L3F1 MUSIC

Bridge Saddles

The art of adjusting guitar action

Setting up a guitar is one of the most important things that you can do. This will make your instrument play and sound better. Setting up a guitar, or any fretted stringed instrument, requires many interrelated adjustments. Acoustic and electric guitars have to be set up in the same way, but using slightly different methods.

A lot of people want their guitar to be easy to play. The basic idea is to get the strings as close to the frets as possible. The distance of the strings from the frets is referred to as the action of the guitar. When the strings are close to the frets the guitar is said to have a low action and as a result you don’t have to press very hard on the strings to fret them. This means that the guitar is easy to play for learners. It is also faster for more experienced players.

A low action can only be achieved if the frets are level and the neck has the correct bend along its length. You can check the bend in the neck simply by sighting along its length. If it is set up correctly you should see a slight concave bend as you look down it. You need to be careful to sight along the top of the frets, rather than the plastic binding. If your neck is absolutely flat or bends the other way, you need to adjust the truss rod. Truss rod adjustment takes some skill, and if done incorrectly can ruin the neck of the guitar. If you are unsure about this you should get and experienced guitar technician to do it.

If the frets aren’t level then you would also need to seek professional help as the only way to deal with this is to have the frets sanded down with a very flat grinding stone. Fortunately, the majority of guitars rarely need this to be done. The main time to consider this is if the guitar has been played for many years and the frets are worn out. You will be able to identify this easily as the frets will have grooves in them, where they have been fretted over the years.

Assuming the neck has the correct bend and the frets are flat and even, you can go on to adjust the action. Even if the above is not correctly set, you may still benefit by changing the action slightly.

Adjusting guitar action is achieved by changing the height of the bridge. When the bridge is made higher the action will be higher and when the bridge is lower the action will be closer to the frets. If you adjust your bridge a lot then you might change the intonation of the guitar. Setting guitar intonation would then be an important adjustment to make. However, small adjustments to action shouldn’t make much difference to intonation anyway. Acoustic guitars tend to have higher actions than electric guitars. This is because the sound quality is affected by fret buzz a lot more. In the case of electric guitar set up a lot of the buzz gets lost in the amplification process and so actions can be a lot lower.

The method for dealing with the bridge height is different for acoustic and electric guitars. In acoustic guitars the bridge strip needs to be removed and then either sanded down if the action is high or shims put in the bridge groove if the action is too low. In the case of electric guitars you will, either be able to adjust each individual guitar string height or the top and bottom bridge height using the screw adjusters. Typically, Fender type guitars have individual bridge saddle screws and Gibson styles have bridges where the top and bottom can be adjusted. No matter which type of bridge it is you should always make changes a little at a time and then check to see if there is any improvement.

In the end action on guitars is all down to personal taste. Personally, I like to have electric guitar action slightly higher than most, as this makes the notes purer and the sustain greater.

About the Author

This is just a taster as far as setting up a guitar and adjusting guitar action is concerned. Further information and details can be found on the author’s web site http://www.settingupaguitar.co.uk

is a 3 saddle bridge easier playing than a 6 saddle bridge on a telecaster?

It really won't affect the playability of your instrument. The six saddle bridge makes for more accurate intonation, as you can adjust for each string individually, rather than having to compromise for the best of both worlds between two strings.

The advantage of the three saddle bridge, of course, is more contact between the strings and the body of the guitar. This results in more resonance, sustain, improved tone (depending on opinion), increased output... but the trade off is the versatility in intonation.

Bridge Saddles
Glendale Guitars - Telecaster Setup including bridge saddles and ferrels

Seymour Duncan Antq 50s Bridge Saddles For Telecaster $66.95 Seymour Duncan Antq 50s Bridge Saddles For Telecaster Seymour Duncan Antq 50s Bridge Saddles For Telecaster Description: 11089-01 '50s brass bridge saddles for telecaster® (set of 3) Hand machined from the best brass musical alloy. Made for the great sustain and fullness of each note. These saddles are aged like they've been played for 40+ years. The intonation screw is fillister head and the height adjustment screws are headless, slotted, machine screws. The bottom of the bridge saddles are trimmed to give added height adjustment (up or down). The three bridge units fit standard bridge specifications. Seymour Duncan Antq 50s Bridge Saddles For Telecaster Specifications: length: .850 width: .310 height .265 total screw height: .492 height adjustment: 6/32 X .492", headless, slotted Intonation: 6/32 X 1.25", fillister head, slotted Get your Seymour Duncan Antq 50s Bridge Saddles For Telecaster today!

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Bridging the Gap

Barack Obama ran for president under the banner that he was going to change Washington and make the country run smoother. The Democratic presidential candidate said he was going to reach across the aisle to the Republican side and get both Democrats and Republicans to work together to solve America's problem. When Obama was elected president he was not only the first African-American president ever elected he was also a new president that would inherit an economy could only be compared to the Great Depression in terms of its collapse. The American people elected Obama because they wanted change from the Republican party that was seen as the party that caused the financial mess and the people bought into Obama's notion that he could unify Democrats and Republicans to work together in congress towards a common goal. The new president was in for a rude awakening. President Obama soon found out that working with congress, regardless of which party has the majority, is not an easy task and to get the things the president felt were necessary he would have to alienate some Republicans and some Democrats as well. Saddled with a failing economy the president sat down to help congress draft a bail out plan that the president said was needed by the American people in order to get the economy moving again and stop the downward economic spiral. As with any crises there are many differing opinions on how to get things done and the president soon found out that many of those opinions are held by the people in congress. At first Obama was attempting to get the Republicans on board and support his economic recovery ideas but it was apparent almost from the beginning that overwhelming Republican support was not coming. The Democrats in congress stood behind their president and started a battle of words with the Republicans to try and get them to change their minds. What erupted was a congressional war of words that stalled legislation and became the very opposite of what Barack Obama had promised. Then it got worse. As the economic stimulus package started to near a vote the Democrats started to publicly speak out against Obama criticizing their own party president for negotiating with the Republicans. Lead by Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi the Democrats launched a barrage of comments at the president that indicated that the honeymoon of the presidential campaign was definitely over. In the end the economic stimulus package passed and now congress gets on to the important work of making sure the money goes where it is needed. In the meantime many political observers hope that Obama's first donnybrook with congress was a lesson the new president sorely needed. Obama is starting to learn that in politics it is easy to say one thing but an entirely different process in making that promise come true. The new president seems genuine in his desire to make the changes he promised in his campaign but now he has learned just how tough it will really be. For more information on Barack Obama, visit http://congressmicroblog.com and http://barackobamamicroblog.com
About the Author

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Bridge Saddles