[slugworth]

IMO the buzzing must be *horrible* in order to be the real cause for lack of sustain, in which case the guitar not only sustains bad, but it also sounds awful anyway. So we are not really talking about bad sustain in this case, but for a nastily buzzing guitar.

I wish I had a convenient way to say this more politely, but your opinion is incorrect. Horrible fret buzz will obviously kill tone, but even slight fret buzz will impact sustain.

It's not witchcraft. It's science.

[greekdude]

IMO the buzzing must be *horrible* in order to be the real cause for lack of sustain, in which case the guitar not only sustains bad, but it also sounds awful anyway. So we are not really talking about bad sustain in this case, but for a nastily buzzing guitar.

I wish I had a convenient way to say this more politely, but your opinion is incorrect. Horrible fret buzz will obviously kill tone, but even slight fret buzz will impact sustain.

It's not witchcraft. It's science.

Science says that if we take friction out of the equation, (and indeed after the first fraction of a second on a buzzing note friction stops, the string no longer hits subsequent frets), then the string, with the energy left should ring out for ever.
Slight fret buzz might impact sustain, BUT NEVER TO A POINT THAT IT WILL MAKE AN INHERENTLY GOOD SUSTAINING NOTE SOUNDING HORRIBLE. So??? What kills sustain then?

If you dont have the chance to verify this simple phenomenon, the Internet is full of such evidence :

http://www.jemsite.com/forums/f16/why-does-my-rga121-have-the-worst-sustain-of-any-guitar-ive-ever-used-62791.html

Really... my RGA121 has the worst sustain of any guitar I've ever played and I can't figure out why. My cheap-o B.C. Rich has better sustain. I've had my RGA121 set up twice, had strings from 10s to extra thick meant for detuning on it, and I've even tried tilting the saddles back to put more pressure on the strings all to no avail.
....
The problem has to be bridge/saddle related. The 24th fret on the B.C. Rich (with it's crap PUs) has pretty damn good sustain.
.....
One thing though about these small suggestions (as opposed to major ones like getting new this or that) is that all my other guitars are set up relatively the same way and they don't suffer from any sustain problems. In fact my B.C. Rich hasn't been set up properly for a long time and has buzzing every which way and sustain better than my Les Paul that I had professionally set up just a couple months ago.

Examples like the above are *numerous* on the net. Everybody seems to suggest smth about buzzing or string action, which almost NEVER is the real cause of the problem.

You guys make a very serious mistake when you leave the most important factor out : vibrations of neck/body/bridge.

I was about to post here in a separate thread a problem with my uv70p, which sustains at 24th fret less than two seconds, but I guess this would end up in getting replies about .... fretwork and buzzing. Or the pup height (which IMO is also rarely the problem, especially when we compare sustain in adjacent frets)

[DarthPhineas]

The falloff that Ray is talking about is one of the least highlighted things I've read about with guitars. And that's a shame. I've also heard it called a "waterfall". It has multiple benefits and no downsides I can think of, at least not from a playing perspective.

As far as sustain, there can be a lot of things, which have all been pretty much covered in this thread already.

[greekdude]

The falloff that Ray is talking about is one of the least highlighted things I've read about with guitars. And that's a shame. I've also heard it called a "waterfall". It has multiple benefits and no downsides I can think of, at least not from a playing perspective.

As far as sustain, there can be a lot of things, which have all been pretty much covered in this thread already.

the falloff might be beneficial for guitars with raised tang profile necks, or in the general case for guitars with small radius.
On shred guitars (e.g. with radius > 14") it just increases the string action on high frets.

[DarthPhineas]

I am actually referring to shred guitars.

Have you tried one with a waterfall?  Did it come with it or was it done afterward?  Was the guitar set up accordingly?  And just how much was taken off each feet as it went down?

[greekdude]

I am actually referring to shred guitars.

Have you tried one with a waterfall?  Did it come with it or was it done afterward?  Was the guitar set up accordingly?  And just how much was taken off each feet as it went down?

If you consider the geometry of the freted string in relation to the fretboard (and subsequently rest of frets) and bridge , you will see that the angle between the string and the fretboard increases as we move towards the higher frets. Additionally, taking into consideration that shorter string lengths vibrate less, one can simply see that the fall away technique is not needed at all, and all it does is raise the action height on those frets.

Yes I have played with such a strat, in fact fall away just helps avoiding buzz on big bends on strats with typical 9.5" or smaller radius. IMHO When someone tries to form a fall away on the frets of a large radius shred guitar, then smth must be terribly wrong with it.

