I’m spoiled, I have a Fernandes MG-145S with a built-in sustainer. D: I’m not sure how it compares to a sustainiac, but it can fake several different pickup configs!
Proud owner of a Sustainiac! I went with this because of the relative ease of use compared to an EBow or the TC Electronic Aeon. Honestly, the only con with the Sustainiac is if you’re relatively clumsy like myself and you DESPISE soldering like I do, the wiring for the control board is 18 extra wires by itself, so I’d recommend (especially if your control cavity is small like in the case of the Jackson KEXQ Kelly that I have my Sustainiac installed in) taking it to your local guitar tech for the install. MAKE SURE YOU DON’T LOSE THE WIRING DIAGRAM - THEY WILL NEED IT. If you’re in the Brooklyn, NY area, go to the Sam Ash near Kings County Mall and ask for a guitar tech by the name of Chris Vega. He installed my Sustainiac and did a damn good job! 🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘
It’s worth mentioning that the the sustainer pickup system was originally invented by experimental guitarist Michael Brook, who used it on albums like the amazing Cobalt Blue. He only made two, originally, one of which he gave to The Edge who used it on “With Or Without You” by U2. The Sustainac etc. are based on Brook’s designs.
The Ebow tends to be more useful with a neck pickup. You can use it to interact with the neck pickup by changing the intensity of the magnetic field. Use it slightly behind the pickup for a lighter flow then slide it directly over the pickup for full on overload. It's a very useful device.
With the ebow you can play beautiful, amazing volume swels, that put it apart from Soustainiac and Fernandes. I decidedly preffer the ebow, i use it a lot, i love this little magic and very musical tool..
You're holding the Ebow backwards, the LED light should be toward the neck. Holding it backwards makes it very hard to find the nodes. The instructions that come with the Ebow clearly show how to hold it.
I hope they will sell the sustainer ll separatelly. This one has the size of a fret and you can instal beerween the neck pickup and the fingerboard. for the moment, you only can get it in some fernandes models by factory
Very cool sound. The Edge from U2 uses this "Ebow" on many of U2 songs, like "With or Without You". Thank you for the cool reviews - Dagan should have his own TV show !
From what I remember reading, I seem to recall Robert Fripp's sustain on 'Heroes' being achieved entirely through experimenting with amp feedback and positioning in the booth, in the studio version anyway. In live situations, such as on the Isolar II tour, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Carlos Alomar (or possibly Adrian Belew, I'm not sure which of the two guitarists) would've used an EBow to match the record.
Another inaccuracy, it’s implied that you can use another pickup along with the sustainer. This is not true! The magnetic field from the sustainer creates noise if the active pickup is too close to the sustainer. Sustainiac says the sustainer should only be used with the bridge pickup.
Not mentioned with the Sustainiac is that sustaining a chord all of the strings will gravitate to a single note! It does not sustain all of the individual notes.
Used to be a high gain fanboi but when getting older I really start to like the cleaner Fender kind of tones. Was to buy a little headpone amp and bumped into the EBow Plus...so I bought both 😊 Still figuring out on how to use the Ebow but it is a lot of fun. With phones and little Fender headphone amp 🤠
I didn’t know the sustainiac “turned off” the neck pickup, have never heard anyone mention that before! I don’t think I’d miss it in use but it’s good to know!
What brand fingernail polish do you use? I heard that OPI, Essie and Sally Hansen fingernail polish is the best. Have you tried any of these? Have you ever had any skin or nail damage from finger male nail polish? I use Revlon, I don't know if that's available in the UK. Sometimes I get confused with the black fret dot inlays and my black finger nails. I don't know which is which half of the time. Please let me know, thanks.
