• Techniques
  • How Do Electric Guitarists Create Indefinitely Sustained Notes?
2012/09/11 13:29:21
dmbaer
I've got a guitar question that's so basic it's almost embarrassing.  I asked it upstairs in a thread on TH2 but got no response, so I'll try again here.
  
You pluck an accoustic guitar and the note dies out.  But electric guitarists have a way of making notes sustain indefinitely.  How do they do that?  I've heard several explanations: hold the guitar in front of the amp and the string self-oscillates, use some magnetic widget you hold above the strings that keeps the strings oscillating.
   
But is there some kind of software component that would mimic this effect ... like something you'd maybe find in a package like TH2?  It seems to me it might be a very cool thing to have in ones bag of tricks for occasional use in synth tracks.
2012/09/11 13:32:58
spacealf
cool thing to have in ones bag of tricks for occasional use in synth tracks. If you have a synth to play then there is the hold pedal and guitar patches (that are suppose to sound like a guitar but never quite do unless you are playing some old type of music and then trying to form the chord like a guitar which leaves it even harder to do.) But there is distortion guitar and other patches like that also. Mainly it is feedback from the guitar and amp.
2012/09/11 13:33:34
batsbrew
i do it with sheer volume.

if you have a medium-gained tube amp, and you stand just so................!
near the cabinet, the volume will grab the string, and make it sympathetically vibrate.

the artistic part, is to get SO GOOD at controlling it, that you can use it to create specific notes


i have a song posted right now in song forum, called 'michaels house', that is FULL of these 'Feedback' moments captured on tape.


2012/09/11 13:59:46
The Maillard Reaction

This is a recording of a single pluck of a pick which can be heard at the onset:

http://harmoniccycle.com/...ngles/Dunkirk_128k.mp3

I just positioned the guitar so that the strings resonated with the sound what was coming out of the speaker. On occasions I would lightly lay the head stock on the speaker cabinet to create a sense of rapid acceleration.

The only way I know of to do this thru a amp sim is to work a studio monitor to near death.

I think it's much more practical to do it with a music instrument speaker that was designed for such use.


best regards,
mike
2012/09/11 14:43:33
Guitarhacker
Yup....I 'll go along with the sheer volume thing.....But...actually, with the right tube amp....and the right tone settings.....sheer volume was not needed to get it going on.....  I used to have an extension guitar speaker (15" Fender) on the floor in front of me powered from my Boogie that would let me get that sustain and controlled feedback when I needed it without having to turn around towards the amp.
2012/09/11 14:45:27
batsbrew
you can also do this with a fernandez sustainor, or a E Bow
2012/09/11 14:46:35
SongCraft
Other than amp settings and speaker/mic setup as already mentioned, a good bass sustain and compression pedal should work, a bass distortion pedal should also work (if you don't mind the added distortion) and there should be good 'software' versions out there. 
2012/09/11 14:51:19
Danny Danzi
Hey David,

You've gotten great responses so far. Keep in mind though, there is a difference between note sustain and feeding back in key like what Mike has presented. There are some guitar players like Bats and Mike who like what we call natural sustain where the notes are sustaining from volume or just the right set-up for a player and the guitar. This relies more on right place, right time as well as making things loud enough to carry over. This is usually achieved by using less gain at the gain stage and either allowing a tube power amp to do the work, or extreme volume push through the right speaker cab to help...or a little of both at the same time. It's a great method that will give you a cleaner gain sound that won't go to mud. Guys in the 60's and 70's used this method and some of the great players of today still use it. It's what we like to call "pure tone" because it's not synthetically created using a gain stage.

The other method is to pump up the gain stage. The more gain you use, the more sustain you get. However, there are pro's and cons to this. With more gain comes a muddier tone unless you can compress it just right so that it tightens up the extreme gain and stops it from soundinglikearunonsentence of mud. LOL! Newer amps of today come with a much better pre-amp in them to where it becomes subjective as to whether you would want more gain at a low volume, or less gain at a loud volume for the purist type tone. Both work incredibly well.

But for what you are looking for, if I'm reading correctly, you pretty much want a guitar note to scream and sound like you pressed a key on the keyboard, correct? Like an infinitely sustained note, right?

This is hard to get. The only way I know how to do it is to use a Fernandes Sustainer (which is built into the guitar...Neal Schon from Journey uses one and he can hit one note and it lasts forever) or a Sustainiac system. All the other methods I use are hybrids of what Mike and Bats shared or you must have a really hot pre-amp (guitar pre-amp that is) to give you the right drive.

Now, with that TH2 and other guitar sims, most times you get loads of gain, but little sustain because amp sims are missing that buffered signal you get in a regular amp. You can put a compressor in your chain BEFORE the amp sim to sort of simulate this or even a light distortion pedal or something. This way the sound will react and sustain more like a real amp would. But most sims are lacking that sustain unless you can crank up your monitors and get a little power from the volume so things feed back like what Mike presented.

The only other thing I can suggest (which I've done often) is to get the hottest and most driven sound you can out of a guitar note, and then sample it. Once it's sampled, trim it up the way you want it and search the sample for even sustain...then copy that part and ammend it to the original by copying and pasting. Crossfade/edit so you can't hear where the ammended file was added, and you can make one note scream for minutes if need be. I've done this several times with success. Sometimes a player would hit a note and it would die out. He'd try to punch it in and do it over and over with volume, more gain etc...sometimes, a particular guitar and sound just doesn't equal "infinite". So you have to manufacture it.

I just would take some of the clip that sustained evenly, copy it and then paste it into a section to make it longer while experimenting with the slip-editing/cross fading stuff until it sounded like one big long note. That's the only thing I can really suggest that would work for you though. The TH2 has some cool stuff in it to bring up the input gain (from what I've read about it) so it very well may give you that simulated input gain most amp sims are lacking. I've not tried it for myself, but one of my friends is a tester for that company and he told me how awesome it was.

Anyway, hope some of this helps. Good luck. :)

-Danny
 
P.S. +1 on the Ebow...that thing is madness!
2012/09/11 15:05:15
Guitarhacker
Good point by DD... to get this with a sim will be slightly more difficult because you do not have the feedback loop going acoustically between the speakers and strings which is crucial to the equation. 
2012/09/11 15:12:05
batsbrew
so then use the other devices i mentioned...
voila, done
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