Tested: Where Does The Sustain Come From In An Electric Guitar?

Main ideas, concepts, and lessons

• Sustain matters to players, especially when holding notes for long durations, but it’s unclear where sustain actually comes from on an electric guitar.
• The creator investigates commonly cited factors that affect electric guitar sustain, focusing on:
  • Amplifier/playing conditions (e.g., feedback, gain, attack)
  • Guitar physical design and hardware (e.g., break angle, saddle material/tension, pickups, mounting pressure, finish)
• Overall lesson: Amplifier behavior is the strongest contributor, though guitar-specific factors can still matter enough that some guitars are audibly different.

Methodology / test approach

1) Start with the claim: “sustain” might be what people hear as feedback

• The creator notes that some songs with long held notes may rely on amp feedback:
  • Feedback definition used: the amp is so loud the air shakes the strings, causing notes to continue ringing.
• They propose feedback may vary by guitar, but they focus on tests that don’t require the amp helping.

2) Establish a practical “needed sustain” reference length

• A personal long-note example is used:
  • A song section where a note is held for one full bar.
• Bar length estimate:
  • At ~60 BPM, one bar ≈ 4 seconds.
• Key framing:
  • Instead of obsessing over “35 seconds,” they evaluate how well sustain holds in the first ~4 seconds.

3) Core measurement idea: compare peak volume at time 0 vs. time 4 seconds

• Proposed sustain metric:
  • Strum and record peak volume at 0 seconds
  • Strum and record peak volume at 4 seconds
  • Smaller volume drop = better sustain
• Rationale:
  • “Total ring time” can be misleading if the first few seconds are the most musically relevant.

4) Comprehensive strumming test plan (expanded into many data points)

They describe a large matrix of controlled variations:

• Variables included:
  • 4 guitars
  • 3 amp/data routes:
    • direct to computer
    • into low gain amp
    • into high gain amp
  • 6 strumming styles/positions (as described):
    • open strum
    • just the low E string
    • just the high E string
    • strumming normally vs. hard
    • strumming near the bridge vs. near the neck
    • pick vs. finger (counted within the “six” mentioned)
• Stated multiplication:
  • 4 × 3 × 6 × 3 = 216 different strums
• Measurement captured at:
  • 0 seconds and 4 seconds
• Total data points (as stated):
  • 216 × 3 = 648 pieces of data

5) Key results from the measurement tests (patterns found)

• Low E note vs. “low eno”: very close sustain (as observed across tests).
• High E note: consistently less sustain than other strings.
• Amp effect:
  • Every guitar sustained better through a low gain amp than direct-to-computer (clean).
  • Every guitar sustained even better through a high gain amp.
• Counterintuitive attack behavior (“flip-flop”):
  • Direct: soft strums had more sustain than hard strums.
  • Through amp (low or high gain): hard strums had more sustain than soft strums.
• Explanation hypothesis offered:
  • Distortion “chops” the waveform (reducing dynamic range between loud/quiet parts), so the signal doesn’t decay in perceived volume as much.
  • Therefore, when the amp is near breakup/distorting, sustain becomes more about signal loudness into the amp than the guitar model itself (based on their results).

6) Follow-up: test additional “guitar construction” claims

Even after amp-related findings, they test more rumored factors:

• Break angle

  • Claim: steeper break angle increases sustain; shallower can rob sustain.
  • Plan: test how shallow it must get to noticeably reduce sustain.

• Saddle material

  • Claim: different metals/alloys (steel, brass, plated metals) change sustain due to hardness/manufacturing differences.
  • Approach:
    • Broad comparison rather than buying dozens of saddles:
    • compare “any metal saddle” vs. a wooden dowel baseline.

• String tension

  • Claim/idea tested:
    • Tune down a whole step (looser strings), then tune up a whole step (tighter strings).
  • Purpose: see whether tension changes sustain meaningfully.

• Pickup and magnetic field effect (“Esquire vs Telecaster”)

  • Origin of claim:
    • A cited player suggested Esquires sustain more because Esquires lack a neck pickup.
  • Hypothesis:
    • The neck pickup magnet allegedly “sucks” strings down and reduces ringing.
  • Test:
    • Set up a neck pickup with a bar magnet close to strings (not touching)
    • Strum eight times
    • Remove the pickup
    • Strum eight times again
  • Goal: isolate whether the magnet/pickup presence reduces sustain.

• Mounting/physical coupling to resonance

  • They reference an earlier experiment: anchoring an “air guitar” to a bench/shelf with heavy items.
  • Viewer claim:
    • Surrounding mass/resonance (bench/shelf/engines) might increase sustain.
  • New idea:
    • Compare a guitar placed on a non-resonant soft mattress vs. pressed against a resonant heavy hardwood dresser.

• Finish

  • Mixed claims recounted about how finish affects sustain:
    • Lighter “Telly” supposedly better due to less density/resonance.
    • Heavier “Les Paul” better due to higher density.
    • Harder finish reflects resonance; softer finishes absorb it.
    • Thinner finish supposedly allows wood resonance more; thicker finish deadens.
  • Proposed “worst-case” extreme test:
    • Use Titebond wood glue as a highly absorptive/non-resonant layer expected to “dead tone.”
  • Purpose:
    • Determine the maximum impact finish-like materials can have on sustain/tone.

7) Final synthesis: what they conclude from tested factors

• They report:
  • Many claimed factors (guitar-side changes and “effects”) only caused small differences (on the order of a few dB).
  • The strongest evidence supports the amp as the major driver.
• Still, they believe there must be some guitar-specific properties that cause audible sustain differences—otherwise people wouldn’t reliably notice which guitars sustain well.

Speakers / sources featured

• The video creator (speaker; not named in the subtitles)
• “A player” interviewed as a child (unnamed) comparing Esquires vs Telecasters
• Viewers / “people who wrote these comments” (unnamed commenters), including:
  • concern about sustain changes
  • suggestions involving amp feedback and mounting/resonance effects
• U2 (referenced as using a guitar/device that rings for a very long time; not a direct speaker in the subtitles)