A. This is the number one question people ask. The short answer is "yes". The Sustainiac STEALTH PRO is actually a SUSTAIN SYSTEM. The driver of the system looks a lot like a pickup, but it’s more than that. It functions as an active neck pickup when the sustainer is OFF. But, when you turn the sustainer ON, it functions as a magnetic string driver. See the next question. Also, go to REAL SUSTAIN vs. FAKE SUSTAIN, Sustainiacâ "Stealth PRO Ô" and Sustainiac â"Model C" pages.

A. The Sustainiac Stealth Pro for 6-string guitars is $229.00 plus shipping. You get toggle or push-pull controls with the kit. The 7-string version is $249.00. A new STOMP model will be about $300.00. Optional easier-hookup Auxilliary ("Aux") boards add $10.00 to the cost.

A. There is a link to an email order form on the home page. HOME PAGE. Scroll down to the yellow box. Copy and paste it into an email. Then fill in the necessary info about your guitar, control choices, shipping info etc.

A. The Sustainiac Sustainers make controlled feedback sustain. It's like playing in front of a loud amplifier: If you hold your guitar near the speakers, the intense sound will blast the vibrating strings of your guitar. Then, instead of the string vibrations dying out like they naturally do, they often keep vibrating. Sometimes they break into interesting harmonics if you hold the guitar in the right position.

Here is how Sustainiac Sustainers accomplish this feedback: First, the pickup signal is processed and amplified by the Sustainiac circuit. Then, the processed and amplified pickup signal is connected to a patented Sustainiac STRING DRIVER TRANSDUCER (just "driver" for short). The driver, which is attached to the guitar, turns the amplified guitar note into vibrational energy. This vibrational energy is then fed back into the strings. The string vibration becomes more intense. And so on. A played note will actually last forever. (Or, until you want to stop it, or until the electricity goes away, whichever comes first.)

We make two basic types of sustainers: ELECTROMAGNETIC (Sustainiac Stealth PRO sustainer) and ELECTROACOUSTIC (Sustainiac Model C sustainer). For more information, go to SUSTAINIACâ STEALTH PRO Electromagnetic sustain system, and Sustainiac â"Model C" sections, and REAL SUSTAIN vs. FAKE SUSTAIN.

A. Sometimes this is called sympathetic vibration. A classic example is the famous shattering of a crystal glass when a singer with a powerful voice sings a note loudly, near the glass. The Maxell audio tape commercial demonstrates this. It is said that the opera singer Caruso could shatter glasses in this manner. When the singer sings a note at precisely the natural ringing frequency of the glass, the glass vibrates in response to the note. If the voice is powerful enough, the vibrations can build up to a high enough amplitude that the glass actually shatters. In order for this to work, the singer must sing the note at precisely the frequency at which the glass rings when you thump it. This is the "natural resonance frequency" of the glass. If the singer is even slightly off-pitch, then the glass will not vibrate.

When you play a note with an electric guitar, the speaker vibrates at precisely the frequency that is played. The sound that blasts the guitar body and strings is precisely the natural vibration frequency of the string being played. If the amplifier is very loud, the string doesn't lose vibrational energy, it gains it! The string vibration amplitude increases until a point of equilibrium is maintained, where the vibrating string will not stretch any more unless you turn up the volume or hold the guitar closer to the amplifier speaker.

If you move the guitar, sometimes the note will break into a harmonic or change from a harmonic to a fundamental. Or, the string might just stop vibrating abruptly. This happens because you are changing the time it takes sound to travel from the speaker to the guitar body and strings. This produces what is known as a phase shift. Phase shift can enhance the feedback, change string vibration harmonics, or even stop the feedback instantaneously, depending on the amount of phase shift.

A very simple way of looking at it is to think about pushing somebody on a swing: You add a little energy each time the swing passes by. It sustains its vibration provided you give the push at the right time, and also provided you don’t stop pushing.

