Sustain Block

[YMB]

I was searching before open this topic.....and I found no info.

I would like to recieve info. about Sustain Blocks........that is used to fix under the Bridge.......

What about the angles of the device ? Maybe 45 degrees ? Is this the best ?

I like through body bridges........increase the punch.......I made one using a piece of Brass.......but with no Angle......just put a piece of metal under the bridge........

I made the holes to pass the strings..........through the body........

It wasn't very nice.......only increase the punch a little bit..........

Do you know some Sustain Blocks that I could buy or some SB project that I could make by myself ?

Please fell free to add a comment........

[mikeyswood]

[ehque]

Aren't sustain and punch mutually exclusive?

I can't see why you're trying to increase punch with a sustain block.

[Musiclogic]

Sustain is the duration of the note audibly, or the physical vibration.

Punch is the attack of said not when played....be it picked, plucked or bowed.

These two are not mutually exclusive, and said "sustain block" will not incorporate "punch" to a sounded note.

The idea of the sustain block(see Alembic....the original purveyor of the "Sustain Block" idea) was to add mass to the playing field, thus making the note ring longer. Much like the brass plates added to Fender type headstocks, it's all about Mass creating sustain. If you read up on the physics of mass on sustain in instruments, you may find more information.

As for Alembics, their bridges were mounted on a block of brass that added 6 ounces to the bridge mass, and created said extra sustain. We have found these days, that you can increase sustain through electronics, the same way you can increase "Punch". Look to pick-up design, pre-amps and tonewoods for "Punch", and look to electronics or Structural acuity for added sustain. Wood selection can also greatly improve sustain.

[Larry Davis]

Doesn't "sustain" come from using hard, dense wood in the build especially the neck area. I could be mistaken, but seems Wilser mentioned it..again my memory isn't what it was pre-arthritis and I could have the name wrong.

[Musiclogic]

Originally Posted by Larry Davis

Doesn't "sustain" come from using hard, dense wood in the build especially the neck area. I could be mistaken, but seems Wilser mentioned it..again my memory isn't what it was pre-arthritis and I could have the name wrong.

Actually Larry, sustain comes from the instruments ability to vibrate(thus keeping the strings vibrating, thus sustaining). What wood you use will determine how it vibrates, along with how much. Hard dense wood is great if it resonates, resonant woods equal better sustain, but hard and dense does not always equal resonant. Pine is one of the most resonant woods, yet is very soft, Spruce and Cedars also, thus why they are used for soundboards on acoustics. Cocobolo and Ziricote, while very hard and dense, resonate very poorly due to their inheirent oiliness.

[newbold]

Is this like the anchor plates used in Warwick bridges?

[ehque]

Originally Posted by Musiclogic

Actually Larry, sustain comes from the instruments ability to vibrate(thus keeping the strings vibrating, thus sustaining). What wood you use will determine how it vibrates, along with how much. Hard dense wood is great if it resonates, resonant woods equal better sustain, but hard and dense does not always equal resonant. Pine is one of the most resonant woods, yet is very soft, Spruce and Cedars also, thus why they are used for soundboards on acoustics. Cocobolo and Ziricote, while very hard and dense, resonate very poorly due to their inheirent oiliness.

Wouldn't a wood that resonates well take away energy from the strings even faster? It's energy transfer 101.

[Cy_Miles]

If I know what a sustain block is, and my Gretsch arched top Electromatic has a "sustain block." It is a small "pillar" roughly 3/4"x1" connecting the Bridge block with the back of the guitar.

The name SUSTAIN BLOCK has caused some mis-conception.

The purpose of a sustain block as I understand is to physically connect the front and back of the guitar. This both add stiffness and support to the top and back, as well as sonically connecting the front and back.

I can see it adding both to the punch/volume and the resonance of the guitar.

Edit: after a google search I realized you are probably talking about the metal block that attaches to a tremelo system...

never mind

[YMB]

Thank You......Guys.......a learned a lot......

One question is about the presence of Oil in the wood.....Woods with oil ressonate more ? Or is the best choice to built a bass similar to Warick basses ?

