Increasing Sustain

[Dennis Montgomery]

Hi all,

I'm wondering how to increase the sustain I'm getting from my Mullen G2 SD12. It currently has the stock Mullen single coil pickup and I'm wondering if going to a higher output humbucker would help?

Also, I've seen a thread with many recommending throwing an Origin Cali76 compressor in the signal chain before the volume pedal. I've had a look at those and like the Cali76 Stacked Edition best...pricey but impressive from what I've seen and heard.

I should add that I don't play with fingerpicks, play a lot of 3 and 4 note chords and don't play in bands but arrange and record solo pedal steel pieces. Because I don't use fingerpicks, I think I have to be careful choosing a humbucker so the sound doesn't turn too muddy.

Thoughts?

[Donny Hinson]

my2cents:

I don't think a different pickup will increase your sustain significantly. A compressor will help sustain, but it will also rob you of dynamics, and that's not always a good trade-off. Just picking more authoritatively can improve things, especially if you're not using picks.

While some players advise just going out and getting a different (better?) guitar, that's not always possible or practical. My suggestion is to work on playing skills, like your vibrato and volume pedal technique, which can both help the issue. (Running the amp volume higher will give you more ultimate signal gain available; something I always take advantage of.) Lastly, keeping fresh strings on your guitar and using a heavier bar will also give a slight boost to your sustain.

[Danny Letz]

Is my understanding of pickups backward? Wouldn’t going to a humbucker be going the wrong direction in relation to which one is bright & which is dark?

[Brandon Schafer]

I’ve recently acquired a G2 SD12 myself. I can say that the instrument itself has more inherent sustain than some other modern steels I’ve tried, so I feel like you’re good on that front.

I believe that increasing sustain sans fingerpicks is an uphill battle. But, with that said, I’d recommend the combination of a humbucker AND the compressor in front of your volume pedal.

I recommend using both a humbucker and a compressor because the compressor will help with the sustain, but it will also immediately increase the volume of any 60 cycle hum that a single coil inherently possesses.

I’m easily (probably TOO easily) annoyed by 60 cycle hum of any kind. So, I went ahead and replaced my stock pickup with a Telonics humbucker. They are not inexpensive, but I swear by their products. (I use their volume pedals and amps too.)

[Ian Rae]

I believe that increasing sustain sans fingerpicks is an uphill battle.

That's not a belief, it's a fact. The amount of sustain depends on how much energy you put into the string to start with.

What attracted me to the instrument in the first place was the sound made by players with picks. If you're going to resort to compression, you'll need a pickup that sucks in less noise as the gain rises, which will be a humbucker. That distinctive single-coil sound is probably not attainable with bare fingers anyway.

Sorry if this seems mean or negative, but I'm just laying out the facts as I understand them

[Bob Carlucci]

I believe that increasing sustain sans fingerpicks is an uphill battle.

That's not a belief, it's a fact. The amount of sustain depends on how much energy you put into the string to start with.

What attracted me to the instrument in the first place was the sound made by players with picks. If you're going to resort to compression, you'll need a pickup that sucks in less noise as the gain rises, which will be a humbucker. That distinctive single-coil sound is probably not attainable with bare fingers anyway.

Sorry if this seems mean or negative, but I'm just laying out the facts as I understand them

Correct-energy in= energy out.


More sustain?.. Minty fresh strings help a LOT...


This might just be some weird "perception" on my part, and might not be rooted in any fact at all, but over many decades, I found that a good powerful ALL tube amp [ no solid state front ends] made the notes and chords on any pedal steel I was using at the time seem to hang in there noticeably longer. I always thought of it as a sort of
"natural tube compression" that SS amps did not have, despite their superior power output..

Matter of fact I always thought the best sustain I got from tube amps were those with tube rectifiers as opposed to SS rectifiers.

.
To my ears, nothing would sustain my steel as well as say a Super Reverb or the BF Tremolux I used for a while... again, I could be wrong but that was my perception.

A compressor will help some, but NOT a guitar floor stomp box squish fest.. They WILL destroy your dynamics as Donny mentioned. A good audio quality half rack unit will keep some of the dynamics intact for the most part, and still squeeze the notes out a bit for a bit more sustain..

a lot of the steel you hear on recordings is compressed to some extent, but those are high end units, and are vastly superior to guitar stomp boxes... sustain can be a tough nut, but the guitar you mentioned should do very well indeed, unless it is drastically flawed, which I doubt. bob

[Dennis Montgomery]

I believe that increasing sustain sans fingerpicks is an uphill battle.

That's not a belief, it's a fact. The amount of sustain depends on how much energy you put into the string to start with.

