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I currently play my Eastman AR503CE. (16" laminate guitar, carved spruce top with single humbucking pickup) I have GHS flatwound stainless steel (12) strings on it.
I usually play with a bass player and find there are times when I wish I could get a single note to sustain longer. I notice this primarily when I solo. Even though its my solo, I find there are moments where I still want to lay back for more than a 2nd or two just because I like the way the note sounds against the bass line or because the original melody line was written with a long note.
I actually debated as to whether I should be posting this here or in the gear section. I recall seeing a post once suggesting you can get more sustain by having more volume and playing with a lighter touch. Seems to make sense, but in practice I have never been good at changing volume levels quickly on the fly. I suppose the other alternative is to look for a new guitar with some kind of tone block.
However, the reason, I posted here, was that I was thinking maybe I should explore changes in my playing. What do you do when a note dies to quickly? A few things come to mind, but I am not sure they all will work. EG Play the same note again? Play an octave? I am thinking perhaps an octave may last longer? Play some interval or triad? Play arpeggio? Just live with the decay hoping people understand that's the way hollow body archtops sound? Crank up the volume so that you are playing near feed back levels? Find a magic little box or compressor?
Danielle
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05-27-2015 06:53 AM
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I think that we often speak about short sustain... but actually to my mind it's not the shortness of sustain what's crucial but the sound decay...
With violine of trumpet it's attack and sound production... like toy motor plane)
With guitar or piano it's attack and sound decay.. like toy paper plane)
To my ear at least this 'decay' characterestic effects texture and phrasing more than how long it decays...
even if you make sustain longer it will not become controlable while it sounds... (if we do not consider electronic means)
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Maybe the guitar needs a fret dressing. I would definitely check that out first.
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There are lot's of thing s to try from a guitar point of view rather than guitar technique:
Raise the pickup (check if it's any good, you might also just replace it?)
Use a compressor pedal
Try combinantions of high gain / low master volume or the other way around
Reverb/Delay
This is all depending on your taste and the gear that you use so you probably just have to experiment..
Jens
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Interesting comment re the compressor. I have a compressor in my Zoom multi effects pedal. Maybe I did not spend enough time with it. Last time I played with it, I thought it was introducing a delay. Not sure if it was my settings. I often wondered if the processing chips can be over taxed in the multi efx pedals if asked to do to much and the performance of the pedal is affected.
Danielle
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Sounds like you might have had a long attack set in the compressor.
You should try and mess with it. Philipe Catherine uses one with his ES-175 I think.
Jens
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Finger Vibrato? Are you just trying to fill the gaps? I heard that its not what you play, but what you dont play or some crap like that. I probably messed that up. The point might be that every moment in time need not be filled with sound to be interesting. I notice this during jams with guitarists with very different styles where fourteen notes sounds better than forty.
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I remember as a young rock guitar player being able to just lay into a note and take a moment to think of what to do next. I find that I am not really able to do that now. I like a clean archtop sound so I stay away from pedals if I can. For me I was using a Jazzica and the biggest reason I switched to a Gibson (L4 ces) was to get some more sustain. My take on it is that a lot of guitars that vibrate really hard and have a strong acoustic voice tend to sustain less - it's like a quick burning flame - lot's of thunder and then it is over quick. That's a generalization and maybe it is a bit of an illusion considering the note is louder to begin with so maybe it sounds like it is falling off quicker too. But it seems to apply to the few archtops I've owned. Eastmans strike me as very acoustic guitars - lovely but maybe a different sound concept than what you are after.
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There are a bunch of things to try, Danielle. Roundwound strings sustain longer, for example. Vibrato technique will impart more energy into the string and keep the note ringing. Reverb will give the illusion of more sustain. If you play acoustically and experiment you'll probably find that picking softer gives the illusion of a note ringing longer; turning up the amp and playing softer can exploit this (the Jim Hall method). Using a compressor was already noted; I have almost no experience with this (I am using a Zoom MS100bt into an Alto powered speaker nowadays and have just added a compressor to one of my patches- hall reverb, compessor and amp model but have not really learned how to make best use of the compressor yet). And IME a laminate guitar tends to have less sustain than a carved guitar; a solid body tends to have more.
