If you hate soldering like I do but you’re absolutely dead set on installing one of these things in your guitar, trust me, DON’T EVEN BOTHER DOING THIS YOURSELF, TAKE IT TO A PROFESSIONAL THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING - the circuit board ALONE has an 8-pin and 10-pin connector on either side that has to be wired across both potentiometers in your control cavity. This means that just the circuit board alone requires soldering a total of 18 WIRES across both potentiometers, not including your pickup and the driver itself.
He even used the Ed O'Brien signature guitar for a recent tour for some of the songs that required the sustain - Ed being another guitarist who uses them alot.
my first guitar i bought had a sustaniac, it was cool for a minute or two. i replaced it with a normal pickup and it now lives in a box. it made the other pickups sound meh. and went through batteries like they were free.
I have a Kramer Baretta that I got from MusicYo for $400 back in in the early 2000s that has a sustainer. Mine has a knob to control the intensity of the sustainer so I can adjust how fast and strong the feedback kicks in.
Type O Negative were fairly early users of it. Kenny Hickey had one in his guitar starting with a Fernandes in 1996 and later with Schecter, and Peter Steele had a prototype in his bass.
Oh man, when I was a teenager me and dad were huge Muse fans, Manson weren't selling the MB-1s and such yet so we built our own Matt Bellamy replica with a Fernandes Sustainer and I still adore it! Always wondered what Sustainiac had over Fernandes that prompted so many people to swap, including Matt
@@samuraiguitarist Knights of Cydonia is such a banger dude! Black Holes and Revelations is the album it's from and I think a lot of it would be your jam. Some very cool use of a sustainer and slide too!
@@samuraiguitarist You should check out their Wembley 2007 show. It showcases a lot of moments that particularly show the sustainiac pickup being used in different settings, aside from an overall brilliant musicianship.
Because of Tim Pierce I bought a Fender Ed O'Brien signature guitar with a sustainer PU on the first fret and a toggle switch for different overtone frequencies. I used to play with an E-Bow so this was definitely right up my alley. Fun guitar.
Check out Styx's 1997 Return to Paradise Chicago concert for JY to put his sustainiac equipped Kramers/Hamers to good work throughout most of the entire concert.
People have been sleeping on sustainiacs for what seems like forever, and I never understood why. It is the most underrated piece of hardware, and every electric guitar should have one. Very rare to find stock guitars with them though.
More than 20 years ago, when I thought I was rich, I bought a Phil Collen DefLep PC-1 that had a flat fretboard and a sustainiac pickup. Beautiful guitar and cool sustain effect until I realized that I was performing Yacht Rock in Key West and it really wasn't the guitar for me. Traded it for a '68 Paisley Tele and all was right.
@@gdawgs101 Let me introduce you to synthesizers. I genuinely have no idea why guitars don't just come with built in amps and synths at this point, that are compact enough now.
Don't sleep on the Fender Ed O'Brien Strat if you're not as shred-centric. I tried one of these on a super rad Schecter but the guitar itself wasn't really for me. The EOB is built around the idea of a modded 50s style Strat, including a very chunky neck, which is to be considered as I've seen more than a few of the necks for sale after owners have replaced the original. It has a very usable single-coil sized humbucker in the bridge and a standard Strat middle pup, and sounds great in all of the positions (including neck), but the sustain feature really opens it up.
Try this. Drone high E and B and play E major pentatonic melodies on lower strings and with a bit of overdrive and viola ,you have bagpipes (or something that sounds like Big Country sounding like bagpipes)
so its kinda like having an E-Bow embedded into the body of the guitar...the resonance comes from Below the strings, not Above...its like a 'smoother' Feedback, without having to face directly into the amp... ...so its probly too expensive for My barely-any skills to make full use out of it...
Sammy G, I'm surprised that you didn't touch on the Fernandes guitars that had Sustainer pickups in them in the 80s-00s. They were possibly the first guitars to have Sustain pickups before they went out of business. RIP Fernandes Guitars. Ahead of their time and sadly forgotten by most.
I had one on my Schecter (Sun Valley telecaster, sea foam green)…dude its so much fun just making whale noises. You can just go into a trance cranking that reverb. Its also really fun to just play melodies with it without having to pick. Way more convenient than an eBow. Matt Bellamy uses it to great effect.
