I'd like to know if there any pedals or something to get more sustain in the guitar...I almost don't get any natural sustain or feedback, probably because my guitar and amp are pretty shitty and I can't really afford a Les Paul...I've heard of the "Fernandes" Sustainer which apparently is one of the best things, also would changing the pickups help at all? I've got a Washburn Lyon, the one that looks like a Strat.

[et.stok.ca]

"sustainer" humbuckers included. These pickups, as suggested, sustain a picked note indefinitely"



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2011-04-12 02:55 by dcba.

You probably won't be getting much natural sustain from that guitar. I know that those guitars are not the best made. So while you can get any number of sustain pedals by Boss, Ibanez, E-H, Black Cat they will not 'better' your sound. getting a very good sustain pedal (Fulltone e.g.) you might find yourself with an effect that costs more than the guitar.
If I were you I'd pretend that I needed three sustain pedals, and save the $, and get another guitar.

I'm afraid Palace is right. Your sound will never be better than the weakest link in your signalchain.
However you can improve the sustain a little by lowering you pickups if they're close to the strings. The magnetics in the pu's will "pull" the strings so they stop swinging earlier than they could. Anyway if the wood in the body isn't relatively resanonant and the pickups are of poor quality, it probably wont help much. Still worth a try. Also make sure the action isn't too low. Too much buzz will kill your tone.

As for the Fernandes sustainer, it's said to be quite expensive, and also pretty difficult mounting. Probably not worth it.

There are a lot of sustainer/compressor pedals on the market, but again, a pedal like these won't help much if the the rest of your gear is of less good or poor quality.

Whick amp do you have, by the way?

[www.reverbnation.com]

Yeah, I know it's kind of pointless because of my cheap-ass guitar...Thanks for all the suggestions...I have a bad amp too, but just to play at home, I get a kind of distorted "old" sound which is kind of cool but I usually play with some Marshalls live. My action is already set pretty high. I guess it just won't happen with this guitar. I'll get another 2 jobs and buy a Les Paul.
Thanks again.

It's a big jump from a Washburn Lyon to a Les Paul. Maybe you can find a good guitar in between that you like. So you'll just need one other job.