Never knew that saddles....

Knox in Box

Knox in Box

Rustbelt refugee.
Made that big of a difference in the guitars voice.

My new strat

IMG_20211227_153016.jpg


Came with normal bent steel saddles which I've always hated. Hated the feel and looks. My cheap guitars always came with solid saddles of dubious manufacture that did their job and I never had one with really bad tone.

So I have my second strat that has a nice Wilkinson rip off with really nice solid steel saddles on it. So I decided to switch them out and put some nice saddles from my left over Kramer Baretta trem on strat 2.

All of a sudden my new strat that sounded absolutely killer spanky strat sounded like every other strat I've ever owned. Sustain was great, spank was marginal. Notes didn't "jump" out of the speaker as before, rather ran out.

Watched this short video right after to see if I was tripping.



I see now where, it gets that voice. Immediate energy release and dissipation causing a jab instead of a shove.

Anyways, a long post to just say I'm now a believer. Not just sustain, sustain, sustain, but actually think of it's character.
 
Oh, and I changed them back today. Highs are back to sounding springy, not harsh.

D'Angelico electrozinc strings I tried for the first time as well. Love the first impressions. If they last as long as my Infelds I'll have new strings.
 
Further down the rabbit hole:

https://graphtech.com/pages/electric-saddles

I put the string Savers on a super strat years a go. Love it, but it was a HUGE difference in tone to which I had to adjust. I did. It was just quite a surprise how much difference it made.
I put a String Saver nut on as well. That actually perpetuated the whole thing. The original not on the guitar broke and when I went shopping for a replacement, I came across the Graph Tech stuff, and went all-in with the nut, the saddles and a string tree.
 
Interesting stuff. My '05 American Standard Tele came with these beefy individual saddles. I have often mused about changing the bridge assembly to something more vintage-looking (I would get compensated ones at least), but I worry that it would change the tone. And I'm very happy with that guitar's sound the way it is.
 
tiger roach said:
Interesting stuff. My '05 American Standard Tele came with these beefy individual saddles. I have often mused about changing the bridge assembly to something more vintage-looking (I would get compensated ones at least), but I worry that it would change the tone. And I'm very happy with that guitar's sound the way it is.
Click to expand...
Prior to this I had only changed cheap pot metal tele barrels to brass. Of course that changed things (for the better). I've changed whole bridges on bass guitars or Tunomatic bridges.

I expected changes there. Just never thought the saddles alone did that much to the entire voice character. At least not when one is a seemingly "better quality" product.

I guess it should have been logical though.
 
dodgechargerfan said:
Further down the rabbit hole:

https://graphtech.com/pages/electric-saddles

I put the string Savers on a super strat years a go. Love it, but it was a HUGE difference in tone to which I had to adjust. I did. It was just quite a surprise how much difference it made.
I put a String Saver nut on as well. That actually perpetuated the whole thing. The original not on the guitar broke and when I went shopping for a replacement, I came across the Graph Tech stuff, and went all-in with the nut, the saddles and a string tree.
Click to expand...

The Graphtech stuff is amazing. I use their nuts and saddles on almost every guitar I have (apart from the Floyd-equipped superstrats).
 
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