OH I IS DIED AN' GWAN TO TELE BRIDGE-FIXIN HEAVEN!

[stubhead]

First the dual-bar approach, which had been rattling around my headbone for a few:

Action!

All I have to do is THINK really hard, and somebody starts making me a... what? Hu-uuh? It's not for me, it is a one-off by Boris Bubbanov over at TDPRI. And it doesn't work, because he didn't file the curve into the barrels! So he's not gonna haf... Huh! a SINGLE SADDLE?

WHooo

Well that one I CAN get! And so can you! The hitch is, it comes attached to a Ron Thorn guitar, which you have to buy too to get the bridge. He hand-fits each one to the particular radius, string gauge and playing style of the consumer. Oh Fine! I'll just take out a mortgage on the Gulfstream and... oh. He's offering his custom one piece bridge, that maximizes string transmission, OR: yes, he's also offering the 2Tek bridge, which is specifically designed to reduce the co-dependency issues caused by, ummm, Um.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHA...Ha....ha.

Meanwhile over at TDPRI they're all plotzin' their Pampers over the newest bridge saddles by a guy named Kohler. I could not, will not, and can never abide an advertising blurb that starts by explaining the secret of Stadavarius's tone to me, here you do it:

Stradivarius Got It Right. The finest instrument in the world was created by Stradivarius. His violins are the benchmark because of their sound. The J.R. Kohler Precision Saddle System has adapted the masters principle for your Telecaster®.The key is the bridge on his violins were carved from one solid piece of wood. This creates an interactive response between the strings vibration and brings the instrument to life. The harmonics leap from the instrument. The tone is richer, brighter and deeper. Sustain becomes effortless. J.R. Kohler Precisions Saddles bring this solution to your Telecaster®.

Goddam that proves everything! He must be one smart cookie.

http://www.jrkohler.com/

And all the visionary free-thinkers over at TDPRI are dumping that Callaham crap and pitching the lowlife Glendale & Barden atrocities that have been ruining their tone all along, and leaping aboard the interstellar Kohler bandwagon. The only tick in the conquest was actually raised by the aforementioned Boris Bubbanov, who pointed out that the wondrous Kohler saddles look O.K. for the intonation wiggle, but they only work right flat - FLAT flat, as in Z-ROW radius, just... flat. That Boris - what a punchbowl-pooper.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I have an uncle that says Portland has the only normal people in Oregon. 

Along those lines, the primitive short comings of the Tele is half the appeal.

 

[Cagey]

I knew it was only going to be a matter of time before some grunge player with a cheap guitar explained what it was that made Strads so magical.

 

[Dan025]

stubby if you want it just ask. tell me your application and i'll make you a single or double saddles for a tele bridge. the whoile bridge is not worth it for me but i can put a radius on a couple brass rods (or an approximate radius by milling a flat on one string per saddle, the string radius would be true i can do the math just fine) and drill an angled hole or mill a flat in under an hour i'm sure.

do you want to fit something like that to a vintage 3 saddle bridge? a 6 saddle bridge? do you want brass? aluminum? stainless? titanium?(i have some but not in bar form, would take some time to make those but i have enough to make plenty of them) i may even be able to get some bronze from work which should have better sonic characteristics than brass (why the make bells from it) and it's harder. do you want notches for strings? whats the string spacing you want if so? and whats the bridge radius?

there are so many easy ways to do it much of it is a matter of astetics. so name the preferences.

if i lay it out right i may be able to use round rods and when i mill the flat on them it will create some radius over the intersection of the diameter and the flat. i may need to drill the hole for the intonation screw a little canted to get the proper angle intonation for into it but that would be about the fastest way to make then rather than turning a subtle radius on the daimeter, it's just a matter of doing some math.

maybe this will be what gets me to reassemble the warmoth tele i have for the prototype.

 

[tfarny]

Stubhead was mocking the people who obsess over things like this. Plus maybe indulging in a bit of recently legalized herbal remedies.

