I have just received a Sustainer from Maniac and hope to be fitting it
soon....if anybody is interested I will let you know any details I can.

All the best,

Nick

----------
> From: Christian Leduc <chleduc@...>
> To: breakdown@egroups.com
> Subject: Breakdown | Infinite guitar/Sustainiac
> Date: 08 August 2000 22:27
>
> Hello, I had an interesting little conversation with the guy form Maniac
> Music, Alan Hoover. A great great guy. I've had a couple of questions
about
> the new Stealth plus (Sustainer+ pickup). And I asked him if there was an
> historical link between the sustainiac and the infinite guitar. I thought
> it can be of some interest to post a part of his answer:
>
> "We first made our acoustic type sustainer in 1986 (the Sustainiac Model
T,
> soon followed by the Model B). Then, we heard about the Brook Infinite
> Guitar when U2 played in Indianapolis in late 1986, as I remember.
Edge's
> guitar tech called us, and allowed us to play a few notes on the
instrument
> after the afternoon sound check. I thought that seemed like a neat way
to
> make sustain, so we designed our own version of such a sustainer after
> looking at the I.G.
>
> The Infinite Guitar used a regular Duncan stack pickup for a driver.
Since
> this is a high impedance device, it requires around 100 volts of drive
> signal to produce adequate magnetic drive into the strings. This seemed
> kind of crazy to me, so shortly after that the Sustainiac GA-1 was born.
We
> made a low-impedance driver so that the sustainer would run efficiently
on
> batteries. The driver could be used as a pickup by attaching a
transformer
> or amplifier to its output in order to increase the voltage output.
>
> The "G" is for Gary Osborne, my partner in Maniac Music. This was
followed
> soon after by the GA-2. We subsequently filed and were granted several
> patents on our refinements that allowed the magnetic sustainer to be used
as
> a practical, manufacturable device. We never attempted to patent any of
the
> basic principles, such as a pickup being used in reverse to drive the
> strings, because we always felt that that credit belonged to Michael
Brook.
>
> Curiously, Michael (whom I met and talked to at length in 1990) never
> followed up with his British patent that he filed sometime around the
1985
> timeframe. Typically, patent offices reject first applications over
> technicalities. It is up to the inventor to persist and argue his/her
case.
> Michael gave up and didn't argue his case, so he never got a patent. He
> told me in conversation that he was very busy, and also really didn't
know
> that you could present an argument and maybe get your patent.
>
> Then, Floyd Rose et al got a U.S. patent on a magnetic sustainer driver
in
> 1990. Curiously, they claim never to have heard of the Brook device
prior
> to making their sustainer. I know of no facts to contradict this. We
have
> a patent cross-licensing agreement with them."
>
> Well, I hope I didn't break a top secret thing (for MB and for M.
Hoover),
> but it was interesting.
>
>
>
>