Official Luthiers Forum!

Does anyone have any experience in making a bridge with adjustable saddles? How do they affect the tone? Is intonation easier? Any pics available?

Adjustable height or position? You could make a floating bridge with a tail piece, or even an angled platform where the saddle should go, and the saddle would be held in place with the string, and could be moved to correct for intonation. As for adjustable height, Gibson tried that, it made the guitar sound bad because it weighted too much.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

This question made me a bit sentimental.
I owned a couple of Echo Ranger 6s with a height adjustable saddle which were big and way heavy.
Saddle was in a metal holder which adjusted up and down with screws.
Difficult to tell what difference it made to the tone, it was all ply and the finish was thicker than to wood.... (low volume, little bass, but it bags of treble)
I loved especially the last one, nice shaped neck. After a fret level and dress, set the truss rod and saddle height, and it played really slick n'easy.
Had it for 20 years + and sold it for nearly 3 times the price I paid new.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Jason adjustable saddles and the mechanisms required to have a chassis type arrangement with adjustable, individual saddles as others have said is introducing a bunch of mass right smack in the center of the sweet spot of the top that the instrument's vibrational energy will have to over come and drive. Regardless of examples of this from the past, Gibson, Ov*tion, etc. it was not a good idea.

Instead a better idea is to build precisely especially with fret slotting and bridge/saddle positioning and then shape the saddle for individual intonation requirements. Less mass, far less by the way, fewer materials such as cheap, potted metal that may have high dampening, and far less complexity.

These days many of these guitars with the chassis and adjustable saddles are converted back to a simple single saddle arrangement by Luthiers doing repairs. If the instrument is a player and not worthy of keeping it original, flaws and all, clients often opt to have the chassis's removed and replaced with a single saddle arrangement. They often perceive for what it's worth differences in the response of the instrument that again for what it's worth are desirable to them after this is done.

So my suggestion to you is to determine in advance your unique intonation requirements if there are any and plan your build accordingly. I'm mentioning "unique" intonation requirements in anticipation that you asked this question because there may be more to your request than meets the eye. An example would special tunings, non-standard strings, etc and you may be indeed anticipating these unique requirements and preparing accordingly.

If not and standard tunings are your bag it's still pretty hard to beat a single compensated saddle combined with precision building, fret slotting, saddle placement, etc.

Lastly if there is any possibility of a UST (pick-up under the saddle) single saddle arrangements provide the player with the most choices when a pick-up is in your future.

Adjustable saddles have come a long way since the days of the Eko Ranger and the Epiphone.

Kevin Pederson patented these easily adjustable saddles . . . by all accounts they work wonderfully well, both on acoustic and electric.

Since I haven't heard them, I cannot offer an opinion, maybe somebody who has seen and heard a guitar with these fitted could chime in ?

Kevin makes some really beautiful guitars!

Regarding his saddle offerings for acoustics I have a number of concerns:

1) It's a proprietary system meaning it's Kevin's patented design which if employed/deployed creates a dependency on Kevin for the continued availability of saddles. These are CNC manufactured and not something that any Luthier can cut up Bessie the cow and craft from scratch. If at some point Kevin or replacement saddles are not available it's an unsupported proprietary system making anyone who depends on it SOL....

2) He makes the claim that there is no additional mass over a convention single saddle arrangement. Although I can't reach into the pic and grab six of his saddles to throw on my gram scale I beg to differ in so much as three of those bone saddles look roughly equivalent in mass to a single Martin bone compensated saddle.

3) The saddles have a propropritary dependency on his bridge design too and not so much in foot print shape but for the platform that the saddles function on. This makes using this system also dependent on bridges and bridge designs that it will work with. There may be serviceability issues here also creating further dependency on Kevin....

4) This is important at least to me in my thinking - is it even necessary? How many guitars have been built with a single, traditional, serviceable, and "available..." saddle and how many of them have owners who refuse to play them because intonation is so terrible.....

5) How many players who purchase high-end, Luthier built guitars play out.... making compatibility with the world of pick-ups out here important. Many if not most of the pup choices these days are USTs and with this design USTs are likely not compatible. As such this design is self-limiting in terms of after market amplification - not good...

Lastly it's also matter of personal taste and this is my subjective side but I don't like the look. You start putting a lot of complicated looking things on a guitar top that move this way and that way and to me the eloquence of the simple single saddle design gives way to something looking like a tune-o-matic Gibson bridge on an acoustic flat top. Although this has been done too it is and was butt ugly in Gibson's case and IMO...

Hat's off to Kevin for the innovation but in my way of thinking his system lacks the aspects of serviceability that I look for, adds mass, creates a dependency on him and his design, dictates to some degree bridge design, to some has a less eloquent look, is not pup friendly, and above all is this a solution looking for a problem....

Ditto Hesh

Plus "to my eye" the look of the bridge assembly lacks elegance and looks a bit mechanical and intrusive.

Some makers "in my view" have come up with a simple solution to periodic humidity related intonation tweaks. They provide a second saddle for summer and winter -- and these are usually 1/8" or 3/16" which allow for more precision, not the customary 3/32"

If weight is an issue -- use Rosewood or Walnut for the bridge material.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I completely agree Ken.

Nothing against electric guitars mind you and they were indeed my first love in the guitar world but you can tell when a designer has been influenced by the electric, hardware centric side of the trade in so much they may design in a level of complexity and additional "parts" that really in my way of thinking are not necessary when one understands what you can do with a traditional saddle, some files, knowledge of great set-ups, etc. and designing in a saddle width as you said that permits accurate individual string compensation.

Not to nit pick and I'm not against pinless bridges by any means but you won't see me putting a pinless bridge on a WRC or even a redwood top knowing as I do how they fail, quickly, tearing up lots of top wood, etc. I think that pinless is fine on spruce but pinless bridges can cause break angle troubles as an instrument ages and approaches neck reset time. With a conventional bridge and saddle as the neck angle changes slowly over time we can reduce saddle height, make string ramps, etc. to maintain an acceptable break angle. With pinless bridges and especially with this design where the individual saddles have a dependency on the platform milled into the bridge some of our options for an aging instrument are not present.

I'm also wondering about reality.... More specifically we all know that we have no control over what happens to one of our creations after it belongs to someone else. It may end up in some Mom and Pop music store where the owner fancies him or herself a skilled Luthier and does their own repairs often in the vacuum of a solitary store with no additional training or exposure to trends in the trade.

What's the music store owner/hack Luthier going to do with one of these? Might not be pretty....

So I'm finding myself with arrested development.... again.... wondering what's wrong with a traditional bridge and saddle....

This model by Manuel Rodriguez works pretty well: