First Impressions of Feedback Control

I'm having a rough go with the beginning of the school quarter, having intense assignments in both my calculus and Java progamming classes right off the bat.  But I managed to bring Big Riff home from Mike & Mike's, along with all of my other gear from my church, and have taken a little bit of time to sit down, plug it in (at the lowest volume possible in the house), and tweak it.  It's helping my brain cope with the stress.

The Couch Racer X strap looks fantastic with the 3-ply pickguard, by the way.

Per my custom when I bring a guitar home, the very first thing I did was raise both of the pickups as high up as they would go without being hit by or affecting the strings.  I don't care to go into exact measurements, but they're up very close to the strings.  I raised the pole pieces on the Duncan Distortion bridge pickup so that each pole is an equal distance from its adjacent string.  I've read and heard over the years that doing this can cause phase issues, or that an extra powerful pickup (like a Duncan Invader with its oversized magnets) can literally pull strings out of tune, but I've been doing this for a long time and have completely made it part of my approach to the instrument.  Just feels right to me.

 I may be hated by many for doing this, but I don't care.

And...  The issues with Sustainiac's "lightness" or "softness" I mentioned in the previous post, all went away.  This thing screams!  The change was so drastic that it became intimidating to use.  It can "grab" notes immediately and begin sustaining them; either one note with the same strength as the eBow (mentioned in my third post from back in April last year), or several notes with the driver's magnetic pull divided between them.  It will sustain any string that's left open, so I'm going to have to be very intentional to mute strings with my left hand.  The website says that it grabs thicker, wound strings much more easily than the lighter strings, but I think the string response overall is about equal, and works just about everywhere on the fretboard.  There's extra incentive to keep the neck straight so that no dead spots appear and ruin any sustain I might try to have going.

The Sustainiac's three harmonic modes (called Normal, Harmonic, and Mix by the manufacturer) each have a character all their own:

The Normal mode is simply the first note, the fundamental, which sounds every bit like the eBow's "low" setting.  The response is quick and it grabs the lower strings more readily but will work on the high strings if I'm holding them down.

The Mix mode plays 2nd and 3rd harmonics, much like the higher setting of an eBow.  It takes the longest of the three modes to track—up to 2-3 seconds longer than the other modes.  At first I didn't like the way it did this, but after some time I figured out that I can "punch in" a little bit of some harmonic action to add some color to a chord.  I am now leaving the switch in the middle position to activate the Mix mode first when I turn the driver on.

The Harmonic mode has the fastest response of the three modes and replicates amp feedback with obnoxiously high 3rds and 5ths.  It favors playing one string or note very loudly and tends to pick a higher string before it will grab a low string.  Floyd Rose dive bombs are a lot of fun on this setting, mostly on account of being obnoxious.

After reading a few times over on the Sustainiac's website that most players tend to leave the driver controller solely at its maximum setting, I thought that I might have the same experience; in other words, I'd have a functioning but useless knob on my guitar.  But it's totally useful.  I can "fade" out the strength of the driver, completely controlling the rate of decay on a note or a chord.  I can set the pot halfway or two-thirds of the way down and it will lightly grab the notes in a chord—very interesting for adding drones to chords with the Mix mode on a light-to-medium gain amp setting.

The driver has weird reactions to the tone control.  It tends to shy away from grabbing strings with the tone rolled down, but it still works.  I'll need some more time to play around with this; I know there's a cool and usable trick lurking in that control setting somewhere.

The Sustainiac as a neck pickup is just that: a simple single-coil.  The +6 db "dark boost" works and resembles a '59 neck pickup.  I typically never use a neck pickup by itself.  I'm used to matching an alnico humbucker in the neck position with a hot ceramic humbucker in the bridge, and putting the pickup selector in the middle position whenever I want clean(er) tones.  To be honest, I have no idea where I'll go with this thing.  I might find that I enjoy clean single-coil tones with it and start flipping all the way to the neck position, or I might push the dark boost to classic Siamese Dream rhythm tone territory.

I'm pleased to find that the active controls don't affect the output of the pickups.  Yes, that's right, I said pickupS.  I took the 9-volt battery out of the back of the guitar and both pickups still worked, along with the volume and tone knobs.  If the battery ever runs out while I'm playing, I lose the driver and "dark boost" capabilities, but I've still got a functioning guitar.
EDIT 2/24/2015: I later found this to be incorrect.  When the battery runs down completely, or when there's no battery, it simply sets itself to using the bridge pickup—the Duncan TB-6 Distortion.  I can make do with this.

It's a happy accident that the Floyd Rose's whammy bar is perfectly within a one-handed reach of the Sustainiac's switches.  Back when I was designing the guitar, I only knew that I wanted the switches below the strings but out of the way of my pick attack.  However, it's very convenient and useful to have the palm of my right hand centered on the whammy bar while being able to work both of the driver switches with my middle or ring finger.