[greekdude]

Coming back to it.

After about 8 months long adventure trying to get some sustain on frets 22->24 on my Ibanez UV70p, I am 101% certain, that *severe* sustain problems, are absolutely unrelated to "stratitis", string action or anything fret related.

Severe sustain problems have to do with materials, parts and their vibration.

Yes, I gained those two valuable additional seconds of sustain, so I know for sure.

[RayBarbeeMusic]

I have researched the topic of sustain in so much advanced ways (physics, vibrations), that I think that someone trying to explain sustain problems by blaming the fretwrok "silver-bullet"-style, and bringing the fretwork in any discussion about sustain, is just downright retarded.

I said it could be the problem and I'd look at it.  I don't know whether it is without seeing the guitar, but it is the #1 sustain issue I see. 

I work on this stuff ALL THE TIME and my specialty is getting guitars to play clean with action most people say is impossible.  I know WTF I'm talking about.  You, on the other hand, have no idea.

Fretwork does not have to "buzz badly" to be the culprit.  Not at all. 

There is so much wrong in your posts it would take too long and be a fruitless exercise to correct.  Try actually doing some fretwork for a decade or 2 then post again. 

That is the problem with forums.  People who don't actually do this stuff day in day out want to pop off and talk about things they know nothing about, and will argue with you til they are blue in the face with incorrect information.  Its like a layman going on a surgery forum and arguing with surgeons about brain surgery.  I try hard not to get into it with the ignorant because I know how useless it is to try to explain relativity to a chimp.  The chimp just gets upset and the explainer just gets frustrated. 

[greekdude]

I have researched the topic of sustain in so much advanced ways (physics, vibrations), that I think that someone trying to explain sustain problems by blaming the fretwrok "silver-bullet"-style, and bringing the fretwork in any discussion about sustain, is just downright retarded.

I said it could be the problem and I'd look at it.  I don't know whether it is without seeing the guitar, but it is the #1 sustain issue I see. 

I work on this stuff ALL THE TIME and my specialty is getting guitars to play clean with action most people say is impossible.  I know WTF I'm talking about.  You, on the other hand, have no idea.

Fretwork does not have to "buzz badly" to be the culprit.  Not at all. 

There is so much wrong in your posts it would take too long and be a fruitless exercise to correct.  Try actually doing some fretwork for a decade or 2 then post again. 

That is the problem with forums.  People who don't actually do this stuff day in day out want to pop off and talk about things they know nothing about, and will argue with you til they are blue in the face with incorrect information.  Its like a layman going on a surgery forum and arguing with surgeons about brain surgery.  I try hard not to get into it with the ignorant because I know how useless it is to try to explain relativity to a chimp.  The chimp just gets upset and the explainer just gets frustrated.

The amount of BS by "professionals" on the net is unbelievable. All the fretwork of the world COULD NOT SOLVE SUSTAIN PROBLEMS ON THE LAST FRET FOR JESUS CHRIST'S SAKE! Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that.

I now have my Ibanez's action on 0.9mm high E @24th fret, 1.3mm low B @24th fret, with 4 seconds of sustain on 24th and more than 5 secs on 17->22.

Thing is that I SOLVED MY PROBLEM, by experimenting with the amount of body wood under the heel, offsets, neck heel position, screws. If I trusted "high-school"-level "techs" (like you) they would drag me for years without any solution.

Truth is my friend, that it is apparent that your knowledge, and imagination are both limited. You parallelize yourself with doctors, which is again laughable. (You also mention relativity in this context which made things more funny, since all you do is repeating the word "fretwork" like a holly grail of sustain, not very scientific ). I gave the link to a scientific paper on sustain before, but since your lazy finding it here it comes again, (happy reading) :
https://www.unibw.de/lrt4/mechanik/mitarbeiter/ehem-mitarbeiter/hfleischer/deadspots-en
( I am sorry to disappoint you but you won't find the keyword "buzz" or "fretwork" in the above doc).
After you understand this, come back to talk about sustain, after you promise that you won't bring up this idiotic argument about fretwork again.

In short :
any vibration of the medium (neck or body/bridge) at a frequency near (or a multiple of) the fundamental string frequency at a fret which constitutes an anti-node of the wave, will most likely result in very poor sustain.
The way to solve sustain problems is to minimize those vibrations, while not sacrificing (e.g. block the trem) the functionality of the guitar.