Sustain

How can it be done? is there any specific pedals required? I haven't been able to figure this out. Any help/information regarding this topic is appreciated.

Thanks in advanced,

fr3ak

There are a ton of different ways you can go about getting sustain.... Compression pedals, high output pickups with overdrive or distortion pedals, high gain amps, sustainers, E-Bows.... there are tons of ways to get sustain... I suggest researching those first... use the handy-dandy search engine up at the top and search for those things... or just simply search for sustain... this has been a topic that's been ran over many times in the past and there's tons of info in the archives about it... good hunting.

Also, your guitar has a lot to do with it. A guitar with a neck-through body wil have great sustain, while a bolt on neck's note will fade away quickly. A set neck (glued neck) falls in the middle. But if you get an E-Bow, you can sustain a note untill its batteries run out.

There really is only one way to get a ton of sustain. I guess you can use compressors, fuzz pedals, overdrive pedals, Delays etc but if you want endless controllable clean sustain, the Fernandes sustainer is the ONLY way to go. Your next best solution is the EBow but that is used mostly for mood effects since you can't really get any sort of attack from it. I usually have one hanging from my mike stand and when playing any of my Strats I'll sometimes just walk up to the mike, pick up the ebow and add some eeire colors. Otherwise I use my Fernades Elite with the built in sustainer system. Really can't beat it ... :)

It might be worth noting that where you stand with respect to your amp would affect your sustain. The same principle that causes feedback, could be kept just under that threshold, or even an intentional controlled feedback. Footage of S.R.V. and Hendrix (among many others) frequently shows them playing in front of and facing their amps.

Good point, distance and angle facing the amp makes a huge difference, however you may not always want that overdriven feedback sustain. Vibrato will also increase the level of natural sustain as the string is forced to continue resonating longer than simply fretting it... it does alter the sound though (by adding vibrato!), which is mostly a good thing... unless you want even sustain without vibrato. If that's the case then look at compression, good pickups (actives tend to offer longer sustain) and a gainy amp setting. Also amps and other analogue gear give far superior sustain when compared to modelers.