One hand, three different operations: picking, whammy bar, switching electronics.

It's yet another happy accident that I decided to put the concentric knob as far back or down as possible on the pickguard, because the whammy bar barely clears it (both knobs, actually).  I didn't think about it during the design phase, but it would have come back to annoy heck out of me.  Or maybe I would have received a phone call from Mike during assembly: "Hey man, I know you want everything a particular way, but the whammy bar is hitting the concentric pot..."

By the way, the Duncan TB-6 Distortion was the perfect choice for this guitar and for pairing with the Sustainiac.  It really is the unsung hero here; a tone workhorse producing a great balance of lows, mids, and highs; it's suitable for heavy palm muting, leads, and even clean tones.  As I've mentioned before, I've had the Distortion (SH-6 model) in several guitars in the past and it's definitely no accident that I chose to have one again.

Take that, Strats-should-only-have-single-coils purists!

There's a lot to this guitar and it's going to take some time to build up the... connection with the instrument so that there's no thinking involved when handling the controls.  But I'm already discovering new tricks, especially in conjunction with the Moogerfoogers (hint: the Ring Modulator just LOVES the Sustainiac!) and I'm FINALLY able to do some of the things I had only dreamed of.  I'm finally able to explore that part of "my voice", the techie side of my personality coming through in creating the weirdest sounds possible.  And with my own hands, no less.

Alright, no more messing around.  It's time for some metal.  Revocation are the best thrash band I've been introduced to this past year and a half:

Field Trip To The Guitar Bar

Much has happened since the last update, and I would have preferred to post at least once since then, but December was a crazy time in terms of final exams, catching up on relationships, giving myself too many things to do when I intended to get rest, and switching rooms in the house I live in, which meant no internet there for a little while.  In short, BIG RIFF IS NOW A FULLY FUNCTIONING GUITAR.

Allow me to backtrack a little and tell the story.  At the tail end of November, while I was just recovering from my kidney stone episode, I went out to see Michael Adams and Mike Ball, purveyors of Mike & Mike's Guitar Bar, play a show in one of the many Ballard bars as their '90s-era Weezer cover band, My Name Is Jonas Brothers.  It was revealed to me then that Mike A. would be moving to Los Angeles with his wife at the end of the year.  Bummer!  I was asked to keep it hush-hush for the time being, but we talked of bringing in the pieces to my guitar and having him work on it before he left.

Throughout the process of designing and eventually building this guitar, the intent would have been to do as much work as I could by myself, including the wiring.  Then I tried to drill the holes for the tuning machine screws on the back of the headstock (embarrassingly noted in my Prep Work post), which was a minor disaster and served a stern warning to think about what kind of guitar I wanted—a professional instrument—and what my current skill level is in woodworking and guitar repairs: let's say, a two out of ten.  Michael's upcoming move became the lynchpin in helping me get over my arrogance and agree to having him complete the full setup of the guitar.  I trusted him with my instrument; there was no issue with that.  I just couldn't trust myself anymore, at least with this project at this time.

So I brought in all of the pieces to the Guitar Bar and we went over what I was envisioning for the build.  An additional cavity would need to be routed out underneath the pickguard for the placement of the DPDT switches.

By the way, those little buggers weren't cheap.  $15 a pop for black flat levers because the only online sites that carry them are guitar parts carriers.  I'm not impressed with being ripped off here.  Any other DPDT type switches would have been much more affordable at $4 to $9 apiece.  Notice how the left and right switches are 2-position "ON-ON" and the middle is a 3-position "ON-OFF-ON"—that's no accident.

The work desk of Mike & Mike's, where my axe would be assembled.

Daddy needs to leave you here for a little while...  Don't worry, you're in good company!  Go play and make friends!

It took a tremendous amount of patience not to pester the shop with questions about any progress being made with the guitar for a few weeks, but like a parent eager to know how his kids are doing while he's away, it did happen a little bit.  Nick, just back off and let the man do his work.  Toward the end of December, however, I received confirmation that the most grueling task of the project was being tackled.

This is the image Mike sent me of where we agreed to install the Sustainiac's switches, just before routing a space underneath the pickguard.  This is veeeeeeery close to where the battery box cavity sits on the back side of the guitar, so placement here is crucial.