For more information, go to REAL SUSTAIN vs. FAKE SUSTAIN, Sustainiacâ "Stealth PRO Ô", and Sustainiac â"Model C" sections.

You create a great solo using amplifier feedback that works perfectly on one stage (or studio), but won't work at all somewhere else. This happens just because the room acoustics have changed. It happens all the time. It's frustrating and sometimes embarrassing. Not with Sustainiac Sustainers! The patented Sustainiac driver is designed to put intense acoustic vibration energy directly into the guitar strings, not into the air. Feedback with Sustainiac Sustainers is much more intense, much more predictable than with natural acoustics. And you don't have to play loudly. In fact, you can turn your amplifier all the way down. Or don't use one at all. You can play screaming solos with notes that break into harmonics, just like with a big loud stack, and not wake up the neighbors.

A Sustainiac Sustainer is not a signal processor. It only affects the string vibrations, not the electrical signal that goes to your guitar amplifier. In order to make feedback sustain, vibrational energy must be transferred from a loudspeaker through the air, or be produced by a driver. This driver must be attached to the guitar, so that the energy gets to where it is needed: The strings!

Now, that being said, we have done some successful installations (mostly Strats) where the Sustainiac driver replaces the BRIDGE pickup, and receives its input signal from the NECK pickup.

Often, people ask why the middle pickup position can't be used for the driver instead of the neck pickup position, because the neck pickup is the favorite of many players. The main reason that the middle pickup position can't be used is because of Harmonic Mode. The strings are driven "out of phase" with the pickup signal for harmonic mode. Placing the driver in the middle pickup position forces harmonic string vibrations that are very high in frequency, and are "out of range" of the pickup signal because of high frequency phase shift. You need the greatest possible space between driver and pickup to produce good harmonics. For this reason, 21-22 fret guitars produce a better harmonic mode than do 24 fret guitars.

For more information, go to REAL SUSTAIN vs. FAKE SUSTAIN, Sustainiacâ "Stealth PROÔ", and Sustainiacâ"Model C" sections.

A. Read question 8. The answer to that question also answers this question.

A. It won't change the signal that gets picked up by the pickups. Your guitar signal will get to your amplifier or other effects without being changed by the Sustainiac Sustainer. The Sustainiac Sustainer uses your unprocessed guitar signal. (Read #4 again.) Since the string vibrations are intensified, the notes will usually sound fatter. This is not because of any signal processing, however.

A. We make two basic types of sustainer: Electroacoustic feedback and electromagnetic feedback sustainers. The main difference is due to the type of driver that is used.

ELECTROACOUSTIC FEEDBACK: We make one acoustic feedback model: Our Sustainiac Stomp Model ,.

The acoustic transducer (driver) vibrates the guitar body in response to the guitar pickup signal. Feedback builds up quickly.

ELECTROMAGNETIC FEEDBACK: The Sustainiac "STEALTH PRO" Sustainer: This sustainer works by producing direct magnetic feedback to the strings. Once again, we use a patented magnetic driver to take the amplified string vibration signal and apply it to the driver. The driver then sends out magnetic pulses that cause the string vibrations to become stronger. This type of Sustainiac unit is installed inside the guitar.

A. There are certain advantages to each type.

ELECTRO_ACOUSTIC SUSTAINER ADVANTAGES: The electro-acoustic type of Sustainiac Sustainer (STOMP MODEL) produces the most natural feedback sustain. This means it is most like getting feedback from a big, loud amplifier. It puts sound energy into the guitar body, which then gets transferred to the strings. Feedback is very intense and instantaneous, unless you purposefully have the intensity controls turned down. Most played notes will change into a harmonic after a short time, like you get with natural amp feedback. However, the STOMP MODEL sustain is not all fundamentals in one mode and all harmonics in another mode, like the electromagnetic sustainer (STEALTH PRO) does. Another advantage of the acoustic sustainer is that you don’t have to install it into the instrument. This means that you can use the same sustainer for several guitars (provided they have a headstock to mount the driver transducer on). Furthermore, unlike the magnetic sustainer, all of your pickups will function normally when you use the of Sustainiac STOMP MODEL acoustic sustainer. For more information, go to the Sustainiacâ "STOMP" section.