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I spent quite a bit of time playing with the compressor settings on my Zoom G2.1u multi efx pedal this morning. I was really not able to get anything that I really liked that made a noticeable difference. It just seemed that I had to really compress everything to an intolerable level before I could hear any significant increase in sustain.
However, the morning was not a total loss. I found out where the loose hardware I found on the floor a few days ago belonged. It had fallen off of the input jack.
Danielle
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I know what you mean, I am not very happy with the loss of dynamics that you feel when playing through a compressor.
I also don't know the zoom so I can't give you any suggestions in terms of settings.
So you have the guitar into the zoom into what amp? (I am just curious, hope you don't mind)
Jens
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Hi JensL
I currently do not own a guitar amp.
I just played with the compressor efx at home with my pedal plugged into an Lexicon alpha interface and played through my stereo system, using a pair of B&W tower speakers.
Playing live we use a pair of JBL 10" gen 2 powered EONs, with either a Soundcraft EFX8 mixer or sometimes a new Motu interface. Probably will be using the interface more as we want to get more recordings. (We like the mic preamps in both the Soundcraft and Motu products) Used a Shure Beta 58 dynamic mic for vocals. The bass player is the one that really knows the Motu product. It's a new interface, one of the AVB models, with built in processing and most likely has much better processing capabilities than my pedal.
Not sure if I have a good example where the note dies on me. There's some recent live recordings that you can find at www.facebook.com/breathlesscharmjazz Setup was little hurried that afternoon as we were waiting for diners to clear out of the performance area before we could set up.
Danielle
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Does the zoom have amp simulation? or only effects? That would explain a lot, since most of the influence an amp has on the sound is compression.
Jens
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There's a Jazz Chorus amp sim, in the Zoom G.1u pedal, that I normally use.
Danielle
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I'd start with experimenting with another amp sim, maybe a fender deluxe or a vox, and then turn op the master volume on the sim, that should give more compression (in a nicer way than a pedal) if the sims are any good.
Jens
Disclaimer: I HATE jazz chorus amps....Last edited by JensL; 05-28-2015 at 04:57 PM.
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You've gotten some really substantive advice, and I think you should try playing thru an amp, you're going to get a lot different reaction playing thru an amp than just a pedal, no matter how many bells and whistles it has.
Also have a tech do a setup and check the brand of pickup and it's height. As much as I like Eastmans some of them were released with sort of so so pickups. A Duncan Seth Lover in that 503 would really be swell...
Good luck.
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I changed the strings yesterday from the GHS stainless steel flatwound set to a TI Swing nickel flat wound set. I took the guitar out last night to an open mic and the sustain had increased substantially. I was surprised at how noticeable the difference was. The difference was so noticeable that we double checked and made sure the EQ settings were set as usual.
In hind sight, I really do wonder if the pickups should have been set differently for the stainless steel string set. I did a little searching but was not able to find any general pickup height table that referenced string material.
Danielle
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In my experience GHS are about the deadest sounding flats you can get....
TI's being nickel and the round core etc lends a nice acoustic sound, but I find nickel
a little lacking in volume on the wound strings [electrically that is]....so there's an imbalance between plain
and wound strings....for me.
Currently I'm finding Chromes the brightest sounding of the pack .....some players don't
like the sound of new Chromes ....me....I take em off when they get too dead and thunky
....as opposed to funky you understand...
Maybe a deal could be worked out where one player plays them in and the next player plays them out ....ha ha
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Originally Posted by Moonray
I looked at an Eastman AR403CE, a used one selling at a good price, about a month ago. I passed on it as I thought it was too bright for me compared to my AR503CE. In hindsight, I really wonder if that was the case. I had been playing with the GHS flats (12s) for several months and the store had just put a new set of D'addario chrome flats (11s) on the AR403CE. I think I may have been assessing strings rather than the guitar.