What attracted me to the instrument in the first place was the sound made by players with picks. If you're going to resort to compression, you'll need a pickup that sucks in less noise as the gain rises, which will be a humbucker. That distinctive single-coil sound is probably not attainable with bare fingers anyway.

Sorry if this seems mean or negative, but I'm just laying out the facts as I understand them

No worries Ian...not mean or negative

I was also attracted to the instrument by players who use fingerpicks, but it wasn't something I felt compelled to do (oh goodness, I didn't want this thread to become yet another fingerpick debate ) I choose to play without fingerpicks because I like the sound of it and it best fits the style of music I play. I just uploaded my latest piece to youtube to give anyone curious an idea of the kind of thing I like to do. I take songs and arrange them for solo pedal steel. Then I record that adding a bass part (thank goodness for strings 11 & 12) and possibly a solo section if it makes sense. Anyway, this one's an arrangement of the old Grateful Dead song Candyman:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-rEGK1dN7U

So, the distinctive single-coil sound you mention isn't what I'm going after (and I'm not into speed picking anyway, so there's another style that I don't miss fingerpicks on).

I have a couple compressors I can tinker with now, but they're very limited compared to the Cali76 Stacked. Thanks for your reasoning behind the choice of a humbucker...I wasn't aware of the gain vs noise characteristic you mentioned

[Dave Mudgett]

I sometimes play with thumbpick/flatpick and no fingerpicks - not generally pedal steel but quite often slide guitar and sometimes guitar and console/lap steel - and definitely find significant diminution of sustain and brightness. But that's specifically what I'm going for when I do that. If I want more sustain and brightness, I specifically put on fingerpicks. I think there are exceptions to that rule - I used to sit around in Bobbe Seymour's shop and watch him play with his bare fingers and get great brightness and sustain. His fingernails and right-hand calluses were much stronger than mine, though, and I really need fingerpicks on pedal steel.

I rarely use a compressor with pedal steel, but do often with guitar and slide guitar, and sometimes nonpedal steel where I periodically skip the volume pedal. In fact, I got an Origin Effects Slide Rig last year. I've owned a lot of compressors and it's by far the best I've ever played, hands down. Origin makes the Cali76 series - never tried one of those, but the Slide Rig, like the Cali76 Stacked, is a pair of the cascading 1176-style FET compressors in the Cali76 to emulate the Lowell George slide sound. To my tastes, it works for that better than anything I've heard. I find the attack/release on the Slide Rig pretty much perfect, so I'm happy to have gain controls for each compressor stage, rather than attack/release controls. Works nice on steel, but as Donny says, kinda' works against the volume pedal. So I don't generally use it with pedal steel unless I'm going for a very specific and more artificially-sustained sound.

In a situation where I'm not getting enough sustain, I'm generally having to turn things up and work the volume pedal more - but this tends to raise the noise floor. If using a compressor, that tends to also raise the noise floor. So I concur - if you do anything like that to get more sustain, you might well want to think about a humbucker. If you're worried about brightness, I suggest the Lawrence 710. Lawrence pickups in general are mid-impedance, not high-impedance like a lot of other humbuckers - the inductance defines a lot of the high frequency behavior. And of Bill's pickups, I think the 710 is probably the brightest - certainly the brightest steel humbucker I've played.

Just saw Bob's post. Yeah, I also like my old Fender amps with tube rectifier. The natural sag gives additional sustain, and if it's not pushed too hard stays pretty clean. I'll say that a Peavey amp like a Nashville 400 with DDT compression really does work well if playing loud - when the compressor kicks in (only when really pushing the amp), it really does increase the sustain. But I don't generally play that loud these days, so I sold mine a while back.

[Dennis Montgomery]

A compressor will help some, but NOT a guitar floor stomp box squish fest.. They WILL destroy your dynamics as Donny mentioned. A good audio quality half rack unit will keep some of the dynamics intact for the most part, and still squeeze the notes out a bit for a bit more sustain..

a lot of the steel you hear on recordings is compressed to some extent, but those are high end units, and are vastly superior to guitar stomp boxes... sustain can be a tough nut, but the guitar you mentioned should do very well indeed, unless it is drastically flawed, which I doubt. bob

Thanks Bob. Origin says their Cali76 is studio grade and based on the same FET circuitry as the rackmount 1176. Whether that's really accurate or not, I won't know until I hear it. I usually buy from Sweetwater which gives a 45 day money back guarantee so I'd have plenty of time to test it out

[Dennis Montgomery]

I rarely use a compressor with pedal steel, but do often with guitar and slide guitar, and sometimes nonpedal steel where I periodically skip the volume pedal. In fact, I got an Origin Effects Slide Rig last year. I've owned a lot of compressors and it's by far the best I've ever played, hands down. Origin makes the Cali76 series - never tried one of those, but the Slide Rig, like the Cali76 Stacked, is a pair of the cascading 1176-style FET compressors in the Cali76 to emulate the Lowell George slide sound. To my tastes, it works for that better than anything I've heard. I find the attack/release on the Slide Rig pretty much perfect, so I'm happy to have gain controls for each compressor stage, rather than attack/release controls. Works nice on steel, but as Donny says, kinda' works against the volume pedal. So I don't generally use it with pedal steel unless I'm going for a very specific and more artificially-sustained sound.

