Amazing Sustain with TiSonix

[cooler23]

Hi. I've watched the Premier Guitar NAMM Show videos and I saw a video about titanium products for guitars by TiSonix. It seems that titanium could be some fine material to try. On the TiSonix website blog they state:

"Titanium is an element in the Periodic Table. It is as stong as steel, but 45% lighter.  It is used in alloys for many applications where performance and strength are more important than cost.

Its corrosion resistance and stability makes it suitable for surgical implants.

For music purposes, its micro-crystaline structure is highly efficient in transferring vibration.  This permits the string vibrations to be transferred to the soundboard with the least dampening and coloration by the guitar’s hardware.

There is ‘titanium’ and then there is ‘TITANIUM’.

There is a grade of titanium called ‘Commercially Pure’ (CP).  It is a malleable form that is used in stampings and can be formed into shapes.  It has the advantage of being corrosion free.  Its ability to transfer acoustic (vibrations) energy is superior to many other metals, but it is not optimal.  It has a Rockwell hardness around B90.  This hardness is compromised for the convenience of forming.

To improve these acoustic properties, titanium can also be cast.  These titanium alloys may be more rigid - perhaps Rockwell hardness of C25.  This will improve acoustic energy transfer, but cast titanium has its drawbacks.  While casting, titanium reacts with atmospheric gases and creates porosity within the casting.  Microscopic voids are inescapable in titanium.  These voids interrupt the grain of the material, providing a sponge-like structure which restricts its efficiency.

TiSonix machines their parts from a forged titanium billet.  This means that the material has an extremely tight grain structure without any voids.  It is also much harder.  Rockwell ratings are C35 to C45.  While it makes this material very hard to machine into a finished part for your guitar, the tightly uniform grain of the titanium molecules provides the greatest efficiency to transfer the sound of your strings into the music we hear.

TiSonix is committed to producing the finest sounding guitar component possible.  That is why we machine our parts from titanium billet instead of lesser materials."

To prove that, they did a youtube video where they test the sustain with and without their products: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Nc7A_DIFPk

Seems that their products improve sustain pretty well.What do you guys think? Have you tried it? Thanks

 

[Funky Phil]

Very interesting, but...

I noticed that he played the titanium equipped guitar a little harder each time...
The experiment would have been better with the same guitar for both saddle types, as there will always be some difference between guitars (even of the same make and model)...
The sustain will be different from note to note (and different on each guitar)...

Now I'm not saying that the titanium saddles are bad or onything, just that the demonstration wasn't very scientific.

 

[cooler23]

Sounds like it can be done, this cheating  :icon_scratch:  . But when you look at the graph of the sound the atack of the sound and the amplitude of it seems more or less the same to me. But this could be fake. Of course the pick attack of human hand can't be exactly the same to handle scientifically valid measuring but also I think little more of the attack won't make your string vibrating twice as long... And also I believe there are differences between the guitar of exactly the same model but do you think one Tele will have 18 sec. of sustain while the second one will have let's say 9 sec.? Kinda strange for me... Keep posting. Thanks

 

[dbw]

Sustain can be affected a lot by raising or lowering the action imperceptibly.  Not saying they're trying to cheat, just saying they COULD.

Anyway who the hell wants 18 seconds of sustain?  Get an e-bow if you really need that long

 

[cooler23]

Well it was not 18 sec. of usable (proper) sustain, but the string just was vibrating longer. So your usable sustain will be say 3 sec. longer. But the point is that if this all is true it helps somehow to unlock the sound possibilities of the praticular instrument. If the sustain is longer thanks to it, it probably dampends the sound and tone of actual instrumet less. Extreme example of how I see it is palm muting. The sound if you do palm muting is short and dull. When you don't do it, it sounds full of harmonics and also it sounds longer. Now there is obviously much smaller difference between steel and titanium bridge than between normal playing and palm muting. But for the example...

 

[ByteFrenzy]

Some time ago we had a discussion here about the Traben 'Bigger Bridge'. Traben also make the claim that their (bass) bridge improves sustain - according to their claim, this is thanks to its increased mass. Here on the other hand we have a bridge maker claiming to have better sustain, thanks to the exact opposite - reduced mass. Both have made clips givingwhat they call scientific proof of their claim. However, something tells me BOTH can't be true. The cynic in me is screaming that in this case the reasoning behind the proof is: Titanium is hyped up and expensive -> making parts out of titanium will make us filthy rich -> let's convince people to buy our overly expensive parts -> let's make a cool JooToob clip 'proving' why our part is so much better and why they should buy it.

Could be wrong of course, but their explanation goes against my understanding of how things work.

 

[rounce55]

Im sure their product does work to some extent but he clearly cut the stock off before it was done, then held the other one much longer than it really should have