On Tuesday I found a guitar amp dumped near my house. I gave it a quick look over and I can't see anything wrong with it. I'm thinking the speaker has gone or a fuse, but luckily it hasn't rained in a few days so it's dry. Hopefully it'll be a free little amp. 😄
Check out Muse’s live version of Invincible Wembley 2007. Some cool sustainer work and this weird guitar that uses two soap bar P90s like a humbucker… I think that guitar also tuned itself… and had the MIDI pad… I should note though that was the Fernandes Sustainer
I'm currently working on a project with a 6 independent sustain system (1 sustainer per string). It's based on a Graphtech ResoMax piezo bridge (6 independent piezo saddles) and a 6 independent poles pickup. It allows to avoid having strings cross-feeding to other strings and to control and adjust the amount of feedback per string for a much more balanced effect.
Oh this is a cool idea! I find myself doing hand and finger gymnastics trying to mute other strings when using it for solos. It's one of the reasons why I don't use it much. The low strings also have a tendency to ring much more because they are thick, have more metal and therefore more magnetic force. You can adjust the pickup so it's closer to the higher strings, but you can only adjust it so much.
Just listen to a Vai album amd you will see what the Sustaniac does from top to bottom.. It is an amazing product but it doesn't always fit styles or sound.. But after this video I think I will finally try one in my Music Man Axis (EVH design Eddie didn't keep but kept the guitars they made him) and since I have played Jems and Ibamez 550's all of life I have in the last few years added Custom Telecasters and as I said Music Man Axis as well as having an old Ibamez rebuilt (Paul Gilbert Model, the original model with the painted on F holes) with a Fernandez blues neck and I think my Music Man could use this help and inspire me to use it a little more with my Dimarzio EVOLUTION bridge pickup... Nice Video tho Cheers
you talk about sustainiac, slipping in a reference to Ebow, but you don't talk about Gizmotron2.0 again ? was the gizmotron a Meanie ? is the Gizmotron punished ? What if the Sustainiac invited the gizmotron for his birthday to play together?
Fernandes’ Sustainer is also extremely happening for a competing product. If you’re looking for a single string, the EBow is a great device, too. For an acoustic, check out the Paul Vo Vo-96.
I looked them up and they're like 300 bucks. Yuck. You could build your own for about $30, they're very rudimentary devices. You just need a tiny preamp circuit that you can get for about a buck off ebay. The input goes into the input, and the output is the electromagnet - it behaves exactly like a speaker, but it puts out megnetic fields instead of sound. Most of the cost is in winding your own pickups (copper isn't cheap). The plans I've seen call for a relatively thick gauge wire, but only a hundred or so winds. Maybe you could repurpose regular pickups, but I'm not sure, I think the heavier gauge matters. Anyway, it's a fun project for an afternoon, if you're looking for something to do. Try it with one of those double bladed mini hotrails and you can fit it into a single-coil slot.
I started using Sustainiacs probably 14 years ago after falling in love with Type O Negative. Now I have three: one in a Floyd equipped super strat, one in an SG and (my personal favorite) one in a Squier Bass VI
That's my main guitar. I rarely use the sustainiac effect on to be honest. But I love doing these modified Dive bombs where instead of hitting the harmonic, you hammer on the actual note and the sustainiac mode to tail off as a harmonic kinda does the job for you if you time it right. So you're not limited to the harmonics, nor trying to do a pinch harmonic coming out of a dive bomb with strings all floppy (very hard to do). Of course you can"t go wrong with a Schecter. Very well built and easy to play. I wish Long & Mcquade had more of them. Here, and especially in Winnipeg, you're mostly limited to buying online at LA Music, Sweetwater, Reverb (good luck not getting scammed). If you want to try them out you're mostly forced to drive to a Guitar Center in the States. Oh and definitely an important PSA is that changing strings and tuning sucks indeed, as it's always the case with a Floyd Rose.
By the way, if anyone wants to do the slide sustainer thing, you can get pretty damn close with a metal screwdriver. Just use it like a slide and kind of like you're bowing a violin.
Guitarist and only consistent member of King Crimson Robert Fripp has a Fernandes Sustainer pickup in his custom Fernandes-made Goldtop, which is where I first heard of them.
I've always considered buying one of these. I just don't wanna spend another $300 to buy an actual good bridge since Schecter only wants to use janky bridges on their guitars...