Switch cavity routed out.  Notice that there's additional routing in the existing main cavity; this is where we agreed the circuit board should go.  (Image courtesy Michael Adams [Instagram @puisheen])

Wiring this thing must have been a NIGHTMARE, but Mike did a killer job keeping it all together.  A channel was routed out on the top side so that the pickguard could be installed and taken off without destroying the wiring—but of course I was asked to never remove it.  We had the copper shielding removed from the pickup cavities because the Sustainiac needs to set up an electromagnetic field between it and the bridge pickup to work properly.  The shielding in the other cavities remained.  (Image courtesy Michael Adams [Instagram @puisheen])

Having been told only that "it works", I came by the shop to see the recent progress.  The electronics set had been finished and the neck's nut offset was fixed by filling in the screw holes and redrilling them.

Much better!  I'm going to email Warmoth with photos of the nut before and after; not to scold or get anything out of them, but only to let them know that they did make a mistake, which I hadn't caught because I didn't have the nut when I received the neck.

The concentric pot has master volume on top, master tone on bottom.  The other knob is the driver strength controller for the Sustainiac; I expect to use it the least of all of the guitar's controls, so it makes sense that it sits right underneath where the trem arm will rest.  The small switch between the two knobs is the +6db "dark boost" for the Sustainiac when it's being used as a pickup.  The pickup selector is simply a three-way Tele-style CRL switch:

Black-on-black near such an eye-popping color is hard to photograph, by the way.

And, of course, the switches for the Sustainiac's operation.  The switch on the left (toward the bridge) turns the Sustainiac on and off, and the switch on the right (toward the neck) is the 3-position toggle for the harmonic modes:

EXACTLY where I envisioned that I wanted them.  Very easy to reach, and yet out of the way of where I pick and strum.  Perfect!

A few days later, the guitar was completed and I came over to try it out.  I didn't have a whole lot of time to play that particular day, so I plugged into a single-channel tube amp; otherwise I would have asked to try it out on the Orange Rockerverb 50 head that they have in the shop to run it through its paces on high gain.  Anyway, the Duncan Distortion pickup was loud and punchy right off the bat, without any of the pole pieces being raised up like I normally do with all of my guitars.  The Sustainiac, when used as a pickup, has a decidedly single-coil feel to it, and the "dark boost" gives it a considerable kick.  Master volume and tone are smooth on the concentric pot; not scratchy.

...And the Sustainiac works.  Reach down, flip the switch to turn it on, and it automatically selects the Duncan for pickup output while it's working its magic on the strings.  Strum a chord, wait for the notes to decay a little, and you can feel it "grab" the strings.  It will sustain multiple strings at once, so you have mute whatever you don't want being played.  The harmonic mode switch works instantaneously, too.  I was able to make some interesting sounds and progressions right away by working the harmonic switch in conjunction with dive-bombing on the Floyd Rose.

The Sustainiac did feel a little light on its response, even at its maximum setting.  Some tweaking may need to be done with the pickup height (higher or lower with either or both pickups), the string action, or even by changing string brand.  Ernie Ball boasts a higher magnetic resonance with its Cobalt Slinky line.  I already use Cobalts on my Jackson SL2H Soloist and they feel, play, and sound great, so it might behoove me to use them on Big Riff.  Perhaps none of these factors will make a difference once I've got the guitar plugged into my own gear and "break in" my instrument.  In any case, this is not a reflection on Mike's workmanship; I will stand behind it and support him, because he did a truly kickass job.

The guitar itself is punchy and...  stout is the word Mike used, and it's perfect.  The Heaviest Strat In The World beckons you to dig in with your pick, to pitch it your hardest and fastest riff so it can knock it out of the park, grand slam!  I am finally FREED from having my knuckles hit a knob underneath the strings, so I can palm mute any way that I like.  The full-float Floyd Rose bridge, again, allows for notes to be raised and lowered.  Definitely the right choice and I'm looking forward to pairing it in interesting ways with the Sustainiac.  When you're comfortable with your setup, you feel better, you're confident, and you play better.  This guitar is going to wind up being my main go-to instrument before long.

At 10 pounds 6 ounces, Big Riff is ready to rock.

There are some logistics to work out before I can take it home, but I expect to have it cleared up in about a week.  I can't thank the shop enough for completing my dream axe.

The project isn't finished yet, and won't be for a little bit.  I normally use nylon straps, but I just ordered a new Racer X vinyl strap from Couch Guitar Straps since I got to try one with my Strat and it was very comfortable.  I still need a new hardshell case: 99 percent sure I'll purchase an SKB flight case.  I returned the Floyd Rose 32 mm brass tone block with a promise that I would revisit picking up the 37 mm size later on, but I did order a new set of springs for the Floyd since I prefer having four rather than the standard three in the rear cavity.

I talked to a media professional friend about making a decal design for the headstock, and he said he could/would do it.  I'll get with him shortly to share ideas.

If you made it all the way to the end of this ridiculously long post about a guitar, I salute you.  Now relax and listen to some synthesizers!  Can't get enough of the new Rentals record, Lost In Alphaville.