Stupid idea #1086... Sustainer BEHIND the bridge???

[Deed_Poll]

What do you think would happen? Would it feed back? Or offer overtones galore?

[Logrinn]

If we're talking about placing it behind the bridge on a Tele, I'm pretty sure you'll end up with a lot of nothing

Now, on a Jazzmaster on the other hand ... now that's an interesting question.

[Embenny]

Oh, it would for sure offer a nonstop hum of dissonant BTB tones.

[hpr_hpr]

Interesting idea . . . my biggest 'it wouldn't work' (as in it'll do practically nothing good OR bad) is the fact that it only has a very short length of string to work with there and the amount of force needed to move the string is - I think - proportional to the tension and length of that string so I wouldn't be surprised if the sustainer unit just doesn't have enough oomph to get/keep anything going. AND the force generated is probably - again I think - proportional to the amount of electricity consumed so IF anything 'works' you'd also quite possibly wear out batteries at an alarming rate . . . .

[Gordon]

Sustainers are installed in the neck position to allow the strings to vibrate, and are rendered useless in the bridge position. Even on a JM, halfway between the bridge and the trem, there wouldn't be enough space. Best case scenario, sound would be so low you'd have to use a separate output on the guitar, with its own amp/boost to compensate.

[Embenny]

Sustainers are installed in the neck position to allow the strings to vibrate, and are rendered useless in the bridge position. Even on a JM, halfway between the bridge and the trem, there wouldn't be enough space. Best case scenario, sound would be so low you'd have to use a separate output on the guitar, with its own amp/boost to compensate.

I assume you'd have a BTB pickup in this scenario.

Also, you could set the sustainer right under the strings without concern for things like intonation or hitting it when you depress a fret. There are constraints placed on the regular sustainers that don't apply to BTB.

[Shadoweclipse13]

I have no idea HOW it would sound, but I like the idea! I also think that a JM with a sustainer in the middle position would be very interesting...

[Deed_Poll]

Double post

[Deed_Poll]

Cheers for your thoughts guys!

Some legitimate concerns raised, however. .

1) I would purpose-build a specific guitar for it, so it's position could be optimised to be exactly between the bridge and tailpiece for maximum amplitude

2) I wouldn't be looking to send the signal anywhere in particular, just to use whatever effect there might be passively through the guitars pickups in the usual way

3) I believe the ratio of BTB length to scale length in a JM is about 1/5... I'm thinking I could probably get away with stretching that out to 1/4, and if I use a standard bridge as the tailpiece I could probably tune the BTB strings effectively enough to be EADGBE only 2 octaves up... Altering the height of the BTB saddles might also be useful to control the break angle / sympathetic resonance amount?

4) if I use a Jaguar neck, the bridge will be further towards the neck pocket anyway and the 1/4 BTB scale will be fractionally less as well, maybe it could be doable on a standard sized JM body with some extra routing?

Just some ideas there!

[Flurko]

Look up New Complexity, he has a few designs working with sustainer pickups, behind the bridges and on separate harp/sympathic strings.