If you want a perfect example of the kinda shit you can do with a sustainiac outside of metal, listen to the solo of So Far Away by Avenged Sevenfold. Gorgeous
The feedback history was pretty awesome. I came about it in my teens playing in punk bands with a semi hollow epiphine dot. I found that bands like rancid, nofx, casualties would all use the guitars feedback for energy and ambience so I picked it up. Seeing that the Beatles set it up trips me out but I guess their influence is everywhere 🍻
What happens if you hook an audio source into it? I could imagine, as long as you fret the right chords along with the song, it should play the notes for you? Or just Nothing Else Matters. Could possibly be used as a trigger for somebody with no right hand.
I have the Schecter Elite with the sustainiac. The single coil pickup on the sustainiac actually sounds wonderful. I use the sustainiac with lots of reverb and delay to make pad sounds while playing worship music at church.
Hahahaha this is freaking great. You are one of my favorite youtubers ever. So informative and high level :) Thank you ❤ Not to mention how good you are at playing from the heart😵💫
Heads up for anybody looking for this type of effect but doesn't want to dedicate an entire pick up to it: Digi-tech makes a pedal called the freq-out which does all of this plus more with more fine tuning over all of the parameters as well. Not sure if they are still in production but i have one and i love it!
Is there a bass version? I've only come across one video and it wasnt insightful at all. Would love to see someone like you play with one. Especially curious how it works with thicker strings.
God dammit. I swore off buying any more new electric guitars. This has made me break that promise. The possibilities for songwriting are too good to pass up. I kinda wish the sustainer was a bridge pickup though
Sustainiac and its cousin are one of those things that you play once maybe twice and that’s it. It sounds like a certain person if you know what I mean, the one effect that it does great that is not highlighted here (no surprise.) is feedback. You can get feedback with one of these things and do tricks with it that you couldn’t do otherwise. Oh yeah, and the fact that you have to put a ton of equipment inside the guitar. That’s why most people do it with junkie guitars.
No one talks about sustain anymore because reddit-tier internet iconoclast 'look at me, I'm not a bullshitter' guys decided it was lame to talk about sustain. And always being the 'you can trust me, I'm not a shill - cheap guitars are literally better than any other guitar' type of personalities.
Do a video on the moog guitar! :) That was a guitar from 2010, way ahead of it's time! Not only does it do the infinite sustain, it also mutes them and gets wild effects.
I had a Fernandez with a sustainer in it. I just couldn't use it for anything it was very one-dimensional to me I don't know maybe I was just doing it wrong lol
Ah yes, the Sustainiac. You can play a note, go out, grab a bite to eat, and it’ll still be ringing out when you get home.
“Oh I get that reference!”
Perfect combo with an amp that goes up to 11.
Just like a piece of rail with a string on it.
Until the battery runs out lol
@@Halfaloaf599 That makes me want to buy a guitar with one and do a “science” experiment.
now my wrong notes will sustain forever, cool.
I like to think of it as "unexpected artistic dissonance"
That reminds me of Kmac2021's video "make a mistake while using a delay pedal" XD
long form jazz
@@m0-m0597oh yeah that video is gold!
Robert Fripp, Steve Hackett and Andy Latimer have been playing with it for a long while. It's worth listening to their stuff and how they used it.
Also Reeves Gabrels and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai have both used sustainer systems as well.
robert fripp actually uses a fernandes sustainer which pretty much functions similarly, but former king crimson guitarist/singer adrian belew does use a sustainiac too.
also fun fact, when recording "heroes" by david bowie, robert fripp didn't use any sustaining device (meaning no sustainer pickup nor ebow); he actually swiveled around in his stool to certain positions where the notes would sustain best, using pieces of tape on the floor to help him.
You beat me to mentioning Steve Hackett. The sustain that goes forever is a big part of his unique sound.
Living Colour's Vernon Reid too I believe.
@@the_construkction_of_light I did the same thing for years on stage. I had at one time measured distances from the amp that evoked certain notes to sustain - when I set up for a gig I'd measure and mark those distances. Physics is fun!
Hello sir samurai music man I think it is about time you show us a collection update of all your six strings
I think you are right, it has grown substantially since I last did this and stated "I have too many guitars I don't need any more"...
@@samuraiguitarist you can never have to many guitars
@@FoxxoFox anyone who says they have enough guitars is lying to themselves
Dear lord how can I get more likes on a comment then on one of my own songs
Shoegaze enthousiasts:
Who am I kidding they stay silent and just play more drones.
There’s actually two different systems out there, the other is the Fernandes Sustainer. The Fernandes offers the same functionality, but it’s an older and less refined system than the Sustainiac. General consensus seems to he the Sustainiac is superior, but the Fernandes still has it’s fans like Reeves Gabrels (who’s been using them for 30-ish years now) and Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien.
