Sustain, and the variables involved....

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by James on March 16, 2012 at 9:21pm

i like to think having a through neck has alot to do with sustain, i also think, from my personal, as well as observation on this site , that red oak, is a factor. then add what you want to not talk about. pickups , amps  feed back. just my personal experience  not really even qualified to be talking lol

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on March 16, 2012 at 10:50pm

I have to agree with the thru neck for sustain. I use black walnut for the necks and have good sustain acoustically. 

I'm not sure the pickups add any sustain, they just amplify what's there. So a nice hard wood helps.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bluesheart on March 16, 2012 at 11:09pm

Yep. hard wood for the neck and as Michael and James said, through neck I'm sure helps. I think it is really a sum of the parts though. The thickness/thinness of the top, bridge/saddle material (hard better for transmission of vibration). I'm a little torn about break angle right now. I always thought a sharp break angle over the saddle was best but my best sounding CBG so far and my Morell resonator guitar both have a rather shallow angle over the saddle and the have tons of acoustic sustain. Ultimatley, I think the box will have the most influence on sustain and volume. A large box with a thin soundboard will produce more volume and sustain, or at least you can hear the sustain longer since it is louder. Just my feelings about it.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Jon Pruett on March 17, 2012 at 12:17am

In my understanding, sustain is increased when nothing else absorbs the energy from the string so the string can keep moving and nothing else on the guitar except the sound board vibrates to suck energy out of the string. I've had the best sustain with dense wood for a nice stiff neck (like a tight grain piece of oak or even better hard maple) with a very solid neck joint or through neck constructions. And a thin and securely fastened box lid. Better if the box lid is wood instead of compressed paper too. But that's just my 2 cents - your mileage may vary and I'm sure there are people out there making great sounding instruments doing all kinds of different things.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Ron "Oily" Sprague on March 17, 2012 at 2:02am

This is exactly the question Les Paul was trying to answer when he built his Log. He wanted the string to vibrate; nothing else (you can look it up, it's a direct quote). He achieved this, for the day and time, by doing what was essentially a neck-through, using a piece of 4 X 4 straight pine.

 

 

 

 

Mag pups have nothing to do with it; it's about keeping the string vibrating as long as possible, leaving as little energy as possible to be transmitted through the neck, the fretboard, the soundboard, the back and sides, the bridge, the saddle, the nut, and the tuners. Other luthiers have achieved this with even thicker or denser woods, and still others have improved on that by using denser metals. The denser the neck (wood or metal), the better the sustain. Energy from string vibration doesn't get absorbed as easily in a dense wood, which has smaller cells.

 

The ideal sustaining guitar would be a neck, no box, made out of metal, with tuners, bridge, saddle, etc. made out of the same dense amterial. Everything made of titanium woiuld be about right. This has already been done (check the Internet for the Gittler guitar). The ideal way for a cigar box would be two that I can think of: 1) A neck through with very dense neck wood, or a solid metal neck; 2) same thing, but fill the box cavity with an extremely dense material, and attach the neck directly to that. There are builders here at CBN who fill the entire box cavity with a dense wood; go back to about mid-2009 or early 2010 here for some examples.

 

Dense woods commonly used for necks: mahogany, rock maple, rosewood (not typically used for necks, but often used for fretboards), koa, walnut, wenge, bubinga, and ebony.

 

Your expense may vary. Remember, we're building cigar box guitars.

 

 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Turkeychicken on March 17, 2012 at 7:05pm

I have seen The Log and several other of Les Pauls early experimental guitars in person several times, including one made from a piece of railroad track with a spike as the bridge. Without discrediting his pioneering achievements that changed music forever, his work/alterations were horrendous. But I suppose cosmetics don't mean a thing if it don't make it sing. I quit smoking this year, saving the money once spent killing myself to buy a Gibson Les Paul. I have had several copies, but I owe it to myself to buy the real thing.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Lonman on March 19, 2012 at 9:20pm

ooh, yes, go for it, get the Les Paul with the $$$$ saved from cigs. Would love to see you with it!

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Slowpaw Steve T on March 17, 2012 at 2:58am

"String-break angles at the nut / saddle?

Reinforcement during construction?

Nut / saddle materials? "

 

yes all these things! get these right and sustain should be pretty good, but a solid bridge and properly cut and dressed bone nut should help a lot! (-:

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by The Phrygian Kid on March 17, 2012 at 5:29am

The fundamental problem with all of these answers is that they're all true. Reducing the resonance that a soundboard robs from the strings. Yes. But what's the point when no one is gonna hear it?? The strings make the top sing. This causes the note to decay. Catch 22. Making sound takes energy where does this energy come from? Acoustic guitars do not sustain, not really. That being said the best answer I could give you is heavier strings, ie greater tension. Mag pups btw rob sustain cos the magnets rob movement from the strings too. Want proof? Compare an esquire to a telecaster. Steel guitar horseshoe and string thru pups are an exception cos the magnetic field is equally above and below ie neutral. The best answer is get an amp and crank the fkr, except the asker rules that out. Or play with a bow. or use some kind of effect pedal or play it in a vacuum perhaps, take it into outer space yeah that'll work. Good luck

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Turkeychicken on March 17, 2012 at 7:18pm

Thanks for the replies, I guess you all just reinforced what I already assumed. I haven't been diligent enough to take notes of my builds or record or video much to have a "database" of what has worked better than others, but with a different type/size of box for each build, I really had no way of knowing exactly what changes had effected the tone and sustain. Now that I am trying to make sense of what I am doing, I bet it would make an improvement if I glue the lids shut and make access panels on the back to prevent the transfer of vibrations of the lid from sucking the sustain from the strings... I have even thought to myself that the bottom of the boxes would make for a better sounding guitar, but 90% of my customers are more interested in the beauty of the label than the beauty of the tone.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by BT Cohosh on March 19, 2012 at 8:05pm

The more rigid the overall structure, the greater the sustain.  Through-necks are gonna sustain more than a bolt-on hollowbody; more rigid neck-woods longer than more flexible ones.  The bridge vibrating on the boxwood is gonna rob energy from the string.  The guitar of mine that *sustains* best (not best sound) is a Crow-style build where the neck screws to the *outside* of the box.  Like everything else, I think, the whole sustain-vs-tone thing involves a lot of trade-offs.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Walter Cengia on May 31, 2012 at 10:05am

This is exactly the sort of discussion that new builders need, Thanks guys.

regards to all

Walt

 

• ▶ Reply