The Sustain Block is a piece of metal fixed under the bridge....where the strings passing through........

The strings must pass through as in Vintage Fender Jazz Bass

One of my first "luthier" work.....was with a Hohner Bass......and it was made of a Very nice Ply Wood made of very nice and very white pine............

So this bass was very light and the sustain block work fine.........

It was a home made sustain block......and I like to make my new project with a very good one.........

It could be a manufactured one......or a copy of some project.......

It was a fretless.......(my passion).......and after all....sound great..........

With a EMG PJ pick-ups...........

[Musiclogic]

Originally Posted by ehque

Wouldn't a wood that resonates well take away energy from the strings even faster? It's energy transfer 101.

Woods all resonate, thus why sustain isn't constant, and why some woods contribute to sustain moreso than others. The physics of energy transfer can be the explaination of how much a specific piece will sustain, but I do not have enough command of physics to explain the linear equation to figure this. I can only relay what I have learned through my years of woodwork, luthiery, and musicianship.

[stevetx19]

if i understand what you are looking for, try schaller bridges. They can come with that extra metal base that is set in the body. The last bridge i ordered came with one.

[Son of Magni]

Originally Posted by ehque

Wouldn't a wood that resonates well take away energy from the strings even faster? It's energy transfer 101.

I think it's not so much how much the wood resonates, but rather how much loss there is as the vibration is transferred back and forth between the string and the wood.

[Gone]

Surely if you add energy to a string by playing it, and if the string causes the wood to vibrate then some of the energy is being passed on to the wood. If no energy was passed on to the wood (wood does not vibrate) then the string will keep it's energy for longer and therefore sustain for longer.

If the wood does vibrate (and of course it will), then it's hard to judge whether resonance will increase or decrease sustain (I don't think there is a simple answer). But surely making a neck (or body) resonate is very hard and somewhat hit and miss.

Certainly I don't see any physics behind the idea that adding weight under the bridge will increase sustain. You could maybe change the resonance but then surely the amount of mass added would be very important (adding a random amount of mass will have a random result). It also doubt it will change the stiffness of the bass as a whole.
IMO sustain block's are probably marketing gimmicks with little to no physics behind it. I may be wrong and in which case I would love to hear the physics behind it.

[ehque]

Originally Posted by Gone

IMO sustain block's are probably marketing gimmicks with little to no physics behind it. I may be wrong and in which case I would love to hear the physics behind it.

I dropped out of my undergrad physics course, but i'll attempt an explanation here:

Basically energy is transferred more efficiently when there is resonance. If the driver (in this case, the string) is set to the resonant frequency of the object being driven (in this case the bass, ESPECIALLY the neck) the energy transfer is faster, more energy gets dumped into the bass, and the string should lose energy.

Now other considerations take over. If your bass is stiff, internal losses of energy due to flexing of the material is reduced and the energy stays in the wood longer. This prevents the energy from being quickly dissipated and less energy is extracted from the strings. On the other hand a rather flexible neck would readily lose energy to flexing and require more energy from the strings. Energy is also lost by the strings to the pickups, and the body of the bass also loses some energy to the surroundings. The string and bass system retain this mutual transfer of energy until there is none left or the string is stopped.

Note that while resonant frequencies and material stiffness are linked, they are not the only variable linking each other. A small, stiff piece of wood has a higher resonant frequency than a larger block of the same piece of wood of the same stiffness.

If i am not wrong when a wave comes to a boundary of dissimilar materials the ratio of energy absorbed/reflected depends on the relative densities of the materials. It may not apply here, but i would guess that a dense, stiff mass would "reflect" the most energy and allow the most energy to remain on the string. This is probably where the sustain block would claim to work. However, i can safely say that much more energy leaves the string via the fretted end, since the neck is almost always less stiff.

Lastly, the higher harmonics and lower fundamentals will not experience the exact same decay. As stated earlier, the closer the driver to the resonant frequency of the object, the better the energy transfer. This difference in decay is responsible for the characteristic bloom of the tone of a plucked instrument.

