Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Discussion of newer designs, copies and reissue offset-waist instruments.
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by Fiddy » Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:49 pm

parry wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:01 pm
Why isn't anybody talking SUSTONE™?!
Parry my brother, the only TONE that's "SUS" around here is TONEbombs questionable customer service.

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by bessieboporbach » Mon Sep 19, 2022 4:35 pm

tribi9 wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:29 am
What do you gents do with all this extra sustain?
The sustain fetishism is something I have never understood about guitar players.

Did you really get into music to play doofy bends that go "SPLEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee"? Do you really listen to your favorite guitar players and go, "damn! That note sure was...long"?

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by Embenny » Mon Sep 19, 2022 5:02 pm

bessieboporbach wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 4:35 pm
The sustain fetishism is something I have never understood about guitar players.

Did you really get into music to play doofy bends that go "SPLEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee"? Do you really listen to your favorite guitar players and go, "damn! That note sure was...long"?
Hey! My bends actually go "sploooo" more than "spleeee."

You're correct of course. The "sustain" thing has never been musically relevant to me since I've never had a guitar stop playing a note I wanted prematurely before I was done with it. Besides, if I wanted infinite sustain for musical effect (legato, simulating synth pads, shaping feedback/noise, etc) I'd either use an eBow, a Sustainer, or more likely just hold the guitar up to the speaker cabinet at high volume, all of which can produce more interesting sounds than just playing a note on the heaviest of brass-bridged Les Pauls.
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by BoringPostcards » Mon Sep 19, 2022 6:11 pm

We totally derailed this thread. In all seriousness, I agree with those that say the Doheny would have more sustain. With the DFV (dual fulcrum vibrato) there is no way it wouldn’t have more.
I plan on getting a Doheny at some point. Not because I am not happy with the sustain on my Jazzmaster, but because I really like G&L guitars, and am excited about them having finally done an offset. Not to mention the pickup designs. Both the Doheny and the V12 have really nice pickups.
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by CivoLee » Mon Sep 19, 2022 7:30 pm

ainm wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:02 am
Some people, like me, just like the way offsets look and have them in all configurations. Can I ask if it's the offset aesthetic or sound you're chasing?
For me it's more about looks and feel than a sound. I do appreciate the traditional Jazzmaster look (bridge/vibrato included) but maybe at the end of the day it isn't the best guitar for me.

As for the whole "sustain" thing, I'm not some blooze boomer trying to sound like [insert preferred denim-clad 70s rock star here], I just like to have notes ring out a while longer at the end of a lead break.

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by timtam » Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:07 pm

I can understand people saying (long) sustain isn't really relevant to how they play. But the factors that cause sustain to be reduced in one guitar compared to another are in play from the moment the note is struck. It's not like all guitars have notes that decay in much the same way until some just suddenly 'drop off a cliff' when sustain dies. String vibrations decay gradually over time, so poor sustain affects the sonic 'mix' at all points in time. Decay rate is however similar very early in the note's time history, but then begins to separate soon after in the note's 'life' in different guitars/setups.

Unfortunately no one has done much such measurement research on offsets. But since we are talking about Dohenys - with strat-style trems - the way that the strat trem affects sustain has been studied by Zollner. A floating strat trem's spring suspension is excited to vibrate by string vibrations mostly in the 500Hz to 1kHz range, and thus loses string vibrations to it in that range. Thus a floating trem has reduced sustain in that frequency band compared to a decked trem, and a different sonic profile at earlier points in time. See amplitude versus time graphs for different frequency bands in those two configurations below (floating at bottom). So a Doheny will have a different sonic profile depending on how its trem is configured.
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https://youtu.be/E5hnjFgbxFs?t=2929
(turn on Closed Captions and German->English translation to get the gist in English).
See also ch7 in 'Physics of the Electric Guitar':
https://www.gitec-forum-eng.de/2019/08/ ... s-on-line/
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by JSett » Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:58 pm

BoringPostcards wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 6:11 pm
We totally derailed this thread.
I don't know what you mean?!

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by parry » Tue Sep 20, 2022 4:55 am

tribi9 wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 2:49 pm
parry wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:01 pm
Why isn't anybody talking SUSTONE™?!
Parry my brother, the only TONE that's "SUS" around here is TONEbombs questionable customer service.
:D

But it's true :( :'(
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by panoramic » Tue Sep 20, 2022 5:14 am

parry wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 12:01 pm
Why isn't anybody talking SUSTONE™?!
My kid would be loling at this since AMONG US slang has elevated "SUS" to some other bullshit.
I used to be cool, now I just complain about prices.

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by beninma » Wed Sep 21, 2022 10:10 am

I have a Doheny (US).

It has a lot of sustain for something with a Tremolo bridge. More than most Strats I've played. (I've spent lots more time playing traditional Strats than JMs). It's probably down to the massive block it has. Everything about the DFV bridge is heavy and substantial.

It sustains close enough to guitars with a fixed bridge I wouldn't really notice it. The DFV bridge is just flat out great in a lot of ways. It doesn't go out of tune, it has a great feel on the vibrato arm, it's comfortable against your hand, intonates well, it seems to handle bending one string in a double stop without bending the other really well for a tremolo bridge, etc...

Obviously it doesn't matter for some stuff and matters for other stuff. And there are other things too.. what amp you have and how you have it setup probably matter more. And you can always use a compressor pedal and make anything sustain longer.

