Sustain

[RobEvansBass]

Now i've heard a lot about which pick-ups sustain the longest and which bridges are best etc etc. but i had a thought the other night which was subsiquently posted in a build diary forum and met with a reasonable response. So i thought i'd open this discussion. It may have been talked about before and i might not be the first to think about it but...

I always believed the longer a note lasted the better right? Possibly not, and bare with me on this. Instead of approaching sustain as how long a note lasts, maybe we should think about how long the note contains the original tonal characteristics.

How often do you play a note that lasts longer than 2 bars? maybe 4 bars occaisionally. If the note is going to be longer, a second, possibly quieter note is played to support the first thus rendering the 'need huuuuge sustain' arguement useless. Bolt-on necks dont sustain as long and through necks is a quote i hear a lot, but does this matter.

Is whats important here the maintainance of the original sound? Most basses i've ever played start to sound like a low rumbly drone after a few seconds. Admittedly having the option of a 3 minute long note is handy, it gives you head room, but would a great sounding 10 second note followed by it fading out be more useful? Or maybe just more representative of the original note you played? Maybe we're so used to how a note dies and turns into a drone that hearing say, a honk from a black walnut body for a long time would actually be a bad thing? Maybe i shouldn't think that hard about it?

It might not be an original stance on the sustain issue i hear so much about but i'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

Peace,
Rob

[Lfalex v1.1]

Two points regarding sustain;

You can't replace any sustain that may be lost on basses that are deficient is this regard. You [i]can[/i] damp notes on basses which have a longer sustain.

There's a qualitative aspect to sustain, too. The tonal characteristics of a sustained note are important, too.

It's often the case that sustain reflects on the design, construction and build quality of the instrument.

That was 3 points, wasn't it?!

[JTUK]

as long as it is even across the strings, then it is ok...

A low C sustain is a thing to behold, IMV and sorts the men out from the boys Bass-wise, IMO..

[alexclaber]

Sustain seems more of a guitar or double bass issue. I've yet to come across an electric bass that doesn't have enough. In fact many players would sound better with a bass with far less sustain, as so little attention is given to making notes short enough!

Alex

[ahpook]

forgive me if i'm wrong, but what does sustain have to do with pickups ?

surely sustain comes from the mechanical aspects of the bass - pickups just amplify what's there already.

good pickups on a bass that sustains like a wet washing line will still sound like a wet washing line - just a hi-fi washing line !

[henry norton]

[quote name='ahpook' post='568102' date='Aug 13 2009, 05:00 PM']forgive me if i'm wrong, but what does sustain have to do with pickups ?

surely sustain comes from the mechanical aspects of the bass - pickups just amplify what's there already.

good pickups on a bass that sustains like a wet washing line will still sound like a wet washing line - just a hi-fi washing line ![/quote]
Pickups amplify certain parts of the frequency spectrum better than others and a string will produce more of some frequencies and less of others, giving the instrument its' timbre (ie. the qualities of the sound). So for example, when a fundamental is dying down and all that's left are a few harmonics then a pickup better able to cope with highs will still be producing sound whereas if it was better in the lower ranges it wouldn't be picking the harmonics up so well and the note would fade. It's also dependent on how strong the magnets are, how close it is to the strings, that sort of thing. Does that make any sense ???

I think sustain is a bit like horsepower in cars - having more doesn't make a better car just like more sustain doesn't make a better bass, but there can be advantages both ways.

[ZMech]

[quote name='ahpook' post='568102' date='Aug 13 2009, 04:00 PM']forgive me if i'm wrong, but what does sustain have to do with pickups ?

surely sustain comes from the mechanical aspects of the bass - pickups just amplify what's there already.

good pickups on a bass that sustains like a wet washing line will still sound like a wet washing line - just a hi-fi washing line ![/quote]

If my A-level physics from last year is right, then due to a quirk of physics I can't quite remember, possibly called the lorentz force, a conductive object, i.e. metal, moving through a magnetic field will feel a dampening force due to the conservation of electricity. This will happen with the metal bass strings as they vibrate through the magnetic field of the pickups, which is why I've heard some people say your pickups shouldn't be too close to the strings.

[ahpook]

[quote name='Zach' post='568158' date='Aug 13 2009, 04:46 PM']If my A-level physics from last year is right, then due to a quirk of physics I can't quite remember, possibly called the lorentz force, a conductive object, i.e. metal, moving through a magnetic field will feel a dampening force due to the conservation of electricity. This will happen with the metal bass strings as they vibrate through the magnetic field of the pickups, which is why I've heard some people say your pickups shouldn't be too close to the strings.[/quote]

yup - you're totally correct - had that problem with my musicman sabre. but that's down to a bad set-up, nothing to do with the intrinsic properties of the instrument itself.

[mrcrow]

sustain if good can obviate the need for compressive effects

i dont play a note for more than one bar..but like it to stay full for that period

sustain on uprights are bowed but i prefer the shorter note or tapering sustain

it never becomes a neccesity in most of the music i play
but rhythm is

[SteveO]

I think that sustain is seen as a measure of the quality of the instrument. I mean If the bass has great sustain then there's subliminal thoughts that the rest of the bass must be better than average too. Obviously there's no reason for this to be the case, but there you go. Personaly I'm not too bothered by it. I usually play my bass with the vol turned down a bit, together with a noise gate which dampens the sustain down to about 5 seconds (the gate's not there to kill the sustain, it's just a consequence of it doing its noise reduction stuff). It's more than enough for me, and like Lfalex said above I usually dampen the note long before 5 seconds have passed. Maybe at the end of a song i'll let it ring till the noise gate kicks in, but by then the crowd are cheering and the girlies are throwing their shreddies onto the stage... you know how it is.

