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I have always wondered how the built in ones work. Wouldn't it cause all the strings to sustain at once? Is there a way to target a single sting?

They would all sustain, but not as much as you think. And as sustainers have a feedback mode this could be a way to create amp like feedback without having an amp nearby. I think Kerry King uses them for that.

I thought that would play into it some, but I thought there might still be some interference or noise. I guess it's all just comes done to technique.

I never had any issues with that. The only issue is that you have to switch the sustainer off when not in use, as you will experience some distortion. Overall its like playing guitar with very high gain. where you have to mute the strings constantly to stop unwanted squeels and feedback. Except way way less. Or unless you use the sustainer with high gain. You can use it with cleans, but personally I prefer it with some boost or overdrive.

If you ever want to install a sustainer into a guitar, feel free to shoot me a line. I installed like 7 of them. Also, it will turn your guitar kinda active, so it won't play nice with fuzzes that require a non-buffered guitar signal to sound at their best. Which I still think is lazy designing not to fix this. On the part of fuzzes that is.

E-bows kick ass! Got into them because of U2, it got out of control because of Radiohead and Muse. I most use sustainers now, where you swap your neck pickup for a sustainer driver/neck pickup combo. The techniques are different. With an E-bow you have to use the neck pickup and hold the E-bow over it, and its very finicky where you place it. You got to use it on the sweet spot. And using it on the high E string takes some practice. With the sustainer you use the bridge pickup and it seems to work better from the 5th fret onwards. You can move from strings more easily. Plus you have a free right hand, so if you got a tremelo equipped guitar its vibrato heaven. I got about 7 guitars with built in sustainers, including a 7-string.

Sounds like me with BMPs!

BMP's need a mid switch. Once you have the ability to bring in some mids and re-appear in a band mix you will get the BMP.

That reminds me of something Pratchett wrote in one of his Discworld books... what's important is not who first sets foot on new land, it's who gets back to civilization to tell people about it.

True. Similarly in business its not who invents somethings that matters, but who can capitalize on it and mass produce something that people want.

I'm with the OP, didn't matter how many OD's a I built, it didn't matter that each next OD I built was king of the roost for a week or two, in the end the TS would always come back on my boards. Eventually I stopped caring about building overdrives at all.

Sorry for the tangent...

I like Jazz basses as well, but there is something about that p-bass sound that is hard to quantify. I did a lot of research on it ages ago, apparently a lot of it has to do with the location of the pickup.

I think another part of the picture as to how it has become so ubiquitous is that, before Leo Fender designed it there was no other option than an acoustic upright. It entered the market as a completely unique product, and once the bass could be louder other instruments could follow suit.

I read an interesting piece that said no mater how innovative the Telecaster was or how much Leo pushed the envelope with amplification, his most important achievement was the electric bass.  It is an interesting point of view but it might be true, Bigsby already made solid body guitars when the telecaster came out, and I'm sure at some point somebody else would have made a good 100 watt amp.

The electric bass is an outgrowth of the electric guitar. If Leo had not designed the Tele before the P-bass would never have followed. And as you said others made solid body guitars before, just like others built cars before Ford did, but Ford revolutionized its production process that allowed for mass production instead of rich men's toys. And so did Leo Fender with the electric guitar. Others took an acoustic guitar, solidified it and put some pickups on it. Leo designed a way you could assemble pre made parts, screw and solder them together and end up with a working guitar. It's the modular nature of Fender guitars what revolutionizes them over what Bigsby and Gibson were doing.

I have the feeling that more than ever gets through unscrutinized over the last year due to the overwhelming amount of packages they have to handle during the pandemy. I didn't pay import taxes on anything last year, even packages of a couple kilogramms where you would expect they'd take a look.

A couple of years small packages easy got through. As long as it were the paper envelopes I only got hit once on Tayda orders, and I ordered those twice a month. But now, EVERY package. I guess with covid the Taxman wants EVERY pound of flesh. There seems to be no exception from US stuff. Only stuff from China still has a good chance of not getting hit.

Ordering stuff now from the US and the shipping costs can be jaw dropping.

It used to be that when you ordered a small enough package from the US it would sneak underneath the radar. Anything in a small box used to be safe from customs inspections. Not anymore. Governments are getting greedy and want to squeeze us for EVERY amount that they can.

I would hate to think what things would look like if the former President had supreme power.

I'm a big fan of that guy. But I am not going to do that debate. Worry not about the previous guy, for he is out. Worry about the guy currently in power, because he is now the guy in power.