[Larry Davis]

Originally Posted by Musiclogic

Actually Larry, sustain comes from the instruments ability to vibrate(thus keeping the strings vibrating, thus sustaining). What wood you use will determine how it vibrates, along with how much. Hard dense wood is great if it resonates, resonant woods equal better sustain, but hard and dense does not always equal resonant. Pine is one of the most resonant woods, yet is very soft, Spruce and Cedars also, thus why they are used for soundboards on acoustics. Cocobolo and Ziricote, while very hard and dense, resonate very poorly due to their inheirent oiliness.

Actually, that was a joke to snag Wilser but hooked you instead. Yes! I know what "sustain" is

As far as hardwood gum (hardwoods have gum and softwoods have resin) in rosewoods. cocobolo, EIR, Brazilian rosewood, etc. and ziricote (not a rosewood) making them poor resonating species you'll need to explain that to the true lutheirs building acoustic guitars from them BECAUSE of their resonance.

[Cy_Miles]

Originally Posted by Larry Davis

Actually, that was a joke to snag Wilser but hooked you instead. Yes! I know what "sustain" is

As far as hardwood gum (hardwoods have gum and softwoods have resin) in rosewoods. cocobolo, EIR, Brazilian rosewood, etc. and ziricote (not a rosewood) making them poor resonating species you'll need to explain that to the true lutheirs building acoustic guitars from them BECAUSE of their resonance.

Just what we need in a tone discussion, sarcasm

Could prove my ignorance here, but the same qualities that make a strong stiff neck may be the same qualities that allow a luthier to make a thin wide piece stong enough for a guitar top/back. The stiffer and more stable the wood the thinner it can be carved, and the thinner it is the more it can flex.

back to the OP, I could see how adding mass to the bridge would inhibit string to body energy transfer. I have felt, but not proved it to myself, that the lighter a bridge the more the body would affect tone, and the heavier the bridge the less a body would affect tone.

As far as how neck stiffness affects the same, I would think it is a more complex equation that involves relative resanont frequencies.

To the thread wander: When laminating maple and purple heart neck pieces, each the maple and the ph had their own individual tap tones, no matter where I tapped it, the male made one tone, and the ph made another tone. After laminating them together, the resulting neck blank had mulitple tones depending on where you hit it. I became convinced then that IF wood affects electric bass tones, then laminating necks was a good way to broaden the tonal range and responce of the guitar.

The Sustain block could be doing something similar as laminating different tonewoods. again:

[YMB]

Great Guys...........I loved the replays........

One thing that I would like to say is about the angle.......when the strings pass the bridge nut.......on a normal bridge........they form a shallow angle......

If we make a little pressure just before the nut.......trying to make a 45 Angle........every one could see the String raise........causing much more tension .......

When built a sustain block..........the strings must pass through the BODY and Sustain Block at a right angle of 45 degrees.............

So we will see the strings raise a little bit on the bridge nuts.........that's the main reason that makes the ressonance and Sustain increase..........

The strings have to pass through the Sustain block too.....

And fixed through the body...........as the Sustain block could be glued in the body .....it ressonates at same time with the body........as one......

That's what I think.........

I never imagine a Sustain Block with normal bridges..........I imagine the strings passing through the sustain block........making the device function as part of the bass body............

Thank you Guys .........nice replays...........

[pilotjones]

Are you trying to say that you _want_ the strings to continue to project upward after they pass over the bridge saddles (as a product of the extreme angle over the bridge, combined with the stiffness of the string)? I can assure you, you really don't want to do that. It will cause poor intonation. And can also cause a strange, disagreeable tone.

In a bass with poor bridge design and/or the saddles moved all the way back to near the string anchorages, when this produces a string bowing upwards as it passes the saddle like this, it must be cured by permanently bending the string at the saddle point so that it no longer bows upwards. Only in this way can you fix the problem.

I've had a bass with this problem, and had to fix it.


And by the way...............please stop with................all the periods..........it makes your posts...........very difficult....................to...........read.... ..........

[Son of Magni]

Yes, a right angle of 45 degrees is essential for sustain........ but my basses that have a sustain block....... have more of a TOM........ style bridge.......