DUNCAN...not, Dunlop. The title says it all. I had a pro add a tremel-no to lock down the guitar (love the tuning and locking of a floyd rose, never us a whammy bar) and added Dunlop performer pickups. He said the tremel-no would actual increase sustain because of the solid construction connecting the back of the guitar more...I lost touch with the guy and now I'm on my own. Even my local guitar center guy scratched his head at this (he was a new guy). I use a Line 6 Pod Pro footboard and/or a marshall amp. It doesn't matter what I do, pedal first, no pedal straight to the amp cranked... the notes just drop off after about 1.5 seconds. Open strings sustain well, but especially with higher fret work, there's just nothing. The action is gr! eat and I even tried lowering the pick-ups thinking they were too close to the strings with no luck. Is this guitar just not made to sustain, only shred? I have compression as an option on the Line 6 pedal but it doesn't really help the sustain, just increases noise as to be expected. I'm at a loss. HELP
Jeez, I was a Tremol-no beta tester.
The Tremol-no should help somewhat, but isn't a magic bullet. Really, the difference is the way vibrational energy is handled by the bridge - a floating bridge will, when it gets hit with a heavy pick attack, oscillate slightly sympathetically. This ribs some vibrational energy from the string, and slightly dampens sustain. Not hugely, and if you're a trem guy it's a fair tradeoff, but it does rob a little. If a Tremol-no is properly installed and locked down, however, then the bridge CAN'T oscillate. This means all the energy from your pick stays in the string, giving you a clearer, more bell-like attack, and a slight but significant sustain boost - say, an extra 10%, in my experience. It's not much, but it's there.
However, if your open strings are fine but fretted notes don't sustain, to me that says one of two things are happening - one, your pickups are way too high even after you lowered them, and the magnets are dampening sustain. How far away from the strings are they, if you fret the 24th fret? Or, two, you could have fret buzz on the upper frets, and the strings could simply be choking. This could be due to any number of factors, from a high fret somewhere, to simply a high nut and too-low bridge allowing open notes to ring out but fretted notes to buzz. When you play unplugged, do you hear ANY fretbuzz? You actually don't want a straight neck, you want it slightly concave (fret the 1st and 24th, and look at the 12th fret - do you see any space between the string and the top of the fret?), and even the best neck setup doesn't matter if your nut and bridge aren't positioned ideally.
I mean, a RG isn't a Les Paul... But I play an Universe, and into a high gain head I've never had problems getting enough sustain.
Also worth a try, as sort of a last recourse - even if you don't hear fret buzz, raise your action a little. Higher action seems to help notes bloom more.
