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Sustainiac Board Adjustment

This are the adjustment point of the circuit board used in the current JS models and I suspect coming in some PIA models at some point. It's a pdf file so I cannot display it on the page

https://www.ibanezrules.com/catalogs/hardware/Sustainiac_Layout.pdf

Here is the explanation from the Sustainiac site on what the modes should do.

PERFORMING WITH THE STEALTH PRO MAGNETIC SUSTAINER

Beginning sustainer users often experience confustion when the big strings start sustaining, while they solo. The wound strings respond more readily to the magnetic driving forces.
There are a couple of solutions to this:
(1) Lower both the magnetic driver and also the bridge pickup underneath the big strings. Raise them both close to the small strings. The height of both the driver and the bridge pickup underneath the strings has a large effect on the sustainer responsiveness of these strings.
(2) Practice left/right hand muting. It will take a little time. When you solo on the small strings, hold your picking hand against the big strings to "tame" them. People who often play loudly through a big amp are already familiar with trying to control amp feedback. Therefore, they will develop these muting techniques faster than others.

OPERATING MODES

The MODE switch feature on the Sustainiac Stealth PRO sustainers allow you to enhance solos in a way that no other electronic effect can even come close.

• NORMAL (FUNDAMENTAL) MODE: Played notes vibrate in the normal way. If you intentionally pluck a harmonic, the notes tend to fade back into fundamental vibration mode after a few seconds. For playing slide guitar, the FUNDAMENTAL mode is very useful for making slide notes go on literally all the way up or down the neck! FUNDAMENTAL mode is also great for soft chordal swells.
• HARMONIC mode makes solos scream out. Played notes quickly change the string vibration mode from fundamental to a high (3rd, 4th, or 5th) harmonic. The actual harmonic depends on the fret and the string being played. It involves the physics of the string length (according to which fret is used), along with the pickup position and driver position along the length of the string.
• MIX mode is a combination of the fundamental and harmonic modes, and sounds a lot like natural amp feedback. You tend to get harmonics that come in kind of slowly on the low notes, and fundamentals on the high notes. MIX mode is a little more subtle than either the FUNDAMENTAL or HARMONIC modes. Most of the harmonics in MIX mode are either 2nds or 3rds.
  With the Stealth PRO, you get all three operating modes whether you choose the standard push-pull controls, or the toggle switch controls.

SUSTAINING CHORDS WITH THE STEALTH PRO MAGNETIC SUSTAINERS

If you strum a full six-string chord, expect two or three notes to dominate after a few seconds. These will likely be wound strings. This is because the larger strings respond to the pulsating magnetic drive more readily than the higher strings. You can equalize this somewhat by raising both the bridge pickup and Sustainiac driver under the smaller strings and lowering them both under the high strings.

However, the physics of the situation makes the large strings MUCH more responsive to the driver's magnetic driving forces. So, for most chords, one, two, or three notes usually "win out" after a few seconds. The A, D, and G strings can make some nice doubles and triples.

In order to have absolutely equal intensity for all strings would require a hexaphonic sustainer (essentially six individual sustainers). Unfortunately, this is too large and expensive for a product in this price range. Maybe we will do one someday.....

Copyright 2000 Ibanez Rules!! All rights reserved.
Revised: January 15, 2024.