MAGNETIC SUSTAINER ADVANTAGES: Our Sustainiac "STEALTH" Sustainers provide the ultimate in portability. They mount inside the guitar body. There is no external cord hanging down from the instrument like there is with an acoustic sustainer. The harmonic control switch provides all fundamentals in one position, all harmonics in the other. (With an optional MIX mode, which provides both fundamentals and harmonics.) For more information, go to the Sustainiacâ "STEALTH PRO" section.

(1) LET THE SUSTAINER TAKE OVER THE PLAYING DYNAMICS: Heavy-handed pickers get immediately frustrated and confused by sustainers. When you dig in real hard with a heavy pick, a lot of vibration energy is put into the string. The string vibration amplitude will have to die out some to reach the level where the sustainer energy takes over. This makes for an unpleasant playing experience.

The idea is to play with a light picking touch when you are using the sustainer. Use hammer-ons and tapping where convenient. Then, the sustainer makes the notes swell. String vibration amplitude doesn't "die down" to the sustainer energy level. This adds a new twist to playing, and is the key to making a sustainer an essential part of your "bag 'o tricks".

(2) GETTING USED TO FEEDBACK: If you are used to playing loudly, you get feedback from your amplifier. You have probably developed your technique so that you automatically hand mute the strings that aren't being played. This keeps them under control, so that they don't feed back when you don't want them to. It is natural for you. Playing loudly in front of a large amplifier can make handling the guitar like trying to ride a bucking bronco. Particularly if you play a hollow or semi-hollow body guitar. On the other hand, if you are an "unplugged" acoustic player, or only practice quietly at home, you probably don't hand mute. At first, playing with SUSTAINIAC may seem frustrating, because the strings try to jump to life when you don't want them to. What often happens is that if you are soloing on the small strings, the big E or A will "take off" on you. After a little getting used to, hand muting becomes second nature.

Schecter Guitars has used the Sustainiac in numerous models since 2012. Ibanez has several Joe Satriani models, and Steve Vai models. ESP, Reverebd and many small botique manufacturers regularly install the Sustainiac.

There is an understandable lack of knowledge about sustainers out there, because they are still kind of "underground" devices. Here is how magnetic sustainers are designed to be intense: By putting less (not more, but less) turns on the driver coils, you transfer more energy into the driver from a given battery voltage. This lowers the impedance. More current is drawn from the battery. This results in stronger, more intense sustained string vibration. We tried this with our old Sustainiac GA-2 sustainer, but the single 9-volt battery wore out so fast (supplied high current) that we couldn’t use the design. So, we had to add turns back on to the driver, and get the energy we needed by adding another battery to make 18 volts. That is why some competitor’s sustainers use two 9v batteries. They all copy certain critical aspects of the obsolete GA-2.

Here is one of the really cool things about the new Sustainiac Stealth PRO: We always wanted to design a sustainer that was even more intense than the GA-2, and still have decent battery life. The only way we could think to do it was to add still more batteries.

Here is how we solved the problem: We discovered how to design a digital power amplifier that was four (4!) times as efficient as a conventional power amplifier when driving a magnetic transducer. With this revolutionary design, we were actually able to double the amount of energy that we deliver to the Stealth driver, but with half the battery energy that we used before in the GA-2. The Sustainiac Stealth PRO sustainer actually puts more energy into the driver (STRONGER SUSTAIN) than any other sustainer out there, even " 18-volt" sustainers.

On magnetic sustainers like the Stealth, the larger strings are more easily pulled by the magnetic driver. On acoustic sustainers like the Model B, the wood more readily transmits low frequency sounds.