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07-17-2025, 11:20 AM
Hi Guys
Sustain begins with the instrument being set up properly. One thing to avoid, as TUT5 points out, is to NOT crank the pickups up as close as they can be to the strings, especially with humbuckers. The magnetic tug will damp the vibration of the strings particularly during the release part of the note envelope. back the pickups off just a little and the natural sustain of the instrument will be unencumbered.
Most players associate sustain with their lead sound, relying on saturated distortion and/or compression from the preamp or amp. That is certainly one form of sustain. But as we saw in TUT, clean sustain is the core of achieving long ringing notes. A simple matter of adjusting each stage for maximum symmetric signal swing. Some amps will achieve this without it ever being thought of by the builder. Examples of this are the Traynor Bassmaster (YBA-1A not the YBA-1) and Custom Special, or the high-voltage Marshall plexis, later called Super lead and Super Bass. There are many others.
Many hobbyists and builders have followed the TUT advice for gain stage adjustment and have created outstanding amplifiers with singing tone. Almost any tube amp can be similarly tweaked; it may be more of a challenge with tiny amps like Champs et al.
Another way to achieve this kind of feel is to have excess gain. Guitar pickups have a range of output signal and if you look at that and compare it to the speaker output of a given amplifier, you can easily calculate how much gain the amp must have to be pushed to its max. Most amps have a lot more gain than this. For example, Fender amps were designed to match Fender single-coil guitars and therefore have quite a bit of gain. The voicing gives a warm clean sound but not one that sustains well with most other kinds of pickup, at least not in the "clean sustain" way that TUT describes.
You can build an amp with a minimum tube count and have beautiful clean tones, but they may still seem a bit "dry". Adding some more gain can imbue an effortlessness that makes it feel like the guitar is playing itself without leaving the beauty from the initial circuit.
Sustain begins with the instrument being set up properly. One thing to avoid, as TUT5 points out, is to NOT crank the pickups up as close as they can be to the strings, especially with humbuckers. The magnetic tug will damp the vibration of the strings particularly during the release part of the note envelope. back the pickups off just a little and the natural sustain of the instrument will be unencumbered.
Most players associate sustain with their lead sound, relying on saturated distortion and/or compression from the preamp or amp. That is certainly one form of sustain. But as we saw in TUT, clean sustain is the core of achieving long ringing notes. A simple matter of adjusting each stage for maximum symmetric signal swing. Some amps will achieve this without it ever being thought of by the builder. Examples of this are the Traynor Bassmaster (YBA-1A not the YBA-1) and Custom Special, or the high-voltage Marshall plexis, later called Super lead and Super Bass. There are many others.
Many hobbyists and builders have followed the TUT advice for gain stage adjustment and have created outstanding amplifiers with singing tone. Almost any tube amp can be similarly tweaked; it may be more of a challenge with tiny amps like Champs et al.
Another way to achieve this kind of feel is to have excess gain. Guitar pickups have a range of output signal and if you look at that and compare it to the speaker output of a given amplifier, you can easily calculate how much gain the amp must have to be pushed to its max. Most amps have a lot more gain than this. For example, Fender amps were designed to match Fender single-coil guitars and therefore have quite a bit of gain. The voicing gives a warm clean sound but not one that sustains well with most other kinds of pickup, at least not in the "clean sustain" way that TUT describes.
You can build an amp with a minimum tube count and have beautiful clean tones, but they may still seem a bit "dry". Adding some more gain can imbue an effortlessness that makes it feel like the guitar is playing itself without leaving the beauty from the initial circuit.