My guess is , that's why they don't. Get some asshat deciding he can do whatever he wants, and we're all pretty much screwed. Seems like Andrew Jackson was the same type of lovely individual.[/quote]

Internally US presidents have never had that much power as the constitution pretty much constrained them in that regard. Foreign policy wise they have a LOT of power. Which is why that always seems to be a favorite playground for them. US presidents are strange though as they combine both being the head of the government and head of state into one function. Whereas most countries separate that function into a prime minister and a president/monarch respectively. I suspect it was because when the US constitution was being drafted in the 18th century, divine right of kings was still the norm. I reckon if the US would create a constitution today they would separate the executive and head of state.

One of the hardest things for the average Kiwi to grasp about how the US does things is the federal system.

NZ has local councils (at a town level), and district councils (covering a wider area, including rural regions.) They generally handle planning permissions, things like water supplies, that general thing. Local councils are probably about the same as in the US.

But the idea of state legislature is where we have a brain fart. District councils do not have the power to pass laws, or do anything really drastic, like how US states can create state-level taxes, or state level laws. The idea of the government at a national level empowering a district council to handle district-level crisis situations is... you what? Why is the Prime Minister being so lazy?

Maybe I'm just not understanding things right... I don't know.

Not just for Kiwi's, us Euroweenies also fail to understand how much power a state can wield and how they can defy federal authority. In Europe we're so used to centralized governments we don't see how in the case of even a major crisis like corona, or a disaster, presidents have to defer to governors.

Thats it exactly.. I think the original intention was that the federal part is for what the states can't handle themselves. It was a new land and all so they were separate groups that banded together like a wagon train

It does however confuses me that Americans act like their state is like some independent country that joined the union, when with the exception of the 13 Colonies and Texas, all the states were created by the federal government. Viriginia, to name one, was basically an independent country for a while, whereas Kansas is just lines drawn on a map in Washington.

Still going extremely slow over here. Less then 1% of the population being vaccinated.

Here in the Netherlands vaccination goes at a snails pace. We were one of the last countries in Europe to start vaccinating and are among the worst in Europe with numbers of people vaccinated. Which I suspect is because the incompetent moron who is the health minister, wants to be photographed with every person getting the vaccine. They also don't have enough, but what they have they mostly keep in stock, rather then vaccinate people with it.

The best documentaries on youtube are made by individuals. Companies always seem to feel the need to dumb things down. These guys can go into details so obscure it boggles the mind.

ParallaxNick - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0QdW-H7_l0zh_CoNhlwoBw
John Michael Godier has two cool channels = https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz3qvETKooktNgCvvheuQDw  and   https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEszlI8-W79IsU8LSAiRbDg
Isaac Arthur - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFipeZtQM5CKUjx6grh54g
Cool Worlds - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGHZpIpAWJQ-Jy_CeCdXhMA
Melodysheep - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR9sFzaG9Ia_kXJhfxtFMBA
And if you are a wonderful person, Anton Petrov - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCciQ8wFcVoIIMi-lfu8-cjQ

I understand that the writer has full control over their art, and can do with it what they want.

I'm not a big fan of that. I usually write music by myself, creating everything including sampled drums. And then when I present this to my band I of course would love too have it recreated note for note as it was. But I've also noticed that critical feedback is key to making good music. When the other musicians take my musical ideas and are allowed to run with it songs can start to groove in ways that was never in my original vision. It doesn't always work, sometimes it doesn't live up to my original vision but usually it becomes better. And the best riff I ever wrote came about because my bandmates thought what I originally had wasn't that good so they demanded something better. It's this push and pull that makes for better creativity, even when what the others contribute is only tiny. This is why I think Sting was infinitely better when in the Police as opposed to his boring solo career. Why Roger Waters was better in Pink Floyd then solo. And why the original Star Wars trilogy was so much better then the prequel trilogy. Full creative freedom is a curse as much as it can be a boon. Studio musicians can't give you that critical feedback because they are just hired guns, not full members of a cooperative enterprise with something at stake.

One can argue that Thriller worked with the computer drums, because it became a mega hit album, every song a hit. And that is fine. We will however never know if the version with an actual drummer would have been better or not. Personally I find the drums on most MJ songs to be bland and boring, too much standard 4/4 kick snare kick snare. Your basic disco drum beat.

Speaking about playing your own instruments, Rick Beato had a very interesting discussion about that.

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My new year's resolution is the same as it has always been, don't bother with new year's resolution. Setting up goals is the first step on the road to disappointment. Far better to adopt successful habits.

Only fuzz face lovers will understand how true this statement is. I cannot count how many times fuzz a will sound amazing on Tuesday only to find out it sounds like hell on Thursday

Exactly why I never bothered with this finicky circuit or germanium transistors in general.