And Robert Fripp!
@@MEGAMIGA Gabrels and O’Brien both spring to mind because they’ve both got signature guitars equipped with Sustainers.
@@MrBeardsley Actually, Robert Fripp has a signature guitar made by the excellent Crimson Guitars!
Yeah Fernandes held the patent for many years. IIRC Sustainiac licensed it off them. But the patent is expired now, so anyone can sell them. I have a Fernandes Jaguar with a sustainer. It's a fun toy to muck around with for about five minutes, but you have to live with whatever neck pickup is bundled with it. Not that it's a bad sounding pickup in it's own right though.
@@frankcooke1692 Can't you change the neck pickup and wire it up to the Sustainer system?
Synyster gates creates some unbelievable sounds with the sustaniac, the harmonic mode is wild. Check out the solo on Cosmic 👍
and I'm over here lightly palm muting to reduce sustain
My god, the sheer POTENTIAL for Post-Rock sounds this has is mind-boggling!
GY!BE and SWANS have probably already used something like this before...
Every time I hear the sustainiac I think of Eddie Van Halen on the 2004 tour. He had one in his wolfgang and it honestly sounded cool
I've desperately wanted one of these since I discovered them from muse a couple years ago, I always felt like the options were so limited, I'm hoping they become less niche and more people put them in their production guitars
Between the Schecter range, the EOB strat and Burnys LP copies there are lots of great choices.
Proud owner of two Sustainiac drivers in both of my main guitars, dual Jackson Kellys! These things are absolute game changers for me, makes solos more dynamic and they can give you those awesome rock star moments on any stage you’re on.
WARNING AHEAD:
The only issue I have with them is wiring them. My guitar tech called it “wire pasta”. If you hate soldering like I do but you’re absolutely dead set on installing one of these things in your guitar, trust me, DON’T EVEN BOTHER DOING THIS YOURSELF, TAKE IT TO A PROFESSIONAL THAT KNOWS WHAT THEY ARE DOING - the circuit board ALONE has an 8-pin and 10-pin connector on either side that has to be wired across both potentiometers in your control cavity. This means that just the circuit board alone requires soldering a total of 18 WIRES across both potentiometers, not including your pickup and the driver itself.
U2’s The Edge used a sustainer for his (volume swelled) shimmered notes in With or Without You. Check those out.
He even used the Ed O'Brien signature guitar for a recent tour for some of the songs that required the sustain - Ed being another guitarist who uses them alot.
Radioheads Ed O’Brien has a signature with fender that has been out since 2017
nobody tell 'em about the Moog guit
my first guitar i bought had a sustaniac, it was cool for a minute or two. i replaced it with a normal pickup and it now lives in a box. it made the other pickups sound meh. and went through batteries like they were free.
I have a Kramer Baretta that I got from MusicYo for $400 back in in the early 2000s that has a sustainer. Mine has a knob to control the intensity of the sustainer so I can adjust how fast and strong the feedback kicks in.
Schecter's Hellraiser Hybrid Sustainiac has that, too, plus a perfect neck joint, so that's on my short list
like an ebow but better
Someone's has never seen Ed O'Brian's signature Stratocaster...
Type O Negative were fairly early users of it. Kenny Hickey had one in his guitar starting with a Fernandes in 1996 and later with Schecter, and Peter Steele had a prototype in his bass.
That's exactly what I thought of when he played the first strum in this video's intro. 💚🖤💚🖤
Oh man, when I was a teenager me and dad were huge Muse fans, Manson weren't selling the MB-1s and such yet so we built our own Matt Bellamy replica with a Fernandes Sustainer and I still adore it! Always wondered what Sustainiac had over Fernandes that prompted so many people to swap, including Matt
I'm so late to the game on Muse, my buddy showed me that video that's like a futuristic western and I am converted
@@samuraiguitarist Knights of Cydonia is such a banger dude! Black Holes and Revelations is the album it's from and I think a lot of it would be your jam. Some very cool use of a sustainer and slide too!
your Dad is cool.
@@R1GAMBLER the dude is such a legend
@@samuraiguitarist You should check out their Wembley 2007 show. It showcases a lot of moments that particularly show the sustainiac pickup being used in different settings, aside from an overall brilliant musicianship.
