SEMI-INSTALLATION OPTIONS

SEMI-INSTALL OPTION FOR MOST GUITAR TYPES: $75.00-85.00 We do 90% of the work. We supply a completely wired and TESTED set of electronics for your guitar, including Sustainiac circuit board and controls, pickup selector, volume and tone controls. You simply remove all of your existing guitar cavity parts as a "glob", after disconnecting your output jack and pickups. You can then save this "glob" of parts to restore your guitar to its original condition if desired with only a small amount of work.

Schecter SYNYSTER GATES CUSTOM® Two-humbucker options: We supply a pre-wired option for $75 or $85.00. We do a lot of these. The guitar can have one of two different electronics cavities. You need to determine which one your guitar has. Examine the following two drawings, and determine your type by measuring its length and width. SYN GATES CAVITY SMALL---- SYN GATES CAVITY LARGE

TOGGLE CONTROL OPTION $85.00: Most SYN CUSTOM owners prefer toggles. Toggle controls go in as shown on the two drawings. The tone pot can be either rewired to become a Sustainiac drive control, or can remain the tone control. This can double as a push-pull bridge pickup coil tap, or a neck pickup boost/tone selector.
STANDARD TWO-POT SYN CUSTOM OPTION $75: Sustainiac controls are push-pull. Volume control doubles as Sustainiac ON/OFF control. Tone control goes away, and is replaced by Sustainiac Harmonic Mode control.
Stratocasters: We supply a pre-wired option that mounts precisely to your pickguard for $75 extra. All Sustianiac controls plus a "CRL"-type 5-position pickup selector switch and CTS volume control come as a completely wired and tested assembly. The parts are assembled by Maniac Music onto a standard Strat pickgupard. Then, we remove these parts from our pickguard, and send them to you as an assembled kit. All you have to do is remove your existing Strat controls as a unit from the pickguard without unsoldering them. Then, mount ours in their place. (You need to remove all of the aluminum foil from the back of the pickguard, exept for that around the controls. Remove your neck pickup, and put the driver in its place. replace your mono output jack with our stereo jack, and mount the battery either using the optional battery box ($16, routing required) or in the tremolo spring cavity (optional quick-change cover recommended, $7.50. This cuts the installation time from 3-8 hours to about one hour. We supply a hookup diagram. You can later easily restore the guitar to its original condition if you wish, since all of your controls have been removed as a complete unit.

Strat options:

STANDARD STRAT SETUP: Sustainiac controls are push-pull. Bottom control is Sustainiac ON/OFF control, and doubles as MASTER TONE control. Middle control is HARMONIC MODE. $75.00 You can view the PDF hookup diagram for Stratocasters Standard Stratocaster installation.
TOGGLE CONTROLS: We can make the ON/OFF and/or Harmonic Mode a TOGGLE control. Price for this option is $85.00, since we supply two extra controls. This leaves very little room for finger access, unless we leave out the middle control. Then, you end up with an unused hole in the pickguard.

Ibanez JEM® options: We supply a pre-wired option for $75-85, similar to the Strat option above with CRL selector switch. If your Jem has a VLX 91 switch, we do not stock these. Contact us for options.

STANDARD TWO-POT JEM OPTION $75.00: Sustainiac controls are push-pull. Volume control doubles as Sustainiac ON/OFF control. Tone control goes away, and is replaced by Sustainiac Harmonic Mode control.
3-POT OPTION $80.00: This is like the standard STRAT installation. Bottom MASTER TONE doubles as Sustainiac ON/OFF. Middle control is Sustainiac Harmonic Mode. Top is CTS volume control.
TOGGLE CONTROL OPTION $85.00: Toggle controls go in between the top and bottom knobs, equally-spaced. Top toggle is ON/OFF, bottom is Harm. mode. Bottom pot can be either tone or Sustainiac drive control. We can also make this a push-pull neck pickup tone selector.
SUPERSWITCH OPTION: We can make the pickup selector a Superswitch. Add $10.00 to the above options. For this option, the Sustainiac circuit board will not fit into the existing electronics cavity. You must make a new cavity (underneath the pickguard) to hold the Sustainiac board. This new cavity adjoins the existing cavity. Here is a drawing that shows how we fit the Sustainiac to these Jem guitars: Ibanez JEM SEMI-INSTALL options. If you have a Jem with one of the new wide VLX91 switches, you will nee to send us the switch, or you can have us put a Superswitch in to replace it. The two switches have identical function.

Gibson Les Paul Option $80.00: Sustainiac controls are push-pull, and replace the neck pickup volume/tone controls. Neck volume control doubles as Sustainiac ON/OFF switch. Neck tone control goes away, and becomes Sustainiac Harmonic Mode control. Bridge pickup tone control becomes MASTER tone control. (Optionally, you can make neck pickup volume control a MASTER volume, and retain neck and bridge pickup tone controls.) The Sustainiac board BARELY fits in the space between the neck pickup and bridge pickup controls. You have to wire up the bridge ground, battery, output jack, and pickup selector switch. You use the existing selector switch wires without removing them from the switch.

