Bent Steel Saddles?

[timmer114]

Hi all, new poster here but a long time reader of these forums. Thanks for all the great info over the last year since I learned about this place. Your all classy tele people, and it's refreshing to read posts without insults, flaming and swearing unlike Harmony Central or other sites.

Anyway, I know the 3 saddle vs. 6 saddle bridge has been done to death, but I am curious about using bent steel saddles. See, I have a 2006 MIM which I love to death, but I can only afford to keep 1 guitar around, so I am always tweaking on this thing. I have the Wilk compensated bridge right now, and for the most part I like it.

However, I do miss the 6 saddle stock bridge sometimes. I like the way I can set the action, I like the intonation with lighter strings, but I never liked the cast block saddles. It seems like the cast block saddles were missing something that I couldn't put my finger on, they sounded...hollow..

When I switched to the Wilk, the first thing I noticed was that my guitar had more sustain, and sounded rounder, mellower and almost kinda "jazzy" with the tone. I don't have the "zing" but it's a very nice balanced sound, I am thinking that's the brass saddles at work here.

Looking through my parts bag, I notice that I have some bent steel saddles from GFS laying about that are the same width as the block saddles. These saddles were part of a bridge I had ordered for a squire tele... I used the plate, but never the saddles. I know the newer AM teles come with bent steel saddles. How's it sound? Do you like them? These GFS bent saddles seem pretty solid, probably not quite as good as the Fender saddles, but they seem decent. I am tempted to put the modern bridge plate back on, and trying the bent steel saddles and am wondering what kind of tone to expect. I am guessing that it's going to be somewhere between the Wilk and the block saddles, less bassy and open, but not as hollow or zingy as the blocks?

Sorry such a long winded post, has anyone used Bent Steel saddles on their Tele with the stock plate? How did you like it?

Thanks!
Tim

[Groovey Records]

Your right about the brass balancing things out cant help you with the rest

So far I've only used Steel and brass three saddle set ups both compensated Fat and round carbon stell and cold rolled steel.

[timmer114]

Originally Posted by Groovey Records

Your right about the brass balancing things out cant help you with the rest.

That's just it, the Brass is nice, really, but my tele seems to lack character, it sounds too...perfect too clean and too nice. I think I miss having some raunch there

[Groovey Records]

pick ups then

[timmer114]

That's the other issue at play here, I am running a set of GFS modern vintage blades in there now. They's nice pups, they have twang, theyre punchy, they take gain really nicely and don't turn to mud. But.. they don't have that single coil raunch. I think I am hoping to get more of that sharper quacky sound from the bent steel saddles, I really don't want to go back to the the stock MIM single coils, I do have a repro 1950 alnico bridge pup laying around, another GFS pickup, but it turns to total mud with anything other than clean signal. The cleans sound out of this world with this pickup, but I like the versatility of the blades for when I get that urge to stomp around a bit with higher gain. Hrmm I guess I can try the bent steel and only be out a set of strings if I don't like it.

[Groovey Records]

for me the first three things on the axe to get straight

Neck
Setup/intonation
Electronics

The rest all follows

www.donmare.com

[timmer114]

Thanks for the replies, This tele has always had a pretty straight neck and setting it up other than the intonation is pretty easy. The only issue I had was using 9s with the compensated Wilkinson bridge, but switching to 10s remedied that.

Tonight I am going to go bakc to stock plate with the bent saddles and see if that is more of the sound I am looking for. I like the ashtray bridge though, and might go with some steel Calla or even Glendale saddles with the Wilk bridge. I do like the look of the ashtray bridge, just not crazy about the brass saddle sound anymore, and maybe that's what I need to do.. move to a steel saddle while keeping the ashtray bridge.

Either way, just for kicks tonight, I am going to try the stocker with 6 bent steel to see how that sounds. This guitar had the bridge holes filled at one time because when I bought it, I didn't notice right away at the store that bridge was slightly crooked. I still wonder if plugging them holes with hardwood dowels and re drilling to make it straight didn't somehow mess with the sound of the guitar..

[Groovey Records]

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