Ed O'Brien from Radiohead had a signature fender stratocaster with a sustainer
Really awesome device. I have a Digitech Freqout pedal which does something very similar.
Yoooo I have a sustainer on my fender Stratocaster eob signature series and I love it❤
Because of Tim Pierce I bought a Fender Ed O'Brien signature guitar with a sustainer PU on the first fret and a toggle switch for different overtone frequencies. I used to play with an E-Bow so this was definitely right up my alley. Fun guitar.
Getting strong Judas Priest's Turbo vibes at 4:50!
1:20 bro just casually made the most disgusting riff known to man 😍😍
Gotta unleash the stank whenever possible
Agree. Good review, and now I WANT.
Aaaah, 98% of Def Leppard guitar solos exist because of this
Check out Styx's 1997 Return to Paradise Chicago concert for JY to put his sustainiac equipped Kramers/Hamers to good work throughout most of the entire concert.
People have been sleeping on sustainiacs for what seems like forever, and I never understood why. It is the most underrated piece of hardware, and every electric guitar should have one. Very rare to find stock guitars with them though.
Schecters. 🎉
pedals such as the Digitech Freqout can do similar things but with a lot more options.
have one of thes in my synyster gates custom s, they're great
More than 20 years ago, when I thought I was rich, I bought a Phil Collen DefLep PC-1 that had a flat fretboard and a sustainiac pickup. Beautiful guitar and cool sustain effect until I realized that I was performing Yacht Rock in Key West and it really wasn't the guitar for me.
Traded it for a '68 Paisley Tele and all was right.
So it's exactly a build in Ebow?
And there was me thinking the sustainiac had been used on Boston's More Than A Feeling in the late 70s.
So its a ebow integrated pickup?
Nice shirt, the super Bogfootman TH-cam entertainment system came first
piano players: look at what they have to do to mimic a fraction of our power
Synth players: Ơ̶̢̡͈̤͈̦̇̂́̿̎̏̿͝͝ͅḩ̸̨̻̦̜̩͍̼̠̼͖͍̩̀̀̆͐̏͌̂̈́̈́͆͗̉̃͠ ̵̨̢̛̩̳̖͇̦̲̮͉̼̬̠̊ÿ̷̢̰̫͉͇̟̘͚́̅ͅo̴̧̨̬͈̙͈͔͚̻̗̬͈̪͔͉̿́͜ự̸̗̽̐̓͗̀͌̋́͊̀̆̉̄̔ ̵̘̽̂̅̏̈́́̒̿̇̑̔̍ͅẇ̴̨̡͔̲̥̺̭̯̐̎̈́͘͝ͅẽ̶̱̺͍̦̟͕̗̮͇͎̯̥̼͔͖̦̍̑̽̓̆͋̈́̚͜ṙ̴͚̣́̈͐̇͑̀̋̐͑̑͠ę̶̰̼̙̟͇̫̙̘̥̱̙͙̯̗̺͂̊̾̊ͅ ̸͚̘͕͇͎̼͚͕̩͎̭̭̒́̄̒̈́̀̅̿̑̓̏̎̀͒͝͝t̶̨̯̱̠̖͔͍̯̲́͐̿͆̏́̌̈́̓̄̌̐̀̊̉̚͠a̷̘͓̗̖̝̔̿͒͌̽̓̑̓͠ḷ̶͉̙̉͑k̴͎̈̓̿̈́̏̑͌̕̕͠͝ǐ̶̢̟͎̭̫̀͋̋̋̓̕n̴̡̛̛̜̫̖̺̼͈̤̘̭̖̙͔̺̤̯͑̂̔̾̌̉́̅͝g̵̠̘͉̝̠̮̣̃̽͊ ̸̧̢̧̢͔̼̦̗̩̳͎͚̇ͅẗ̵͔̫͍͙̗̞̲̬̎͋̅͛̒̈́̂͒͠ͅǒ̵̟̘͚͈̥ ̷̢̠͉̱̥͕͕͇̫̘̘̤͂ͅͅm̸̟̯̥̯̞̰̭̞͔̦̮̣̅̎̆͆̆͒̂̓̇͌̂͘̕̚͠e̸̱̤̥̬̟͇̓̑́̍͌̎͛̈́̅̃̅͊̈́̕ ̸̜̖͚̜͈͔̦͚͗̈́̋̉̔̇̐̾́̓͂̚̕͠t̵̢̧͈͚̳͕͙̟̳̻͉̮̪͖̫̭̹̂ḩ̶̧̡͈̣̞̗̝͉͈̠͎͈̓̽̈́̑̀̎̈́̈́̄͜͜͝͝͝͠ȩ̶̡̢̫̤͎̮͉͉͕̞̂̇̋ͅ ̴͇̤̘̙̖̤̟̓ě̵̢͕̘̲̠̩͙͖̳̠̜̱̋ͅṉ̶̨̺̯̲̲̲̣̣͕͙̭͈͉̹͗̄͛̔͐̒̔t̸̡͛̐̓̂̈i̵̛͈̰͐́̓̌̂͝ͅr̵̥͔̺͂̈̈́̓̌̀̆̀̌̉̚ȩ̸̡̨͖̞̮̱̭̝̯̠̪͖͍͓͇̲̾̈́͆̃̓ ̵̢̠͉̩͈͈̤̫͍̲̟̟̯͖̹̿̓̽͋ẗ̵̻͔͙̥̹̱̬͍̰͇̲̦́͐̾̊̑̈́͂̓̚͜͝͝ͅi̵̦̞̭̰̘̪̳͙̮̦̫͈͈̅̈́̍͐́̇m̴̪̦͓̪͇͔̆͋͋̾̚͜ͅĕ̶̛̳̺̱̗͚̤̳̭̾̆̈́̎̑̅̉͝ͅ?̵̺̖͕̃̀͋̃
Except even notes on the piano with the sustain pedal pushed still eventually decay. This actually rings indefinitely or until muted
@@gdawgs101 Let me introduce you to synthesizers. I genuinely have no idea why guitars don't just come with built in amps and synths at this point, that are compact enough now.
