Originally Posted by: light487by doing what?.. I can always use more sustain direct from the guitar itself.. do you just move the pickups closer to the strings? (ie. raise them higher)

Well the most obvious thing to fdo is to change pickups to a more high output set that will give a hotter tone. Failing that as an option, then raising the level of the pickup does indeed increase the output (also important to make sure the action of the strings is as low as possible so as not to cause hum or intonation problems). The problem with a lot of stock pickups is that they are muddy and not very sympathetic to tonal variations. Boosting some overdrive with distortion give a more blusey tone that can increase sustain somewhat but... changing pickups is the surest way to improve tone!