Reviewing The Sustainiac Pickup

#sustainiac #guitar #review
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00:00 Intro
01:19 Jam 2/Course Sale
02:09 The Gadget
03:10 Sustainer Experiments
05:07 The History
05:48 What is feedback?
06:38 Review
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[TylerJohnstonGuitar]

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.

[diegombittencourt]

now my wrong notes will sustain forever, cool.

[zylyp]

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.

[gibby]

Synyster gates creates some unbelievable sounds with the sustaniac, the harmonic mode is wild. Check out the solo on Cosmic 👍

[joshpointoh]

1:17 Dude, this is the best use of a sustainiac I could imagine. Not that I am an expert user, but thinking about what to do with that capability, this was amazing.

It used the tech front and center, but didn't sound like using it for the sake of using it. It sounded like that is what you have always wanted to play and couldn't

[FoxxoFox]

Hello sir samurai music man I think it is about time you show us a collection update of all your six strings

[MrBeardsley]

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.

[metallicaspiker]

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.

[alexanderdenison]

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!

[rikkifknrobin]

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

[desolatealex]

Shoegaze enthousiasts:



Who am I kidding they stay silent and just play more drones.

[Creepin_Jesus]

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

[WhiteCranK]

The effect with the slide is just lovely!

[TheWorstManOnEarth]

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.

[AppleSlizerd]

Something that is nice on sustainiac guitars is that you can open up the back of it and turn some knobs to change the intensity or how fast the harmonics come.

[Orvixran]

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...

[JoeR]

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.

[girhen]

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.

[locrianico]

My first experience with this pickup was seeing Steve Hackket perform live. Steve playing peter gabriel era genesis had his sustain all over it

[johnmark]

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.