@@NabPunkShaun Martin says hey
@@NabPunkjamstik: let me introduce myself
Don't sleep on the Fender Ed O'Brien Strat if you're not as shred-centric. I tried one of these on a super rad Schecter but the guitar itself wasn't really for me. The EOB is built around the idea of a modded 50s style Strat, including a very chunky neck, which is to be considered as I've seen more than a few of the necks for sale after owners have replaced the original. It has a very usable single-coil sized humbucker in the bridge and a standard Strat middle pup, and sounds great in all of the positions (including neck), but the sustain feature really opens it up.
She's a beautiful guitar !!! Had my eyes on her since 2019 , just wish they made a hard tail version
My first experience with this pickup was seeing Steve Hackket perform live. Steve playing peter gabriel era genesis had his sustain all over it
5:28 Biblically accurate John Lennon impressions👌🏻
Naaahh
Try this. Drone high E and B and play E major pentatonic melodies on lower strings and with a bit of overdrive and viola ,you have bagpipes (or something that sounds like Big Country sounding like bagpipes)
Synyster Gates uses it to perfection
to any one who enjoyed the music he played in this video, i highly recommend listening to the Hylics and Hylics 2 OST soudn tracks
so its kinda like having an E-Bow embedded into the body of the guitar...the resonance comes from Below the strings, not Above...its like a 'smoother' Feedback, without having to face directly into the amp...
...so its probly too expensive for My barely-any skills to make full use out of it...
Sammy G, I'm surprised that you didn't touch on the Fernandes guitars that had Sustainer pickups in them in the 80s-00s. They were possibly the first guitars to have Sustain pickups before they went out of business. RIP Fernandes Guitars. Ahead of their time and sadly forgotten by most.
The perfect tool to mimic guitar larsen while playing with heaphones... (Slash's Don'ty cry solo, I'm looking at you !). A built-in e-bow !
I had one on my Schecter (Sun Valley telecaster, sea foam green)…dude its so much fun just making whale noises. You can just go into a trance cranking that reverb.
Its also really fun to just play melodies with it without having to pick.
Way more convenient than an eBow. Matt Bellamy uses it to great effect.
Imagine if bands like This Will Destroy You or Boards of Canada had this back in the mid 2000's.
On Tuesday I found a guitar amp dumped near my house. I gave it a quick look over and I can't see anything wrong with it.
I'm thinking the speaker has gone or a fuse, but luckily it hasn't rained in a few days so it's dry.
Hopefully it'll be a free little amp. 😄
Check out Muse’s live version of Invincible Wembley 2007. Some cool sustainer work and this weird guitar that uses two soap bar P90s like a humbucker… I think that guitar also tuned itself… and had the MIDI pad… I should note though that was the Fernandes Sustainer
Ah yes, just entering the world of the Sustaniac. James Young and Frank Zappa have used 'em for YEARS.
