Sustainiac on a WHAMMY BAR BASS??? | DEMO 

Wow, that really works well with our bass whammy!

Peter Steele from Type O Negative used sustainiacs on his basses!

The suction cup mount is genious! Really cool way to try stuff out

Dude this is fantastic!!! Can't wait to see more of it and your videos!

That temporary mounting solution is really smart. Thanks for sharing!

Something like a USB C Battery Bank could work - modify it to fit in the wiring cavity, you would likely need another small circuit to convert voltage from what the battery supplies to the 9V DC the pickup is looking for. but if you can do something like that, then you could have it all inside, and just a single usb c port for recharging. Sounds super cool on the bass as well. P.S. - you could just use a small power distribution board to supply both the original pickups and the sustainiac. then one battery bank could serve the whole bass.

What kind of maniac? A sustainiac.

that sustain/slight distortion is one of the coolest sounds i've ever heard from a guitar period....

I love musicians who go to great lengths for a new sound. Way to go Jake! If you want a clean sound, (Less squeak from fingers sliding) consider sacrificing a little top-end tone and try Flat Wound strings. It should produce a very smooth sound and you might even find it preferable as the Sustaniac does tend to amplify only the higher frequency range.

This is by far the coolest thing I've seen today.

That does sound really pretty on a bass

Man, this is soooo much better than an e-bow; the e-bow is clunky and hard to keep in the right position over the strings. This was a fascinating video to watch/listen to; wishing you continued inspiration and success!

Awesome. I remember when I first heard about the Fernandez sustainer and I wanted it so bad. I now have a schecter 7 with sustainiac and I love it so much. I want to retrofit all my guitars with one. I absolutely love seeing a bass with a tremolo and sustainer.

Dude this is awesome! Love me a good frankentein’d set up. Sounds so cool! Great work

You know, you might wire it up with a balanced XLR output and use the +48V to power the gadgets.

For the battery drain issue id take a 9 volt power supply from a cheap pedal and wire it in and use a one spot power supply to plug it in and power it straight off my pedalboard or whatever you may need to set up to use it live. Just put the imput by the imput jack on the side somewhere and or possibly on the back somewhere maybe notched or recessed.

Sounds nice, and it's always interesting to see experiments. Fter years of trying to convince him, a friend of mine had a bass made by a luthier, with a tremolo, he never used it! Your sustainiac sounds like a E-bow (I used it too with my bass.)

Thats so clever to mount a temporary pickup on it like that without routing or drilling. You might need to patent that!

I like the tone on those sustained notes with the whammy. Very ambient sounding. Keep at it! Speaking of drilling into your bass ha check my patented fretboard mod. Added vertical scallops to allow new bends and pulloffs. The edge of the fretcorner plucks the string to add extra notes to pulloffs / alternate vibrato and more. If you wanna demo 1 I’ll send you a bass. It’s good to try new styles and build skill in new ways. As far as your Vai example he actually bends off the fretwire on Blue Powder which gives the technique history.

your tone is amazing!

I’ve always wanted to put a whammy bar on my 4 or 5 string and experiment with other bass mods, but those whammy bars are expensive! Anyway, this is really inspiring man, subbed and can’t wait for more of your content

Strong flute vibes with this little gadget. I dig. Great job

Peter steele did this to his basses. Sounded incredible!.

Awesome mod, Jake 😎🤘🏻🎸 it’s fascinating on how you make your bass produce unique sounds with a sustaniac pickup and a whammy bar. Kinda sounds like Peter Steele meets Steve vai.

This is sick. I might have to get one myself... Though I would probably use it with the added active pickup option - would be interesting to here the pickup by itself. As for the power draw, there's a pretty unique solution involving making a "power injector" pedal. Basically, you make a pedal with a stereo input where the second channel is 9v (you can get 9 or even 18 volts from any pedalboard power supply). With very little rewiring of the bass you can power everything on the bass through the TRS cable, only caveat is that you would have to take this power injector with you - but you can always add switch to turn this feature off. If you always play through a pedalboard, or use a specific amp/di setup, this is a killer option. Haven't done it yet myself, but if I actually go ahead with this sustaniac thing (I play mostly passive on my Cravin SB5000, if I already add active pickups I'll probably redo the electronics to be fully active as well) I would 100% go for this. There's a few guys that do this and it's reportedly very reliable.

I tried it on my Hohner fret less in the 90’s , 1 watt amp feeding the bridge pick-up from the bridge pick-up through a square wave generator, very interesting effect , also we were trying to play a record with a laser and these chaps came with a laser doplometer ( forgive spelling ) that looked at the reflected light and gave an output , soo we pointed it my bass and it came out of my bass stack :-) very cool 😎 Some years later at the beginning of a certain Bond movie , he had one mounted to his gun linked to his earpiece so it was a listening device , exactly what this device could do :-)

Could you do a LiPo battery mod on the current battery compartment that would provide the output for both the sustainiac and the preamp? If you used a USB C charger board you could presumably use a decent sized battery bank to keep the juice going during longer sessions. USB power delivery is absolutely crazy these days.

