Stratocaster Sustain Trick - But Does It Work?

Nope

you need to slightly open up the 4 body holes so they are more oversized than the screw going through them....and when you loosen the neck....you need to go wat more than a 1/4 turn.  But as with opening up the 4 body holes, the neck pocket in the body needs to fit the neck heel snugly with minimal slop.  So when you do loosen the 4 bolts enough while under string tension.....it does pull the neck in to the body pocket and retune while the screws are loose.  Having the bolt holes over sized give some play to let the neck pull into the body the right way.  As long as your neck angle and everything is right, you should have no need in the future to unbolt the neck......So you could consider making it a true project and find a suitable glue and glue it in to the pocket with some type of glue that's heat sensitive.....so you could heat the joint if you ever need to remove the neck.  It doesn't really matter if there is a tenon joint or some type of dove tail joint or the basics of a bolt on neck and pocket......a glued in neck is a glued in neck....bonded.  A neck through one piece is a whole different story...…       You'd get much more sustain if you had a hard tail bridge with strings through the body.      With a traditional trem, the trem block is critical as well as the springs when it comes to the metal.  But when you set the bridge float with the spring claw......its just 2 screws.  you want to shim both screws to the body using metal washers as spacer shims for a more solid coupling of the claw to the body by the 2 screws...you get more surface area in the mechanical coupling with washers as shims.  The washers should be the same metal as the spring claw and screws.

To bring up the best comparison, you should record both versions via software and watch the soundwaves behaviours as they decay through the passing time. Everything other than that can be purely subjective and individual.
I tried to stop the time of your played D-note (neck-PU) before and after. The D-chords (neck-PU) likewise. But that is inacurate, too. First, you stopped the D-note before it totally faded. Second, I can not guarantee that I'm simultaneously taking time either.


So again: Make the signal trackable through software and use the timemarks to measure the decay.


But nonetheless, your trick is absolutely perfect to correct an inaccurate positioned neck. And that is a win anyway. Thumps up!

You should open a music store called Zabel Music it sounds good!

Whoa. It's seem like my $125 strat clone has more sustain than that G&L. I clocked an easy 12.9 seconds on the stopwatch. No joke.

Its not a Stratocaster unless it says Fender!!!

I always do that trick for any bolt on, I think it does help sustain. It just makes sense being tighter in the neck pocket making the body resonate more

First loosen about a quarter then tighten a quarter back? What is the principle? And dou you do this eveytime before you play the guitar?

Hydrating the scale leds to a quite good sustain improvement

i think it does not make any difference .

That guitar is set poorly. The problem is probably not in the joint. Loose bolts can impair sustain, but if they are tight, loosening and tightening it further will not change anything. Bolt on guitars have weaker sustain than glued ones not because of the joint, but because they often come with tremolo bridges and floating trems etc. Hardtail bridges dont dissipate vibration that much. No matter how massive your trem block is, it will never beat an immovable piece of hardware.

Thanks

Nice test and good idea. I wonder if it would be more accurate if you didnt play through an amp. The soundwave in the room from it will artificially sustain the note

Меня так же училка в школе ругала, а потом оказывалось, что вообще не меня

Any vibration in the guitar other than the strings themselves will rob energy from the note. The more resonate the guitar the less sustain you will have. And why do we guitar players value sustain so much, do we really need an extra .5 seconds? Use a compressor, ebow, sustainiac or amp feedback.

Thanks for trying the experiment to fine tune a guitars performance. Your "quarter turn" was more like 30 degrees, rewatch your video, you did not loosen them enough to free the neck, you need over 3/4 loose. The creak sound was the screws in tight hardwood. I have been fitting Strat necks for 5 decades. Also, the trick only works if you had a guitar with an alignment/seating problem to start with. Very seldom do you see a quality guitar with a neck fit issue. For any guitar player,; set up your amp with the guitar volume controls at 6 or 7. If you want to make a note or chord last longer, ride the volume control. I get a big laugh at shredders that talk about strats having no sustain, as if they ever sat on a note.

I think it did work a little. Also I think dead strings could interfere with sustain as well. Thanks for the tip.

It’s because you’re looking at the video of yourself being recorded on the computer screen off to your right that we can see in the reflection of your glasses..... “...not sure”? baloney, you know why...it’s only vanity, that’s all. Nothing to feel you gotta run away from... unless you are super vain?

I think these comparisons would be better with some sought of Meter to measure the length and intensity of the sustain. I don't think you can rely on the memory thing.

Hi Mark, how would you feel about letting the Guitar sit for 1/2 an hour before retightening the neck.