I'm currently working on a project with a 6 independent sustain system (1 sustainer per string).
It's based on a Graphtech ResoMax piezo bridge (6 independent piezo saddles) and a 6 independent poles pickup. It allows to avoid having strings cross-feeding to other strings and to control and adjust the amount of feedback per string for a much more balanced effect.
Oh this is a cool idea! I find myself doing hand and finger gymnastics trying to mute other strings when using it for solos.
It's one of the reasons why I don't use it much.
The low strings also have a tendency to ring much more because they are thick, have more metal and therefore more magnetic force. You can adjust the pickup so it's closer to the higher strings, but you can only adjust it so much.
I just bought an open box Schecter C-1 Platinum FR-Sustaniac Level 1 Satin Crimson Red Burst. Yes, it's tons of fun!!!!!!
Just listen to a Vai album amd you will see what the Sustaniac does from top to bottom.. It is an amazing product but it doesn't always fit styles or sound.. But after this video I think I will finally try one in my Music Man Axis (EVH design Eddie didn't keep but kept the guitars they made him) and since I have played Jems and Ibamez 550's all of life I have in the last few years added Custom Telecasters and as I said Music Man Axis as well as having an old Ibamez rebuilt (Paul Gilbert Model, the original model with the painted on F holes) with a Fernandez blues neck and I think my Music Man could use this help and inspire me to use it a little more with my Dimarzio EVOLUTION bridge pickup...
Nice Video tho
Cheers
I have a Ibanez JS 2480 and it has one of those SUSTAINIAC pickups !!! Its my favorite guitar!!😊
FINALLY, he reviews a guitar I ACTUALLY have
This guitar is absolutely amazing, worth the money and extremely fun to mess around with
*What! $899!!* get 'em used on *Reverb* for a _buck 25_ it's essentially a glorified e-bow
you talk about sustainiac, slipping in a reference to Ebow, but you don't talk about Gizmotron2.0 again ?
was the gizmotron a Meanie ?
is the Gizmotron punished ?
What if the Sustainiac invited the gizmotron for his birthday to play together?
like an ebow but better
Fernandes’ Sustainer is also extremely happening for a competing product. If you’re looking for a single string, the EBow is a great device, too. For an acoustic, check out the Paul Vo Vo-96.
5:28 More of a George impression but still good
A good example of a Sustainiac being used properly is the intro solo for Avenged Sevenfold's "Save Me".
I looked them up and they're like 300 bucks. Yuck. You could build your own for about $30, they're very rudimentary devices. You just need a tiny preamp circuit that you can get for about a buck off ebay. The input goes into the input, and the output is the electromagnet - it behaves exactly like a speaker, but it puts out megnetic fields instead of sound. Most of the cost is in winding your own pickups (copper isn't cheap). The plans I've seen call for a relatively thick gauge wire, but only a hundred or so winds. Maybe you could repurpose regular pickups, but I'm not sure, I think the heavier gauge matters. Anyway, it's a fun project for an afternoon, if you're looking for something to do. Try it with one of those double bladed mini hotrails and you can fit it into a single-coil slot.
I started using Sustainiacs probably 14 years ago after falling in love with Type O Negative. Now I have three: one in a Floyd equipped super strat, one in an SG and (my personal favorite) one in a Squier Bass VI
That's my main guitar. I rarely use the sustainiac effect on to be honest. But I love doing these modified Dive bombs where instead of hitting the harmonic, you hammer on the actual note and the sustainiac mode to tail off as a harmonic kinda does the job for you if you time it right. So you're not limited to the harmonics, nor trying to do a pinch harmonic coming out of a dive bomb with strings all floppy (very hard to do).
Of course you can"t go wrong with a Schecter. Very well built and easy to play. I wish Long & Mcquade had more of them. Here, and especially in Winnipeg, you're mostly limited to buying online at LA Music, Sweetwater, Reverb (good luck not getting scammed). If you want to try them out you're mostly forced to drive to a Guitar Center in the States.
Oh and definitely an important PSA is that changing strings and tuning sucks indeed, as it's always the case with a Floyd Rose.
I absolutly love this review
Same
By the way, if anyone wants to do the slide sustainer thing, you can get pretty damn close with a metal screwdriver. Just use it like a slide and kind of like you're bowing a violin.
Sustainer Delay Swells.... is anyone hearing similarities from The Forest Temple in The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time?
