Replacing the nut for increased sustain, what material should I use?

[KayCee]

It is the opinion of several luthiers, musicians and myself that tonal improvements exist on both fretted and open string notes. The physics behind it just confirms and explains this phenomena. Whether this is obvious to the person who has 20 guitars and rarely spends enough time playing each one to notice any difference in upgrades is a subject for another thread.

However whitestrat probably wasn't trying to discredit the link I posted. If the objective of the thread starter is to improve sustain dramatically, then changing the nut might be an inefficient way to achieve it. If the guitar doesn't already have decent tone with the existing nut, changing it to bone/tusq/ivory isn't going to be life changing.

 

[Fortheus]

Sustain Factors

Sustain has many factors you should consider :
1. Nut
2. Neck Joint, glued/1 piece is better than bolt on
3. Bridge, tremolo bridge will have less sustain than fixed
4. Headstock angle
5. String size, the thicker the better
6. String material, it will effect due to it relation with magnets (pickup)
7. Try to shorten the distance from your pickup to your string, this will make your guitar sound louder thus with small amplitude you still can hear it ringing
8. Technique, try to vibrate while you play, vibrato will increase the sustain as long as you vibrate correctly because it gives more energy to vibe

Try those factors

As you can see and learn from physics is that keeping sustain is like maintaining the amplitude of the vibration, and do this by minimizing the energy loss which is mainly from joint and sitting point of your string and your string it self

 

[seekz]

The nut wouldn't make much of a difference.

Since its a cheap strat, I would recommend you get
your bridged fixed (as opposed to floating) and have
the trem block replaced with a more solid one.

Those two would make a hell of a difference.

 

[lightice]

Sustain has many factors you should consider :
1. Nut
2. Neck Joint, glued/1 piece is better than bolt on
3. Bridge, tremolo bridge will have less sustain than fixed
4. Headstock angle
5. String size, the thicker the better
6. String material, it will effect due to it relation with magnets (pickup)
7. Try to shorten the distance from your pickup to your string, this will make your guitar sound louder thus with small amplitude you still can hear it ringing
8. Technique, try to vibrate while you play, vibrato will increase the sustain as long as you vibrate correctly because it gives more energy to vibe

Try those factors

Not all the factors you listed are actually true. Especially 2,4,5,7.
The neck joint/glued tenons have long been debate, but I'm sure you've heard bolt ons having great sustain and some glued/1 piece sounding dead. It really is a toss up.

How would headstock size matter in sustain?

Thicker strings doesn't mean better. Jimi played 10-38s, and everyone still tries to get his tone today.

And the closer the pickups to the strings, the shorter the sustain. Although it provides for a hotter output, sustain is sacrificed.

 

[Gr3y]

yup the closer the pickup the more the pickup sucks the string from vibrating freely.

something that should be in a new thread http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVCHOf3B6k0

 

[Whitestrat]

hey maybe lets not discredit the link that KC posted. its worth giving it a try to shove something plastic nut like material in between the 1st fret and the upgraded nut and play the fretted notes.

I read the link. It does make sense. But no where does it say that replacing nut will perform miracles, which is what I don't want the TS to be mislead into thinking.

 

[Whitestrat]

However whitestrat probably wasn't trying to discredit the link I posted. If the objective of the thread starter is to improve sustain dramatically, then changing the nut might be an inefficient way to achieve it. If the guitar doesn't already have decent tone with the existing nut, changing it to bone/tusq/ivory isn't going to be life changing.

Wah! hoc come you knew exactly what I wanted to say?!?!?!?! Were we married in a previous life?:mrgreen:

 

[Ized]

Wah! hoc come you knew exactly what I wanted to say?!?!?!?! Were we married in a previous life?:mrgreen:

Must be intuition, my friend.... :lol:

 

[Fortheus]

Hi,

well but never heard that bolt joint is have greater sustain than neck thru or glued. But just make sure the joint between neck and body is tight to reduce loss energy

I didn't say about headstock size but headstock angle. I read from gibson site that angled headstock against nut will increase sustain

About the string though, I was referring to 0.09 compared to 0.10 or up, I just feel that 0.10 have better tone and bigger output and the sustain is better..but yes it has stagnan curve somewhere greater than 0.10

For point no 7, I was referring louder thus the player can hear the string still vibrating though the amplitude is low.yes you also correct, the closer the pickup with string the sustain will down. But when it's set optimally it will great. Optimal means by comparing the output to the sustain. It's kinda useless if the string still vibrate (sustain is great) but you can't hear the sound clearly because the pickup is too far away.

Thanks also for the correction..just my 2 cents sharing my limited knowledge to help others

 

[smurfpiss]

yup the closer the pickup the more the pickup sucks the string from vibrating freely.

something that should be in a new thread http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WVCHOf3B6k0

That's a great video!

 

[Crawldaddy]

Hmm.

I would want to shed more light on tuning machines. I notice that modern, sealed tuning machines like Gotohs, Grovers etc on average tend to yield better sustain compared to open-back or vintage-style tuning machines, on top of all the other contributing factors such as neck joints, bridge types.

I recently changed out a set of mini grovers for a set of Gotohs on my Epi Firebird because the Grovers tended to slip somehow... and the difference might have been subtle (the guitar already had excellent sustain) but the extra sustain when playing the open strings required me to control it substantially. I must also say that I swapped out the stock TOM bridge with a Gotoh one as well.