Electric Guitar sustain - the truth and the snake oil

There are several generalities used to describe electric guitar sustain:

1. How long the note rings
2. How long you can hear the tone
3. It has sustain for days - dude...

You can use electronic devices to amplify the tone coming from your guitar that will in effect, make the note ring longer. Finding the pedal effect that affects your tone could lead to severe gear acquisition syndrome. Once you turned this corner you will have to test all the electronic devices that affect your tone. Get ready to spend a lot of money!

Next, you can buy brass nut pieces, brass saddles, steel tremelo blocks, titanium tremelo blocks and depleted uranium pieces but it will only psychologically make your guitar sustain better. The string simply needs a firm anchor point to sit, all else is simple string wave propagation physics.

In this matter; The speed of propagation of a wave in a string (v) is proportional to the square root of the tension of the string (T) and inversely proportional to the square root of the linear density (μ) of the string. This means:

• The string will not decelerate slower because you have a high density tremelo block.
• Will not decelerate slower because your guitar is made of iron, etc...

- The hardness of the anchor points WILL matter.

- The ability to maintain the string tension WILL MATTER.

- String density DOES matter.

- Neck Scale DOES matter.

In Melde's experiment he did not find that changing the density of the weight would increase or decrease wave propagation, i.e., sustain.

One must remember that with electric guitars pickups, the guitar pickup react to the ferromagnetic string excitation of the pickup magnetic field and not the wood body reverberation of the string noise(Caveat: providing there is no piezoelectric pickup on this system). Magnetic pickups are not excited by wood reverberation. Therefore, playing the instrument and feeling and hearing it louder due to replacement blocks and heavy mounting brackets does not equate to longer sustain.

However, one might argue that if you anchored the string ends with balsa wood or Styrofoam (low density material) that sustain will be lost. That is true. But that material is not practical for attaching a string.

A prime example would be the Floyd Rose system. There are certainly two fixed points. The tremolo block is usually made of steel (~8000 kg/m3) verse Titanium (~4800 kg/m3) which will lighten the amount of force require to activate the fulcrum but not increase sustain. Sustain is decoupled from the fixture material.

In conclusion, installing a heavy trem block, brass tail piece, aluminum tail piece, carbon fiber tail piece and guides might make your guitar look good but in will not necessarily improve the sound that flows from your amplifier.

Guitar neck scale length - It IS your TONE!

The tireless and inimitable - AL GARE of the Imelda May Band !

If you break down the necessities and all practical matters then you will find that with Electric guitars there are essentially only two guitar types: 24.75 inch scale or 25.5 inch scale. Don't be fooled, the 3/4 of an inch makes a significant different in feel, elasticity and harmonics.

There are different scales used for other guitars but for sake of simple example, I will only relate to the two aforementioned scale lengths. Nevertheless, the tones will be different on ALL scales as you will see later in this article.

It doesn't matter if you have single coil pickups on your Les Paul (24.75) or Humbuckers on your strat (25.5). It's not the pickups! It's the scale or rather the point where the string is suspended which is at the nut and then the bridge. See, in order for your guitar to be tuned to any given frequency, a precise amount of tension much be placed on the strings. The longer the distance between the suspension points = the greater the amount of tension. How does this effect tone? After all, we all know tone is in our fingers and our techniques! Well, you are right! HOLD ON, you are going to play a little differently if you have to push harder, snap it more or exert more force. Well, you still don't believe me??????

The harmonic overtone has evenly spaced nodes along the string doesn't move from it's resting position. This is a fact. However, if you are to place the nodes on a map where you compare the harmonic overtones (which contribute to the timbre) of a 24.75 inch guitar vs a 25.5 inch scale guitar, you will find that the nodes are not similarly placed. The harmonic overtones on a 25.5 inch guitar will have wider spacing while the 24.75 will have a narrower spacing. This spacing if long (25.5) will produce a E note with brighter chime and shiver (a little esoteric but bare with me) while the narrow tighter pack harmonics of the short scale 24.75 will have a thicker, warmer E sounding tone.

But wait, Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Eddie Van Halen, tuned to E flat and especially Eddie - He had monster tone! Yeah, EVH called it the Brown Sound. It's world famous!! But still, this is a compromise. You can get close to a Les Paul sound by de-tuning your long scale (25.5) guitar. You can put heavy gauge strings on the Les Paul to increase the string tension but the fact remains - the scale is a fixed point. You could build a guitar that has a moving nut but the distance between the frets will be off. Regardless, if you had the all the lab equipment at MIT you would never be able to find the exact same mathematically, sonic-ally specific tones on guitars of different scale.

I have heard the same old minutia about "it all in the hands," yeah I know buster! But it's also like this:

EAR > BRAIN > HAND > PAPER = MUSIC

OR

BRAIN > HAND > INSTRUMENT = MUSIC

When the hand is deployed it has input to the brain. Different string scale effects the elasticity and tension of the string (to say the least). Therefore, your guitar scale effects your tone in a large way. One scale is not better than the other. Both are brilliant!! By all means, experiment and HAVE FUN with your guitar, bass, and I hope you now are more informed!

Cheers!

Darrel Higham playing his Gretsch White Falcon (24.75 scale)

Photo graphed at the Independent in San Francisco 8.9.11

Old Gretsch Guitar ad

Gretsch Guitars deserve your interest!

Check out one at a shop near you!

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Imelda May Band on Conan O'Brian show - Mayhem!

Rough schedule! Lolapalooza then to L.A. to tape with Conan and the next day (which happens to be today 8-9-11) to San Francisco at The independent! I can't wait!!!

This just in - PortLand is a lucky town! I just returned from the Imelda May show at the Independent in San Francisco. Too wired to sleep! I will report more later.

Foo Fighters Garage Tour - !

Foo Fighters had a contest where the winners would have the FOO FIGHTER show up and play in YOUR garage!

They taped the results and share it with you - the fans!

Jammin' Johns - This is Exceptional!

Ok, Reading my latest version of Rolling Stone magazine back section - The Shop I found the following "music to your rears," and thought I'd give ya'll a shout about this!

Click here to view the Jammin' Johns Shop!
Super creative seat for solving world hunger, despair and economic meltdowns!

Guitar Scale Patterns & Structure (6th string Root)

This guide utilizes the 6th string starting point as the root note of the scale. Keep in mind that this is only one of many positions to play the included scales.