The controls in a Gibson Les Paul are mounted to a steel plate. Then the plate assembly is inserted into the guitar during final production stage. These plate assemblies are mass-produced. Gibson uses special "long-shaft" pots because of the plate. This plate assembly makes any re-work/modification a big hassle. That being said, we do stock long-shaft push-pull pots, and we can work with the plate. HERE IS WHAT WE RECOMMEND FOR THE GIBSON SEMI-INSTALL: You have two choices. We prefer the #1 choice, but think about it and contact us by email or telephone.

1. Remove the entire steel plate/pot assembly from your guitar. Keep it in a safe place in case you want to restore the guitar to its original configuration later on. Then, don't use any plate when you load up the Sustainiac Semi-install components. The components will have standard shaft lengths. This makes a little more room inside the cavity.

2. We can send our long-shaft components if you wish. You will have to remove your existing components from the plate, and install ours.
The battery generally will not fit into the Gibson cavity unless you remove the steel plate. The best option is to purchase the optional battery case ($16.00, requires routing to install).
The push-pull controls are long-shaft. We mount these and two long-shaft CTS controls to a cardboard cutout that is dimensionally identical to the Les Paul standard size mounting plate. You remove your existing controls as a unit so you can restore the guitar later on to its original condition should you desire to sell it. Epiphone Les Pauls don't have the mounting plate. Also, their cavity dimensions and control placement are a little more generous but not much. For Epiphone (and knockoff) LP's, send a cavity template according to the directions in the following "GENERIC" Semi-Installation.
TOGGLE CONTROL OPTION: Toggle controls won't fit easily into the Gibson LP cavity unless you remove the bottom pair of controls. This makes the guitar have Master volume and Master tone controls.

GENERIC SEMI-INSTALL (new starting March, 2010) for open-back cavities. ("CARDBOARD INSTALL") This is for guitars with 2HB, HSS, or other pickup configuration.

1. Draw your cavity outline on paper. CAVITY DRAWING
   • You can use the cavity cover as a template to draw the cavity. CAVITY COVER
   • Measure the cavity width, length, and hole spacings, also pickup selector. Show these dimensions accurately on your drawing.
   • Label the drawing to show that it is the BACK SIDE of the cavity.
   • Indicate the direction of the BRIDGE and the NECK so we can orient the pickup selector properly.
   • Show the output jack location. We will pre-wire the output jack for you if you show this.
2. Print the 1:1 scale circuit board drawing from the PDF link: STEALTH PRO CIRCUIT BOARD You will use this drawing to determine if it will fit into your cavity without routing.
3. Cut out the printed circuit board outline.
4. Lay it in your cavity to determine where the board will actually be placed. Orient the board so that the 8-pin connector is near the pickup selector switch. This most important step makes critical guitar signal wires as short as possible, which minimizes signal distortion or even oscillation.
5. We will glue your drawing to a piece of stiff cardboard to make a CAVITY DUPLICATE. CAVITY DUPLICATE
6. Then, using this info, we will create a complete SEMI-INSTALL with volume/tone controls, Sustainiac controls, and pickup selector. We will keep a small amount of extra slack in the wiring to allow for small errors in measurement. COMPLETED SEMI-INSTALLATION This picture shows a $75.00 semi-installation.

Cost is $75 to $90, depending on the number of controls. You can then remove all of your original controls (as a unit) for restoration of your guitar to its original condition should you decide to sell it. Discuss your particular setup, and we will work with you to determine the optimum setup for your guitar. The electronics all fit into your cavity. The only things for you to hook up are the Sustainiac driver, your pickups, the output jack, and the guitar ground wire. Quick and easy. You can download this PDF file showing a 1:1 scale drawing of the Stealth PRO circuit board. STEALTH PRO CIRCUIT BOARD You can use this drawing to determine if it will fit into your cavity without routing.

A list of ELECTRICAL CONNECTION DIAGRAMS for various guitars is located down near the bottom of this page.

Standard Stratocaster installation. This also covers Jem/RG with a CRL pickup selector.

3-pickup generic with Inline switch (CRL also shown), push-pull controls This is a basic "SHREDDER" guitar configuration

3-pickup generic with Inline switch (CRL also shown), toggle controls This is a basic "SHREDDER" guitar configuration but with toggle controls for the Sustainiac.

Ibanez Jem with VLX-91 pickup selector, push-pull controls; drawing shows an added 3-knob, which can be ignored if desired (you will lose the guitar tone control). It also shows the VLX-91 selector switch. This configuration coil-taps the bridge pickup in position #2, to blend with the middle pickup for "quack" sound.

Ibanez Jem, with VLX-91 pickup selector, toggle controls; shows adding two toggle controls between volume and tone controls, also shows the VLX-91 selector switch to oil-tap the bridge pickup in position #2, to blend with the middle pickup for "quack" sound.

Ibanez JEM SEMI-INSTALL cavity options