Tested: Where Does The Sustain Come From In An Electric Guitar?

Video Description

Marching forward with the electric guitar experiments. 0:00 - What is good sustain? 0:52 - Amp feedback 1:40 - How long should a note be able to ring? 2:42 - Quality of sustain 3:24 - The spreadsheet 4:23 - The amp's role 5:07 - Testing break angle 6:11 - Testing saddle material 7:14 - Testing string tension 8:01 - Testing absence of neck pickup 8:42 - Testing resonant mass 9:50 - Testing the finish 12:18 - But what makes an obvious difference? 14:00 - Outro jam Tests were done plugging the guitar directly into the computer for a clean signal (except the amp feedback test and neck pickup test). jimlillmusic.com/sustain for the spreadsheet. My website is JimLillMusic.com. I'm @jimlill on instagram. ____ It's really cool to see people enjoying the tone tests video I put out 2 weeks ago. Sustain wasn't on my mind when I was making it, but there were some people in the comments talking about sustain so I thought I'd spend some time figuring out where it comes from. It was fun coming up with the tests, trying to find limits and do everything I can to stop the guitar from being able to hold a note. Hopefully people who watch this video will have a better idea of which things play a role in sustain, and how big that role is. Also, I bought 2 of J.T. Corenflos' cabs on Saturday and the background music for this video is the first thing I've used either of them on. -Jim, 2/7/22