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+1 on everything mentioned above. You've already changed strings with some benefit, but I agree rounds generally sustain more--nickel rounds are mellower than chromes. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) higher gauge will sustain more than lower.
Vibrato technique will definitely help. That's why nylon string players use it so much.
Raise pickup height for higher output.
If I'm using my SCXD sometimes I will comp with the clean channel and switch to the 2nd channel for solos, with the gain up to about 5 or so.
A touch of chorus will soften the sound and draw it out longer, in addition to reverb of course. The tremolo and Leslie effects also sustain the note.
A couple of technique things to play around with--play a little behind the beat, so you're not coming in simultaneously with the bass. Think of Frank Sinatra's or BB King's phrasing, how they fill out the measure.
Play octaves using your fingers but deliberately delay the upper note 1/64-1/32 or so. That creates an interesting echo effect.
There's a classical technique called tremolo where you play the same note as triplets using the ring, middle and index fingers in rapid succession. This is rather challenging to do, and frankly I've never done it in the jazz realm, but it gives the sensation of a continuous note with rhythmic variations kind of like a tremolo pedal effect.
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Yeah try a nice slow vibrato... I like the way Jim Mullen and Pete Bernstein did it.
Also, pick attack. I think using the side of the pick can give you a less defined attack on the note and give you more sustain YMMV....
IMHO at some point you have to make a decision re: guitar sound.
If you want a very acoustic, hifi tone, you may find that sustain is somewhat lacking (a compressor could help) this reflects the acoustic sound of an archtop which decays pretty quickly - personally I like what you could call a Fender clean, which actually has a fair amount of distortion on it. The trade off is chords aren't as clean and resolved - in short it's more of an electric sound, and has more sustain as a result.
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I think I made some progress this morning. However, I find sometimes you need to give this a rest and see if you still like it the next day.
I found a little compression goes a long way. I found myself working with the Vox amp sim. For some reason it seemed more balanced to me than the Jazz Chorus Amp sim. Not sure Jazz chorus amps were like that, but this amp sim seems very heavy on the bass side.
I found using a K&K belt preamp, (designed for acoustic guitars), actually seems to help. That high input impedance with the K&K, lets me vary volume without drastically affecting tone. I almost feel that Zoom G2.1u likes a stronger signal. I also found it good to keep it on a belt and keep it away from the pedal. I found just a tiny amount of compression seems to help. I tried a Studio Projects VTB1 in lieu of the VTB1, but was not convinced it was yielding better results than the K&K. The K&K is certainly more convenient to use.
Still not sure I like the TI Swing 13 strings. I think I had become quite used to the GHS stainless strings.
As an alternative my bass player suggested using one of the new Motu AVB interfaces. The new Motu units have affects built in and she likes to record live in any case. Records each individual channel plus sets up two additional condenser ambient mics. Last time I spend some time there she was showing a VST multiband compressor called a blue cat dynamix that she really liked. Although we often rely on computers for music scores live, I have some reluctance to rely on them for controlling live sound. Last week we were on a patio, and the sun was so bright we were lucky to read the set list, never mind reading a score.
I suppose we will have more discussion tomorrow as we will be recording the next two live performances. That discussion may alter my thinking.
So many different ways of approaching this. There's a limit to how many big ticket experiments I want to make and I don't want to lift anything over 20 lbs.
I think I strained my hand slightly while I had the foot pedal on desk trying to press two switches at the same time with one hand. I will not do that again.
Danielle
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it's a characteristic of most eastman archtops I've noticed. My GB10, Heritage Eagle, 175 all ring like a bell. As does my eastman T386 I might add.
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Jack, Thanks for commenting. There's a lot about the AR503CE that I do like. I like the body size, the nut width, and the scale length and weight. I had the opportunity to bring an AR403CE (laminated top) home, at a good price a few weeks ago, and almost regret not doing that. Not sure I was really able to evaluate properly in the store. Looks like that one sold quickly.
With same body size, depth, scale length, nut width, I keep wondering how they compare to a Benedetto Bravo or even those special 16" Eastman Elites from Guitars n Jazz.
Danielle
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have you tried a gibson 175?
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