Sustain

Har-ray

New Member
Joined
Nov 18, 2022
Messages
12
Is it normal for Custom 24 piezo to not have quite the same sustain as a Les Paul after the 12th fret. No buzzing; just not the sustain. ?
 
May be a noise gate set wrong?
If you're using a pedal setup, try simplifying the signal path, just guitar to amp to start with and see if your sustain improves.
As mentioned slightly lower the height of the pickups to test and I don't have a guitar equipped with a piedzo so it's difficult for me to judge them.
 
If your 24 fret guitar is lacking sustain past the 12 fret it is most often a set up issue , a small truss rod adjustment or action adjustment can have a big effect on sustain ,
1) check strings , gauge etc - Old strings or even the strings on a new guitar can be dull or dead sounding , does your PRS have the same gauge strings at the LP , if your LP has 10s and the P24 has 9s you will hear that difference
2) check pickup height - really high pickups can reduce sustain
3) double check set up - you might need a small adjustment to get the guitar to ring out , change of seasons , shipping etc can really change some guitars.
 
Pfft!

Noise gates. A solution to a problem that doesn't really exist if you know what you're doing.

Flame suit on. Lol
This is 100% correct. I have a spare flame suit if you need it. ;)

Fix the hums and buzzes at the source, and you don't need a noise gate.

Even the best noise gates (like the ones on an SSL console) have drawbacks. As a note decays, it gets quieter and quieter. At some point the gate cuts off the last bit of sustain on the note. So a gate reduces sustain.

Recording engineers use noise gates to reduce the decay of a drum in a large room, for example, in other words (as explained above) the gate is used to reduce sustain since its function is shutting off the noise at a certain volume level, and the gate doesn't know the difference between the guitar signal and noise.

The famous '80s "Gated Snare" sound popularized on Phil Collins' and Springsteen's records from that era featured noise gates used at high settings. You can hear the gate shutting down the decay and sustain of the drum's resonance. Gates really weren't designed for extreme settings like that, but damn, it was a pretty cool idea, though now it's considered dated.

If you want a gizmo to increase the audible length of note sustain, use a compressor.

People say a compressor increases sustain, but that's not actually correct, here's why:

A compressor makes soft things louder, and loud things softer. As it increases the very quiet signals running through it, a compressor makes the guitar's sustain more audible. If the guitar isn't sustaining, of course, the compressor does nothing, because there's no signal being compressed.

On the other hand, because a compressor increases soft levels, it will also increase any noise in a signal. So the best cure for noise is to treat the noise right at the source.
 
If your 24 fret guitar is lacking sustain past the 12 fret it is most often a set up issue , a small truss rod adjustment or action adjustment can have a big effect on sustain ,
1) check strings , gauge etc - Old strings or even the strings on a new guitar can be dull or dead sounding , does your PRS have the same gauge strings at the LP , if your LP has 10s and the P24 has 9s you will hear that difference
2) check pickup height - really high pickups can reduce sustain
3) double check set up - you might need a small adjustment to get the guitar to ring out , change of seasons , shipping etc can really change some guitars.
Thank you. Doing all of this tomorrow.
 
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