Keep experimenting, brother.😂 I've read the comments and the suggestions are pretty interesting

Digitech FREQOUT + EHX Deep Freeze = Similar setup in pedal form? I need someone trying this.

That FM Bass in the background shows me you're a man of culture❤

That Vai snippet was from Whispering a Prayer right? I never thought of a sustainiac on a bass, great idea man!!!!

I moded a bass to work with an external ac/dc converter trough a xlr cable like a phantom power

AWESOME DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!

could always build a battery pack to put on your strap made of lithium ion cells. would need to see if the bass, or the sustaniac can handle slightly higher voltage, cause 2 in series might be too low but 3 in series is noticeably higher 3s2p (i think is the right way to write it) would be a beefy pack with only six batteries

you're awesome, bro ! :D

Suggestion about the battery. Install a regular power input for a power source. For power source, use a regular 9V adapter. To make things convenient, attach a power chord along your regular signal cord. The adapter can easily be put nearby the amp. I don't know if interference would be a problem, but since it's DC I don't think it will. And if it does, then you know what your next video is about. :)

You could try using something like the EMG ES-918 external power supply to power both the pre-amp and sustainiac.

Do you manufacture these sustainers yourself? Looking to install one “hidden” under the pickup cover on my ‘68 Gibson EBO for an upcoming Bass Vi conversion

Great job 👍 very interesting..

Best sounding base in the game right now brother Noiice influence leads to actual success 😂

you could run nine volts up a stereo cable, on the ring connection; my old variax does something like that if you don't want to risk running it on batteries.

love this video and the idea. Here's what you got me thinking: If the sustainiac requires the use of one of your pickups but you need your bridge and neck pickup for your own signature sound (as I do), why not build a guitar with a 3rd pickup dedicated specifically to the sustainiac? Can the sustainiac fire off a piezo pickup? You could mount piezos near the bridge so they wouldn't take up a bunch of extra space. If anyone tries this, please tag me with the results.

i have this system on my 6 string. i run a NIHM power pack , which lives in my comfort strap . there is a glass fuse , it terminates in a 2.1mm dc plug . there is a female 2.1mm dc connector on the guitar that lives on the instruments side , about 2 inches north of the 1/4 output . which on this fernandes guitar its on the side . yes , i drilled thru the body of the guitar in order to run the wire and install the jack. i used a 9 volt battery snap , soldered to the jack . connect this to the existing 9 volt snap . so if i choose to i can run the systm as it was designed . but i dont . i have also modified xlr cables to carry 9 volt . i use a pair of wire running out of thr 1/4 inch plugs , about 2 inches , terminating in a heavy duty 90 2.1mm dc plugs . the only timei had any issue was with super hiogh gain patches that also use a flanger i had a bit of noise on one system , but in that instance i was using power supplys not battery packs . if you use a nihm pack you will never get noise . the reason why one would wish to do this ? the life of a 9 volt battery , in sustainer use is 30 minutes .

You may have to rig it up slightly as far as placement, but fishman makes rechargeable battery ports that you can use for guitars and basses. There’s a universal one, but with your bass, you’d probably have to make a custom backplate or something to put it on, but that would work. You just plug your bass into the wall and it’s supposed to give you like 300 hours

Oh boy! The velvet schrunchie! 😂

The ebow does not work very well on bass in case anyone was wondering (and I use tiny strings on my basses). Plus its clunky in the hand.. I love the beginning of pearl jams ten type bass tone!!

Fishman has a few varieties of USB-rechargable battery packs for their active pickups.

Dumb question here, but just found yer video- Kahler trem, Im assuming? What are the pros and cons? Ive dreamt of a Claypool 29 fret Carl Thompson replica and Ive heard horror stories of the trem I have a Sustaniac on my Schecter. So much fun, man. Even if it sounds like shit lolol its just so ambient

Have you tried a DigiTech FreqOut by any chance? Love it on guitar, haven't tried it on bass myself but just watched a vid titled "Don't FreQout! It's just the DigiTech FreQout on bass!" and it does a lot of what your rig is doing, plus it'll do the fundamentals and even a sub-octave. Plus a momentary switch and even a switch that'll give you just the wet signal. That's a cool, ingenious rig you put together but you might want to check this out before firing up the router.

What about those rechargeable 9V batteries with the built-in usb connector for charging? For the permanent install, you could extend the cable to a mounted port for connecting an external cable. Also, you will definitely want a switch to disconnect the battery if you don't already.

Hi. Whats the brand of the strings that you are using? Thanks

It might be a pain to implement, not sure on the kitbashing qualities; but if you want a solid rechargable 9v, look into the pedaltrain volto.