In a situation where I'm not getting enough sustain, I'm generally having to turn things up and work the volume pedal more - but this tends to raise the noise floor. If using a compressor, that tends to also raise the noise floor. So I concur - if you do anything like that to get more sustain, you might well want to think about a humbucker. If you're worried about brightness, I suggest the Lawrence 710. Lawrence pickups in general are mid-impedance, not high-impedance like a lot of other humbuckers - the inductance defines a lot of the high frequency behavior. And of Bill's pickups, I think the 710 is probably the brightest - certainly the brightest steel humbucker I've played.

Thanks Dave, this is great info. It occurs to me that playing without picks I'd want the brightest humbucker possible. Just had a look around and unfortunately there are no BL712's available. The Bill Lawrence site does show they have a 12 string xr-16 which they say is closer in tone to an L705 so I don't really know if that's as bright as the 710/712 series. Anyone know if the xr-16 would be bright enough for a barefinger player?

[Dave Mudgett]

Just had a look around and unfortunately there are no BL712's available.

Yeah, I meant 712, not 710 obviously, but same family. Have you talked to Becky Lawrence and she tells you they're not making them? They're showing the L712 pickup on the website - https://www.wildepickups.com/products/steel-guitar - it looks like you can just add to cart.

I had an XR-16 10-string that I got from Bob C. for a SKH Legrande. Sounded very good, and in fact I used it. But it wasn't as bright as the 710 I compared to. I wasn't looking for real bright on that guitar, it was already pretty bright.

[Dennis Montgomery]

Just had a look around and unfortunately there are no BL712's available.

Yeah, I meant 712, not 710 obviously, but same family. Have you talked to Becky Lawrence and she tells you they're not making them? They're showing the L712 pickup on the website - https://www.wildepickups.com/products/steel-guitar - it looks like you can just add to cart.

I had an XR-16 10-string that I got from Bob C. for a SKH Legrande. Sounded very good, and in fact I used it. But it wasn't as bright as the 710 I compared to. I wasn't looking for real bright on that guitar, it was already pretty bright.

Actually I just talked to Shannon out there and she said she just updated inventory and they now have an L712 wide mount in stock! She also mentioned they have a 1 week turnaround to build anything that's out of stock but currently in production

[Ian Worley]

...I'm wondering how to increase the sustain I'm getting from my Mullen G2 SD12... Thoughts?

A huge part of the equation that no one has mentioned is the inherent volume of the amplified signal. You'll get much more/better sustain at stage volume with the amplified signal re-exciting the vibrating strings, and with plenty of headroom available in your volume pedal as Donny stated. The tone of the amplified signal, which frequencies and overtones are emphasized, will also affect the how those amplified sound waves interact with the already vibrating strings.

Playing quietly in your bedroom is not going to produce the same results.

Just get one of these and set the volume knob to about 8 or 9 like Hendrix, sustain for days

[Dennis Montgomery]

Decided to pull the trigger on that L712! Very excited to hear my G2 with a humbucker...something I always wanted to try since the day I began playing it.

Thanks for the recommendation Dave

[Dennis Montgomery]

Just get one of these and set the volume knob to about 8 or 9 like Hendrix, sustain for days

I'd set it to 11

[Dave Mudgett]

Thanks for the recommendation Dave.

Well, I hope it's what you're looking for. I don't claim to speak for everyone else's taste.

But I'll tell you for sure that I can squeak more sustain out of my volume pedal when I don't have to worry about the noise level going through the ceiling. At home here, the ambient noise is really bad, as it is at some of the dive bars I've played over the years.

[Ian Rae]

Dennis, I enjoyed your Candyman - now I see what you're about. Interestingly, you wouldn't know it was D9 without being told.

(American Beauty is my favourite album - it all went downhill when they started to sing in tune)

[Kevin Fix]

Vibrato, Volume Pedal and Bar Pressure. Amp settings make the difference of night and day. The only effects I use is the reverb from my NV112. Also use a Steel Guitar Black Box. The Black Box will help if you are using a solid state amp.

[Dennis Montgomery]

Dennis, I enjoyed your Candyman - now I see what you're about. Interestingly, you wouldn't know it was D9 without being told.