Another worthwhile mod is to "bed" the neck pocket. Just like the way custom precision rifles are done. Remove the neck, work a VERY THIN layer of hard curing epoxy resin into the grain of the bottom of the neck pocket. Most body woods are softer than the woods used for neck. Especially on lower end guitars. They can have readily visible or not so visible voids due to the grain of the wood and/or dull router bits, the routing machine moving too fast, etx. Working a VERY THIN layer of epoxy into the grain of the bottom of the pocket gives the neck smooth, solid contact and with the epoxy worked into the grain of the body, it transmits the vibrations much, much more constanetc. It works.

SHOOT GANG, HERE COMES THE FUZZ!

I think you gotta tune the strings up before you tighten the screws back down

You have to understand the mechanics, it’s not magic. The intent is to get the neck to seat well in the pocket, specifically to sit tight at the back end. You need to re tighten back screws first. If your guitars neck is already seated well you gain no advantage, if it’s mostly seated well you get little advantage, and so on.

I like to sit the guitar in a vertical position on a table and pull down hard on the neck when tightening the screws
Proper neck guitar Connection definitely makes a big improvement to sustain and volume when you feel a lot of vibration in your left wrist you know you're pretty well got it
I have found the pickguard on some Stratocaster overhang the heel pocket preventing proper connection easily fixed by shaving the edge of the pickguard cheers

Scraping all the paint out of the neck pocket makes a big difference in sustain also. Wood on wood...

Sounds to me it gets a bit more sustain. I believe the neck sits better in the body pocket making some more wood to wood contact after loosening and tightening the screws. Thanks for a great video.

Sustain can be measured with a stop watch or a simple recording software and none of the videos presenting this wonder trick is presenting any before/after measurements and waveforms of recordings...makes the inquiring mind wonder why?

Absolute mythology.

More pickups = more magnets = less sustain. I’ve built 3 strats now and I learned that the least amount of pickups gives more sustain. My strat with 1 single coil at the neck rings out forever with no effects needed.

For this method to work properly, you have to make sure the screws have nice clearance in the body holes.
Two reasons for the importance of clearance of the body holes:
1. the neck have freedom to move back in the pocket, pulled by string tension.
2. the screws can actually pull the neck to a tight contact towards the body. If the screw treads grab in the body, there is no way they can pull the neck to the desired pressure of contact.
I took a bigger drill and redrilled the body holes carefully. Then removed the splinters and burr around the holes in the pocket. Those little wood fibers can prevent an even fitting of the neck.
Just wanna help😊

buy a Gibson 😉

You missed a step.... you should have " RETUNED IT WHILE THE SCREWS WERE LOOSE.... THEN RETIGHTENED THE SCREWS ".

Buzz lol😂

You should have timed the length of sustain in each case! More importantly, this "trick" only works if your bolt on neck is truly a "bolt-on" neck. Meaning, the screw that goes through the body of the guitar should slide through the body, i.e, the holes in the body need to be a fraction larger than the screw, this will give the neck the ability move, ever so slightly, when you retune the guitar, now the neck can make better contact with the pocket if it isn't already snug. Many guitar necks on Strats are screwed all way through the body and then into the neck, which will not allow neck to move when you loosen the screws!

Just keep the screws snug the neck can get loose enough to cause tuning issues

What driver is that?

Having A G&L guitar sure doesn't hurt!

It definately works. I did mine and it's 3 x's better. Thank you sir!

I love upgrading Squirrel guitars. (Squire) When I reassemble the neck to the body, I place some alluminium foil in between, to fill up any gaps. Then, I sacrifice several black chickens to the guitar god, and screw the neck and body as tightly as I can without causing earthquakes on a remote part of the world through the "butterfly" effect. But seriously now, jokes asode, I firmly believe sustain comes from the electonics. I've come to this conclusion after ruining several guitars, and brutalising the contents of my wallet. So, there!

Maybe there was no difference because it was already set up right, at the factory.
Leo was a smart man.

Science at work, for the good of man ♬🎶

just spent $5K on a Custom Shop Strat. Beautiful guitar, sounds amazing, and next to no sustain especially above the 12th fret. I'm changing out the custom shop RSD bridge for Floyd Rose Rail Tail on Monday. Hoping the all brass and decked bridge fixes the issue.

Is this trick settling the screws' threads more into the wood via the soap/beeswax? The only thing I can think.

can't time the sustain?

It would have helped to time the sustained before and after. I did and you could tell definitively that it does. Thanks again for your videos. Peace, Just Sam

So, you love it but you you don't . Interrsting. Why the bother ?

I went thru my collection. This fix seemed to work on some and not at all on others. Sure doesn't hurt anything.