Has anyone put a Fernandes Sustainer in a JTV-89F

[jaminjimlp]

I have a couple sustaner guitars and that is the only thing missing for my JTV-89F to be the baddest guitar in the land, I absolutely love it but I miss my sustainer... so I was hopping to find someone here that has done this already and could give me the incouregement to go ahead and do it I am guessing that it may void the warrenty unless I can keep it separated from the variax electronics entirely. If you don't know what the sustainer is google it....

 

[Palico]

I haven't but if you do pull the trigger let me know how it goes. I would love to have one on it too.

[vmoncebaiz]

If you can pull it off that would be sick.  I've had so much fun with sustainers, especially with a floyd rose involved.  

 

Just wanted to give you a heads up as someone who's installed sustainers in other guitars.  Sustainer electronics are susceptible to crosstalk, which just means you'll have to work out a way to keep it away from other electronics in the cavity if possible.  There are a lot of extra electronics anyway with the Variax thing going on inside.  You might need to route even more room out of the body to make it work.  Just something to be aware of.  Good luck and definitely post back if you go through with it.

[dspellman]

Gary Brawer in SF is my go-to guy for Sustainers. He also did the Neal Schon sig guitars for Gibson and I think he's installed all of neal's sustainers. The Fernandes requires some room (usually routed out of the guitar) and I believe the switches are on the PC board itself. So locating both optimally with the Variax goods taking up so much space might be difficult. Gary has also got some techniques that help prevent the whole thing from turning into a squealing mess, even when you're sharing the neck pickup ring with both a sustainer driver (single coil size) and wiring in a neck pickup that is NOT the sustainer driver (as it is in a normal installation).  If anyone can make the sustainer work with a Variax, it will be him.