(American Beauty is my favourite album - it all went downhill when they started to sing in tune)

Thanks for listening Ian, I'm glad you liked it! I figured the best way to give people an idea of what I'm trying to do on pedal steel is to stop describing it and point them to some music. As Frank Zappa once said, "talking about music is like dancing about architecture"

I love American Beauty too and your quote about singing in tune was priceless. Of course, based on much of the live Dead material I've heard they never exactly got that singing in tune thing down, especially when Donna was in the band

So speaking of playing in D9, does anyone think that downtuning a whole step might negatively affect my sustain? I'm not playing E9 gauges that are too loose, but the one's b0b recommended to me for D9 so I do have proper string tension. Just wondering?

[Ian Rae]

If you are following b0b's guidance then that won't be an issue. To put it simply, your perceived lack of sustain is because you're starting some way down the energy curve compared to a picker.

[Chris Brooks]

Dennis, I am listening to Candyman now.

You are using a lot of delay--you know that. Perhaps you are using that to compensate for a [perceived] lack of sustain.

I am not a big fan of delay.

Also it seems that the first part of the sound envelope of a note glisses into the note. Are you pumping the pedal? That is, picking a note with pedal relatively off, then immediately swelling into the note? To me this gives a mushy attack.

Check the 3 notes at 4:36 for instance.

I am not an expert but I suggest:

1. Practice long tones--just like a horn. A full 8 beats. Try to keep sustain going with tweaks of bar pressure, bar vibrato, and, as the guys above have suggested, a more forceful attack.

2. Practice at home without a volume pedal or any other pedals--even unplugged!

3. Strings fresh? I use Fingerease spray to freshen 'em up.

Final comment: playing with bare fingers works better, I think, for playing solo or recording. Playing with a band? You might need those picks to cut through.

Chris

[Dennis Montgomery]

Hi Chris,

thanks for giving Candyman a listen! Before I address your comments, let me say that I'm not trying to sound like a traditional cut-through-the-mix pedal steel with a clean sound, and I never play in a band situation. I have great respect for the players that do that well - and that kind of playing by Al Perkins, Jerry Garcia, John McFee, Sneaky, etc is what drew me to pedal steel in the first place - but it's not my thing. I'm more after the sound of a pedal steel played underwater in a huge cave

That said...

1) I don't use delay to make up for a lack of sustain. I love the sound it makes as one chord melts/blurs into the next. Even if I come up with ways to increase my sustain I'll still use a lot of delay.

2) I'm not using a volume pedal to pump or swell at all. I have one and might occasionally fade in or out at the beginning or end of a section, but don't ride it during the song.

3) The "mushy" attack you're hearing isn't due to a volume pedal, but an effect I use on my Line6 processor called volume swell. It drastically attenuates the attack of a note/chord. What makes it interesting though, is if sound is already present in the signal it has no effect. You can hear this in Candyman where a chord might have that ramping up feel but the vocal melody plucked after the chord is sounding doesn't fade in like the chord did. I love the randomness and unpredictability of the effect and when I record it's sort of like I'm playing the pedal steel and playing the effect as well.

Never heard of fingerease spray...I'll check it out.

I hear you about getting more energy into the string to aid sustain, though a challenge I have playing without picks is if I pluck the string(s) too hard, I get an annoying pop. Even the volume swell effect can't smooth that out. I walk a fine line between playing forcefully and playing smooth and balanced at the same time. This is especially important - and challenging - with 3 or 4 note chords to let each string be heard. It's part of the challenge of the instrument and I love it

[Robert Murphy]

Game changer plus pedal. Infinite sustain.

[Dennis Montgomery]

Game changer plus pedal. Infinite sustain.

Just watched the demo on Sweetwater and this pedal is fascinating. I've been into looping for about 15 years and can think of many uses for it, but unfortunately improving my sustain issue isn't one of them and I'll explain why.

One reason I decided to begin this thread was because of playing inversions. For example, a slow song and I play a major chord on the 3rd fret 8-6-5-4 grip no pedals/knees, next measure slide it up to the 6th fret AF, next measure slide it up to the 10th fret AB, then next measure slide up to the 15th fret no pedals/knees. Inevitably my sustain dies out around the 2nd measure and I've got to replay the grip with my right hand. This interrupts the smooth movement of one chord position to the next and makes the sound choppy.

The Plus pedal takes a sample at a specific moment in time and keeps the sound at that moment playing apparently indefinitely. Very cool if you want to "freeze" a chord in playback then play notes around it, but won't help when you need to keep a strong signal sliding from chord to chord

Then again, I don't own one but I'm pretty sure that's how it works! Robert, please let me know if I've got this wrong

[Robert Murphy]

Dennis, you are correct. The only way to achieve your goal with today's technology is E-bow.