It seems like a lot of those singing lead/solo tones you're going to kick on drive and/or compressor and/or delay and all those things are going to be a bigger factor than the guitar.

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by tammyw » Wed Sep 21, 2022 9:56 pm

Don't forget about the G&L Saddle-Lock bridge if you don't need the vibrato, it sustains like uranium. You'd have to adjust your technique to rein in the sustain. Sometimes I thread my ponytail between the strings to mute the extra sustain.

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by 46346 » Thu Sep 22, 2022 1:46 am

if by 'better', you mean 'longer', then generally, yes. quite a bit longer in most cases.
my early single coil Doheny, out of the box, has more volume and sustain than my modern Jazzmasters did.

i got a Doheny V12 earlier this year, and it's sustain really surprised me, cuz it's really effective at lower volumes where other guitars fade away. i got it for an especially ambient project, where i play sort of like pedal steel, where the chords and lines need to swell out over more than a few bars - and the pickups and electronics are darn quiet - no buzzing creeps in. this is great cuz i'm often doing live soundtrack work in the theater with all kinds of lighting and electrical variables.

but in less sensitive gigs (rock clubs) i have no problem getting my 1959 Jazzmaster to sustain nearly any note, using a simple compressor pedal. or even just an overdrive. i've had this guitar a long time, so i've really got the thing set up for that, with original bridge, pickups, everything. i got my string gauges and saddles and nut and pickup height all dialed in.
the only issue is that it can get a bit buzzy in most clubs or theaters when driven like that after a couple measures of sustain. but it's not a problem in my studio.

i used to like the ebow, but have found it mostly unnecessary after setting up most of my guitars to sustain well. then i choose my amp based on the room we're in, and how much feedback/sustain i want at a given volume.
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by 46346 » Thu Sep 22, 2022 2:12 am

bessieboporbach wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 4:35 pm
tribi9 wrote:
Mon Sep 19, 2022 9:29 am
What do you gents do with all this extra sustain?
The sustain fetishism is something I have never understood about guitar players.

Did you really get into music to play doofy bends that go "SPLEEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee"? Do you really listen to your favorite guitar players and go, "damn! That note sure was...long"?

this demonstrates a ridiculous ignorance of the instrument and music itself.

while it's not an especially popular technique among Jazzmaster/Jaguar players,
i can't stop counting the number of legendary players who do this to memorable effect (and some of them *do* so on offsets).

i don't think they are aiming for a long distance record, they are simply making a musical choice.

and it really can sound magical, it's one of the great features of *electric* guitar, if it has ever-shifting
overtones, or simply a slow natural fade. i really don't think anyone is taking measurements, it's just
that a lot of music actually has long notes, and it's fantastic when they can be sustained without having to reach for another tool or make another percussive attack.

plus, it just plain sucks when you want the sound to continue but it doesn't :D
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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by beninma » Thu Sep 22, 2022 6:33 am

Right more sustain is always better.

It's easier to eliminate the sustain with technique than to have to add it in with electronics that require extra purchases, unless the sustain somehow harms some other aspect of the tone I guess.

It's always so interesting to me that a piece of gear can be considered a dead end or even failure by the person who created it but then another group of people comes along later and decides it was actually super valuable. This is kind of the case with some of these offset bridges. Leo Fender created them all apparently, decided the JM bridge/tremolo was not something he wanted to keep working on and went back to innovating off the Strat style bridge/tremolo, but then others decided they really liked the JM style and then Fender, Mastery, etc.. all come around decades later and restart development/refinement of the JM style bridge & tremolo. Maybe I have some of the history wrong but it's very interesting. I've read a few Fender books but have never really seen much historical stuff about how the offsets came to be and then were treated.

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Re: Do Dohenys sustain better than Jazzmasters?

Post by Larry Mal » Thu Sep 22, 2022 7:12 am

You know, I'm going to stop this a little bit and talk about sustain, and why it's not really a goal worth pursuing.

I went on an acoustic guitar tear a couple years ago, and bought a whole bunch of them, including a lot of Gibsons.

Gibson guitars aren't really able to be categorized into one kind of "sound", but they do tend to have less focus on sustain overall compared to other guitar makers, such as Martin, that seem to have more sustain typically.

So, according to this thread, that makes them "worse", or, it's a shame not to have the sustain.

However, once you get to recording these guitars, you find out that this is actually a strength. Since the notes decay quicker, you end up with a situation in which you aren't hearing the previously played notes as much when you are playing the current notes. This can translate as having a guitar that sounds cleaner and more crisp.

This also helps when mixing the guitars. What sounds good when played unaccompanied can quickly turn into a liability in a mix, if you have a big dreadnought booming and lingering all over the place it can smother the other instruments in the mix, so you have to address what you have recorded in some way.

Kind of like, you know how you can't apply reverb to everything in a mix?

There's a concept with electronic instruments called the "ADSR envelope", that stands for Attack, Decay, Sustain and Release. If you've ever played a lot of synthesizers you know that sometimes you can have an awesome sounding patch that totally blows you away, but it also blows away everything else you try to play with it.

Similarly, there's a lot of cases with guitars where less is indeed more, so rather than blindly chasing sustain as a goal in its own right, instead consider what your guitar will sound like in whatever mix you are using it in. There are a lot of cases where guitars that sustain less will sound more appropriate.
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