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Found out about these guys recently and figured I'd try one out for the price. I've never had an ebow but always wanted something like that for the crazy sounds it gets. Looks like something fun to mess around with at the very least.

https://soundstone.co/

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That looks worth a try at $35! I've long wondered about the ebow, but not with $100 worth of curiosity....

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“My favorite programming language is SOLDER” - Bob Pease (RIP)

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I've had a couple ebows over the years. The fading in long sustain is cool, but to make it not sound kinda cheesy you really have to practice with it. But they are a lot of fun and definitely worth having if you record at home and like to build up walls of moving chords.

But, I have never used it as a primary riff writing tool. Though, your results may vary.

Do you know what the difference between the sound stone and the ebow is?

For years I wanted to mod out a not super great telecaster I had. I wanted to install an ebow type sustainer for all the strings into the guitar.

But it already existed. Some company at the time (maybe still) made pickups that had a sustainer setting that was supposed to be like having an ebow vibrating all your strings at once. But, at the time the technology didn't seem there. I think you had to initiate the string vibration through at least "hammer-on" strength fingering of chords. Also, it was expensive and required some pretty crazy modifications.

I think I'll look into whether any better options have come along. I'll have to check out that soundstone as well.




EDIT: So I went and looked and the pick-up type sustainers are still around. From the look of their websites it seems the technology hasn't advanced much at all.

Someone smarter than me: Couldn't we just copy the EM field that ebows create, but, like, REALLY strong? (and have awesomely smooth swelling of chords)? Or put a EM driver under each string...?

Sustainer pickups work fine in my book. I installed at least half a dozen in my guitars. Thing is, you also need to have a bridge humbucker for them to sound right. So a standard Tele single coil bridge pickup won't do it. I've researched building a DIY sustainer system myself, which revolves around a DIY pickup that gets run into a dirt circuit. But it would be a dedicated sustainer circuit only. Whereas with these sustainer pickups the driver that replaces your neck pickup also functions and sounds as your neck pickup. Tremelo equipped guitars are probably best for sustainers because you can then add some sweet tremelo vibrato to your sound, although you can of course still use old fashioned finger vibrato to a hard tail guitar.

Sustainiac and Fernandes each have their own sustainer systems, of which I reckon that Sustainiac is probably the easier one to install. Ordering from them online however feels kinda like ordering soup from the Soup Nazi, but I reckon the dude is just anxious that you get all the installation options right so you won't complain online afterwards if you get it wrong. Fernandes systems are usually cheaper to get though. Haven't seen a Sustainiac kit pop up on eBay yet, whereas Fernandes sustainer kits a plenty.

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Awesome. Thanks for the info. From what I read after making that post it says that those sustained will fade in a chord but will pretty quickly focus its strength on one string. Is this your experience?

That's good to know about needing a humbucker. I never did mod out that tele, but the plan at the time was to add a Bigsby