Guitarist and only consistent member of King Crimson Robert Fripp has a Fernandes Sustainer pickup in his custom Fernandes-made Goldtop, which is where I first heard of them.
It's a transducer like an e-bow. Except you can play all strings at once. LIsten to Pyromania ans Hysteria. That's the foundation for it.
I've always considered buying one of these. I just don't wanna spend another $300 to buy an actual good bridge since Schecter only wants to use janky bridges on their guitars...
While not quite the same thing - The Church uses a LOT of E-Bow. It's essentially the same thing but not built into the guitar. Really cool sound.
I can’t remember if it’s the Sustainiac itself, but Phil Collen (Def Leppard) has a sustainer in his signature Jackson model
Unfortunately it’s active, ACTIVE, I hate batteries.
I'm crying... I could have gotten this instead of a Les Paul, now it costs 200$ more...
If you want a perfect example of the kinda shit you can do with a sustainiac outside of metal, listen to the solo of So Far Away by Avenged Sevenfold. Gorgeous
The feedback history was pretty awesome. I came about it in my teens playing in punk bands with a semi hollow epiphine dot. I found that bands like rancid, nofx, casualties would all use the guitars feedback for energy and ambience so I picked it up.
Seeing that the Beatles set it up trips me out but I guess their influence is everywhere 🍻
The power of the drone, check put Monolithic Undertow by Harry Sword, great book about drone music
What happens if you hook an audio source into it? I could imagine, as long as you fret the right chords along with the song, it should play the notes for you? Or just Nothing Else Matters. Could possibly be used as a trigger for somebody with no right hand.
I learned about these when I found out Joe Satriani has em in some of his guitars, theyre just SO COOL
Gutted, you got the sucky version with the terribly placed killswitch. Red marble way better.
You should consider trying a MIDI guitar! I have a lot of questions about them but lack the budget to find the answers.
I have the Schecter Elite with the sustainiac. The single coil pickup on the sustainiac actually sounds wonderful. I use the sustainiac with lots of reverb and delay to make pad sounds while playing worship music at church.
Hahahaha this is freaking great. You are one of my favorite youtubers ever. So informative and high level :) Thank you ❤
Not to mention how good you are at playing from the heart😵💫
Heads up for anybody looking for this type of effect but doesn't want to dedicate an entire pick up to it: Digi-tech makes a pedal called the freq-out which does all of this plus more with more fine tuning over all of the parameters as well. Not sure if they are still in production but i have one and i love it!
Is there a bass version? I've only come across one video and it wasnt insightful at all. Would love to see someone like you play with one. Especially curious how it works with thicker strings.
God dammit. I swore off buying any more new electric guitars. This has made me break that promise. The possibilities for songwriting are too good to pass up. I kinda wish the sustainer was a bridge pickup though
Can this be used to mimic an Ebow? Seems like the same type of technology.
Should have watched for a few min before posting this question. Appears to do that and much more.
Great video!
Sustainiac and its cousin are one of those things that you play once maybe twice and that’s it. It sounds like a certain person if you know what I mean, the one effect that it does great that is not highlighted here (no surprise.) is feedback. You can get feedback with one of these things and do tricks with it that you couldn’t do otherwise. Oh yeah, and the fact that you have to put a ton of equipment inside the guitar. That’s why most people do it with junkie guitars.
No one talks about sustain anymore because reddit-tier internet iconoclast 'look at me, I'm not a bullshitter' guys decided it was lame to talk about sustain. And always being the 'you can trust me, I'm not a shill - cheap guitars are literally better than any other guitar' type of personalities.
Do a video on the moog guitar! :) That was a guitar from 2010, way ahead of it's time! Not only does it do the infinite sustain, it also mutes them and gets wild effects.
The Digitech Freqout pedal does pretty much the same thing with the feedback.
I had a Fernandez with a sustainer in it. I just couldn't use it for anything it was very one-dimensional to me I don't know maybe I was just doing it wrong lol
Imagine what Frank Zappa could have done with that. When did they become available?
Didn't Vai do a song where he hit a note on the sustainiac for like 15 minutes and let the orchestra play around it?
come on man, everybody knows what a sustainer is, there has been so many infos and DIY videos for years, ever heard of 2024 ?
Check out Steve Vai's Whispering a prayer (live)😃
Is it like an eBow but mounted to the guitar under the strings?
Pretty much, but it's on all the strings
Always wondered Sustainiac vs. Ebow…. 🤔