 

[Dan025]

i know he's moching the shortcomings of the non radiused designs and the non availability of the others. but i believe we've had tele bridge discussions here that contemplated a two saddle approach. it's sometimes hard to tell with stubhead.

 

[swarfrat]

A lot of agonizing that could have been spared if people would just grow some ... callouses.

Seriously, I have been nothing but thrilled ever since I gritted my teeth and went to a wound G. It behaves like a real guitar string and not some wonky inharmonic steel rod. And it squeals like a stuck pig when pinched. I fought it for a long time though.

I get that people have personal preferences. What I don't get is how all our personal preferences get projected onto 'Oh, you're a shredder - you need a floyd and 008's!', you're a blues man, you need 13's two credit cards high off the fingerboard.  There's a lot more room for personal preference even within these genres than what our fetish for hero emulation constrains us to.

I've had to change my playing, but I'm loving the heavier strings now, cause the wound G sounds so good, and things stay put unless the bend is on purpose (and I mean REALLY on purpose)

 

[Dan025]

i used to play heavy strings myself but you really do need a wound 3rd string on anything over an .011 on the high e.

but light strings sustain better, have more highs and intonate better. now i use string selection to tune the tone of the guitar but rarely go bigger than an .011. if i go bigger then i do prefer wound g strings.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Technically, the 3 saddle can do any radius.  6 strings, 6 height adjustment screws.

I think his commentary was about building the anecdotal better mouse trap, which is why I love his posts.

The moral to many of his posts are turn off the TV and practice, learn to do your own work with the right tools, those knobs on the guitar and amp are there for a reason, and don't look for the latest gadget for your sound.  Who can argue with any of that?

 

[tfarny]

Yes. The more people worry about the cross-saddle overtone dampening effects of brass versus cold rolled steel, the less likely they are to spend an hour a day practicing.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Right.  It's never me, it's my gear.

 

[tfarny]

It's never me, it's my gear.

No, it's you, because you picked the wrong brand of titanium for your low string saddle on the tele you play on that one song. Too bright! That's why you had to turn down the bass control on the amp very slightly. Trying to cheap out and save $300 and that's what happens....

 

[crash]

I may need to re-calibrate my sarcasm detector after that post.  :icon_tongue:

 

[LushTone]

That single saddle sure is pretty. Mmm check out that brasss.. :laughing7:

Speaking of the 2TEK bridge, any believers? I think it's a little ridiculous. But hey, it might just be the best $200 plus bridge around...

 

[Cagey]

They are a bit pricey, but according to Updown they're pretty nice. You can read what he says in response to a similar question from me here. Actually, if you pop back to the top of that thread, you can see one of the more interesting SGs that have ever been built.

Looking at the things, I don't anticipate the price dropping much, if at all. Looks like there's a lotta machining to be done, which eats up time and tools.

 

[stubhead]

Meahwhile, back in Whack_a_doo-Land... 2Tek has specifically engineered their bridge to decouple each saddle as much as possible from the others, because it's proven to increase sustain, tone, dental hygiene, better sex & save the mynah bird. And it's all proven even more extra-true by those cute li'l individual string bass bridgie things.

And even more, the Schaller bridge and the G&L have a locking screw that connects all the saddles togeth... wait! Sustai.... sex... what the??

The patented G&L® Saddle-Lock® bridge is used on many ASAT® models, as well as the full range of G&L basses. This design was revolutionary for a number of reasons. The most significant feature is a small tension screw on the side of the bridge, which presses all the saddles together so they resonate as though they were one single mass. This eliminates the loss of string vibration energy blargh blarghy blarghy.....

