On an acoustic guitar, the saddle has even thickness, but has the slanting. The saddle has a notch for either the b string or the a string. It’s been lowered repeatedly over the years to compensate for the (very common) geometry changes that many acoustic guitars experience. These are fairly easy to … Shaving the bridge can devalue an instrument (possibly by more than the cost of the reset if you have a really nice guitar). It's not always an ideal world, though. I don't do spam and you can unsubscribe at any time. As it does, the saddle is often lowered by players or repairers to keep things playable. Which way does the bridge saddle go on a classical guitar? Lowering the top of the acoustic guitar bridge. It's not that scary. – JoJo Aug 7 '14 at 15:05 There are several types of saddles which have different attributes. Routing the slot lower needs to be done carefully because we have to bear in mind the pickup elements are poking through and we don’t want to rout too deeply into the bridge or even into the guitar top. Usually I can tell because the high e side is lower but this is a new saddle and it looks event. Ever hear someone say: "I'll do anything else with my guitar but I won't touch the truss rod."? The end result is a guitar with a nice action and a reasonable saddle height. You can see how low the saddle is. I usually make acoustic guitar saddles out of bone (cow bone, but unicorn is available by request), which I I think is far superior to synthetics. This article written by Gerry Hayes and first published at hazeguitars.com, Tagged: neck reset, bridge, acoustic, guitar, repair, action, saddle, undersaddle transducer, palathetic pickup. However, if you’ve got a guitar that’s valuable, or that has collector appeal, or that you just really like, you really want to consider the ramifications of this one. As a consequence a lot of acoustic guitars are left with the wrong action. This bridge had a little lacquer on it originally, so we’ll just touch that up. Finished bridge. This means the strings impart very little downward pressure to the saddle. That’s were this instrument is. The slot becomes shallower as the bridge gets lower and if it’s too shallow, the saddle will either tilt/topple under tension or won’t make a good coupling the pickup or acoustic tone. I'm in the process of re-gluing the bridge to my guitar, but when I took the saddle out and looked at it I noticed that its slightly higher on one end and then tapers towards the other end so that if you put it in the bridge it will sit at a slight angle. Quite honestly, I don’t really like shaving bridges on nice guitars but I have to weigh my discomfort against the chance of someone less ‘careful’ doing the job instead (I once read someone—I think it was legendary repairer Frank Ford—say something along those lines and it’s stuck with me). The owner and I had a very frank conversation about the implications of this job on the guitar and on its value. However, in order to comply with privacy regulations, I also need you to provide consent to store and process the information you've entered. Under Which String Does The Compensated Part Of The Saddle Go Why Is My Guitars Saddle At An Angle Music Practice Theory Question Why Do Acoustic Guitar Bridge Saddles Have A Little Fretscom Fretscom Acoustic Guitar Saddles Graph Tech Guitar Labs Ask The Expert Why … You are signing up for my email newsletter so the understanding that you'll receive emails is pretty explicit. The guitar has a rather complicated undersaddle pickup installed. In the most ideal bridge, I think the saddle should protrude (as it does above) about 3/16" above the wood. In an ideal world, we would reset the neck on any guitar with this problem. The saddle’s so low it might as well not be there but the action is still too high. An acoustic guitar bridge is a relatively simple device which is made out of different types of wood which all have different acoustic properties. As you suspected, the lower end should go toward the high "E" string. This particular instrument is a nice guitar, with a bit of vintage under its belt. Check your inbox for an email for me—you'll need to confirm your subscription there. https://www.wikihow.com/Lower-the-Action-on-an-Acoustic-Guitar To do this, hold both saddles together with their tops flush. This lowers the wooden part so that a saddle can protrude more, giving more scope for lowering the action while still maintaining a reasonable break-angle for the strings. Well, the picture’s ok, but there’s definitely a problem with the guitar. No downward pressure means that much of the strings’ vibration is lost rather than being transferred into the guitar top (which is what provides most of your tone and volume with an acoustic instrument). The saddle sits directly in front of the bridge pins on an acoustic guitar. Remember that piezo pickups rely on pressure to sense the string vibration. Reaming bridge-pin holes to get a good fit after bridge shaved. I took my saddle off to sand it down and now can't remember which way it goes back in. Thanks a lot. Electric guitars have adjustable bridge saddles meaning you can twiddle or undo your work, but with a careful and methodical approach there is a way to give your acoustic a better action. Registered User : Join Date: Apr 2006. This is an acoustic guitar bridge and there’s something wrong with this picture. A drop in saddle sits in a routed slot in the bridge. Too shallow a string-angle over the saddle means poor tone transfer to the guitar top and pickup. This acoustic guitar saddle is too low. The strip is held in place with recessed screws. Add the fact that this guitar has an undersaddle transducer pickup installed and we’ve got a recipe for poor amplified sound too. On a classical guitar, the saddle is thicker towards the thicker strings. Shaving the bridge can potentially impact the instrument’s value—many buyers don’t look on it kindly. The problem is, on many guitars, a neck reset is a big job. Most manufacturers have largely abandoned using bone in favor of using corian, plastic, and other unpronounceable polymers – so a real good, inexpensive way to improve the tone of your instrument is simply having a new bone saddle made for it. Acoustics are not as friendly as electrics when it comes to setting saddle height. If you’ve got this sort of problem on a guitar worth a couple of hundred bucks, go for it — shave away. Is there any reason why it's done one way or the other? Any bridge shaving needs to take this into account. Both ways increase the length of the thick strings. It’s not a big deal. Types of Saddles Drop In Saddles. And unfortunately these things ruin the sound of acoustic guitars. Hope this doesn't sound too cocky. You can read more in my, Like this? This strip, in turn, contacts the bottom of the saddle. But your guitar has six strings, each of a different composition and thickness, each tuned to a different pitch, so it is necessary to compensate for these factors, which is why the bridge saddle is slanted.