[sdgrsr400]

I have a sense that with a bass with good sustain one might say it is "less work" and it "plays itself" - as Lfalex says you can't put it back in (without compression at least).

You can also roll up/down the volume knob(s) to simulate sustain effects.

[sgt-pluck]

Mmmmm. I think the ability of a given bass to sustain well has to be a good thing ultimately. But. I've often experimented with shoving bits of foam of varying firmness (word?) under the strings at the bridge to deliberately limit sustain. And I like it Don't play like that often though, to be fair.

Pluck

Edited August 13, 2009 by sgt-pluck

[Starless]

I've had some of the cheapest nastiest old basses able to hold a note for ages (well beyond what would normally be required if actually playing a song), so this magical sustain of which you speak is no indication of a bass's 'quality'. Thru-necks tend to have more of it and so thru-neck fans bleat on about how great the sustain is - it's like marvelling at how a 4x4 can climb mountains when all you ever really do is take the kids to school in it. If I needed a bass note sustained for a whole bar at constant tone and pitch I would get a set of bass pedals or plonk a synth in front of me.

And what is it with these people (eech..sounding like a stand-up comedian now) who fit brass nuts (no monkey jokes now) to their basses? "Oooh... listen... great sustain...", these poor sods play nothing but open strings all night?

This is all really for people who attach the output of their instrument to an oscilloscope rather than a performing amplifier.

[Mr. Foxen]

I need lots of sustain. And I use of lot of open notes, no brass nuts though. Could check sig for why.

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='Starless' post='568490' date='Aug 13 2009, 10:49 PM']And what is it with these people (eech..sounding like a stand-up comedian now) who fit brass nuts (no monkey jokes now) to their basses? "Oooh... listen... great sustain...", these poor sods play nothing but open strings all night?[/quote]

When people first started fitting them in the 70's-80's, the original rationale was sustain + "gives you a similar tone to when you fret against a metal fret, thus 'balancing' your sound" - presumably as opposed to the tonally "dampening" characteristics of a bone or plastic nut.

My P came to me with a brass nut and, being a lazy-a**e b*st**d, I've never bothered to take it off. In A/B testing with other, conventionally 'nutted' P's, it seems to make little or no difference.

More Voodoo from guitar parts suppliers, I reckon. Though YMMV, of course.

Edited August 14, 2009 by skankdelvar

[EssentialTension]

I've never had a problem with lack of sustain.

I'd say controlling sustain through damping of one kind or another is the real issue.

[henry norton]

[quote name='EssentialTension' post='569224' date='Aug 14 2009, 05:54 PM']I've never had a problem with lack of sustain.

I'd say controlling sustain through damping of one kind or another is the real issue.[/quote]

Me neither and I've recently started playing short scale basses which work well and can 'sustain' a note more or less as long as my trusty old Precision. I would also add many players control their sustain (or more accurately attack, decay sustain release) with choice of strings - flats, grounds, rounds, high tension, low tension etc.

[chris_b]

Sustain on bass is the key but in my experience the quality of the note improves with better instruments. The right woods and hardware is where it starts. If the bass plays long notes well, it'll play all notes well. I play a lot of long notes so tone and sustain is a very important part of what I do.

[alexclaber]

Nigel again: (holding up a guitar) The sustain, listen to it.
Marty: I don't hear anything.
Nigel: Well you would though, if it were playing.

Alex

P.S. I believe brass nuts and zero frets are a bad idea because they fail to take into accout the damping that your finger provides on a fretted note. Ebony seems to actually get closest to a fretted note sound.

[JTUK]

Talking about fretted I assume...

10 secs on an open string should easily be the norm and over 5 for a fretted ...right across the board...
Don't think brass nuts are a hiderance either....

but ultimately, it is the behaviour of the combinations of woods that I would expect to have the biggest eftect.

I believe this is why so many basses are made with the same sort of woods...ash, alder, wenge, maple etc ...
Their properties are known and it is also know how they behave with other woods

[endorka]

As a few others have pointed out, sometimes a short sustain is the correct thing, for example, if you are playing walking basslines in jazz, in general the most effective approach is to sound as much like a double bass as possible, so you really need to get short, thumpy slightly undefined notes. Ancient clapped out flatwounds, passive pickups and perhaps a little bit of foam mute at the bridge will therefore be indicated.

Long sustained notes in this context sound wrong, and it can be very difficult to create a convincing swung feel with them. You can't simulate the sharp decay by muting with the LH (it stops the note too quickly) or with the volume control (there is not time to do this for each note).

Jennifer

[alexclaber]

[quote name='endorka' post='569734' date='Aug 15 2009, 09:01 AM']Long sustained notes in this context sound wrong, and it can be very difficult to create a convincing swung feel with them. You can't simulate the sharp decay by muting with the LH (it stops the note too quickly) or with the volume control (there is not time to do this for each note).[/quote]

Absolutely. But you can do it with thumb plucking and palm muting - opens up a world of different feels!

Alex