- http://www.glguitars.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=175

And you KNOW it's true, because even the queen of the discount rack GFS has got their ->

MASSIVE SUSTAIN... the kind of endless sustain that we usually associate with high gain amps, but we wanted it UNPLUGGED. So... we went with SOLID brass.  For this project money was no object, so we sourced solid billets of brass, and decided to machine each piece separately. Each saddle is a solid brass billet machined into the final shape. Setscrews locate the saddle front and rear- you loosen one side and tighten the other to intonate the saddle, and once you have final intonation the setscrew securely LOCK each saddle to the center rail.

http://guitarfetish.com/SOLID-BRASS-Nickel-locking-Tuneomatic-bridge-locking-Saddles-_p_4219.html

Whoowie GET'M GET'M! Maybe what... if I could just have separate doodads that all locked to the individua.... or the lock was to each other, but on different guita... no wait. :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch:

I am going to stick a jalepeno in my nose while I whack my head with a brick. More sustain! Better sex! Free the Mynah Bird 8! Eat more rocks, for a substantially larger extra-trueness....

 

[LushTone]

Meahwhile, back in Whack_a_doo-Land... 2Tek has specifically engineered their bridge to decouple each saddle as much as possible from the others, because it's proven to increase sustain, tone, dental hygiene, better sex & save the mynah bird. And it's all proven even more extra-true by those cute li'l individual string bass bridgie things.

And even more, the Schaller bridge and the G&L have a locking screw that connects all the saddles togeth... wait! Sustai.... sex... what the??

The patented G&L® Saddle-Lock® bridge is used on many ASAT® models, as well as the full range of G&L basses. This design was revolutionary for a number of reasons. The most significant feature is a small tension screw on the side of the bridge, which presses all the saddles together so they resonate as though they were one single mass. This eliminates the loss of string vibration energy blargh blarghy blarghy.....

- http://www.glguitars.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=175

And you KNOW it's true, because even the queen of the discount rack GFS has got their ->

MASSIVE SUSTAIN... the kind of endless sustain that we usually associate with high gain amps, but we wanted it UNPLUGGED. So... we went with SOLID brass.  For this project money was no object, so we sourced solid billets of brass, and decided to machine each piece separately. Each saddle is a solid brass billet machined into the final shape. Setscrews locate the saddle front and rear- you loosen one side and tighten the other to intonate the saddle, and once you have final intonation the setscrew securely LOCK each saddle to the center rail.

http://guitarfetish.com/SOLID-BRASS-Nickel-locking-Tuneomatic-bridge-locking-Saddles-_p_4219.html

Whoowie GET'M GET'M! Maybe what... if I could just have separate doodads that all locked to the individua.... or the lock was to each other, but on different guita... no wait. :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch: :icon_scratch:

I am going to stick a jalepeno in my nose while I whack my head with a brick. More sustain! Better sex! Free the Mynah Bird 8! Eat more rocks, for a substantially larger extra-trueness....

Lol you crack me up dude. You remind me of an episode of South Park for guitar nerds. But yea, there is definitely two opposite schools of thought on the subject. I know Glendale Guitars took measures to reinvent the three saddle bridge system to make the saddles touch, and supposedly improve guitar performance.

Sustai...sex..blarghy?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I think that's a Hipshot design, not 2-Tek.  Same philosophy though.

 

[swarfrat]

I'll stop short of saying its desirable. I'm curious about the decoupled bridge for a hex pickup guitar. But other than that - the strings vibrate the same neck, the same bridge, the same nut, go through the same pickups, the same amp, and all come out the same speaker. And people try to tell me that separate rigid connections between rigid bodies is going to have an impact?

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

I'll stop short of saying its desirable. I'm curious about the decoupled bridge for a hex pickup guitar. But other than that - the strings vibrate the same neck, the same bridge, the same nut, go through the same pickups, the same amp, and all come out the same speaker. And people try to tell me that separate rigid connections between rigid bodies is going to have an impact?

I follow you, but brass nuts, SS frets, maple necks, etc., all can sound different.  Stands to reason a bridge could.

But, how much, better or worse, and perfect are all subjective.