This is very cool! Only 4 minutes in, intrigued. Guess: you have to decouple or have a cutoff switch? Reverse polarity? Had to pause. 2.54 cm is 1 inch. 3.5" is circa 9 cm. Onward. Bravo, innovator!

sounds great! but I wouldn't ruin a spector for that, perhaps is time to get a custom build by a luthier?

Put DI box internally and run a cannon 3 pin lead and a dedicated power supply box like phantom power for microphones :-) , would have to have an arrangement of preamp to re amp circuit in the dedicated box for amplifier level output plus DI/ line level :-) I built my own re amp box and it’s great :-)

The battery should not be running out fast, i get 5 months out of mine and i play every day. The volume you are getting out of the sustainiac seems quite low next to the initial pick of the bass sound, I'm not sure if it's because it's on a bass or because it's not setup right

Cool! Have you checked out the moog guitar? Similar concept but really advanced circuitry to do some extra ‘stuff’! Also, check out Micheal Manring (if you haven’t already)…he uses an e-bow on bass.

You can run multiple 9 volt batteries in parallel and double the MAH and life with either type of 9 volt. Rechargeables might perform better with the 2 in parallel as well. I have thought about trying 2 18650 lithium ion batteries in series since I have a bunch of the battery boxes chargers and batteries. I think it would probably be the best option next to a wall wart for real. 8.4 volts might do it. I'll find out soon. Some might handle 12.6 volt with 3 in series

That's a good idea. Take em for a test ride before router comes out

Instead of a PP3 9 volt battery, why not try using rechargeable battery packs. Another way is to use rechargeable PP3's in parallel which would increase the amount of storage capacity without increasing the voltage, essentially making the increase of power only in terms of their storage capacity. If you are looking to make up a battery pack remember adding in series adds up the voltage and in parallel increases the amp hours.

Is there any way to setup the board to use usb rechargeable?

couldn't phantom power from a Mixer or injector help here? You could transform the voltsge down if sustainiac need pure 9V

Can't you wire in an XLR output on the bass instead of the jack, and use a mic preamp to provide power to the bass and Sustainiac?

What is the difference between the Sustainiac and just using an Ebow? To me it sounds as if you are achieving similar effects.

i just use my FreqOut, and sometimes i grab my Ebow and its super fun, ebow is hard with the bass though, but can work

Why don't the rechargeable 9vs work? One option is hard wiring. Annoying, but never runs out. You could power both.

Put a 9vdc barrel jack and use a long pedal cable tied to your instrument cable. No batteries required.

what kind of bass is it? and that bridge?

Not bad!

The title me wonder whether it would be possible to fit a sustainiac into a whammy bar, either magnetically or even with a transducer making the bridge vibrate. The transducer might even avoid the EM interference if it's piezo based. :)

Steve Vai is known for having several full size whales trapped within his touring guitars.

Cool idea and project. check out Michael Manring on ebow and bass too. Wish sustaniac would make an 8 string guitar sustaniac and manufacturers made a 8 string fan fret trem.

Amazing! Loved this! Feels like there's a groundswell of progress in instrumental music production. Check out Anthony Marinelli viewing the new Osmose synth at NAMM. Not a bass, but so many parallels with this search for the power to control expression!

try placing it next to the 23-24 fret, it should sound better and not interfere with the neck pickup

There is a 24 battery mod that uses aaa batteries on eBay

He got that sound from watching Jeff Beck

You got an instant subscribe from me

Reminds me of Tuvin throat singing

Dude you need to try that thing on a fretless bass

Not the best demo but it works

You could pretty easily power the whole bass from a pedal power supply without any real modification to the bass itself.

Hey. I'm from Oregon, if you're interested, I can help you route the body for the sustainiac on a CNC

power it from a cable from your pedal board power supply

needs a faraday cage

Susmaniac

Charles Berthoud has entered the chat…

12k views, damn

Lets hear it on a fretless 🎸💀

I will never really understand why they never made these for basses :(

I've had success with a DIY sustainer on a 4-string fretless bass. I used a simple single-coil driver, an op-amp preamp and a discrete 2-transistor push-pull power amplifier. If I'd used a bilateral driver, it would've been even better. This guy is getting no sustain at fundamental frequencies BECAUSE the (guitar) Sustainiac circuit filters them out. I had no such problem...

Would be way cooler on a frettless

Jake, use lithium batteries only. 2: don’t leave it plugged in all the time and 3: experiment on a lesser price bass

Lithium 9v rechargeable battery.

you would have got it easier by using an e-bow

#888 lucky like!

Oh Wow Did he know that the British band 10CC used this way back Also why not use a Ebow each individual strings. No need to drill holes in the bass. Voila.

Hmmm...interesting. But ya do know that there are a lot of companies that make a thing called a 6string guitar and I am certain that if you get yourself one you will be able to get the sound you are trying to get out of that 4string bass.

Buy a bass ebow...der

Why would any actually professional or even hobbyist musicians view this as weird? Music is all about exploration/experimentation, pushing boundaries and the absurd.

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