KTS Titanium saddles!!!

[Stylemaster]

As much as I love Glendale hardware, the cold-rolled steel saddles I had on my Baja Tele (along with a Glendale cold-rolled steel blackguard bridge plate) made the guitar and pickups sound thin, tinny and peaky - and not the best resonant peak in the resonant frequency. So I decided to try KTS Titanium saddles and this Baja went from a Tele that I played for a few minutes and always put down in favor of another one of my Teles to a guitar I can't stop playing! Both the Twisted Tele neck pickup & Broadcaster bridge pickup which I was considering replacing now sound lush; the thinness from before has been replaced by a complexity that is most certainly because of the composition and construction of the saddles. In a word, this guitar now sounds fantastic. Even when I strum it unplugged it has a resonance and complexity of tone it didn't have before. The tonal spectrum is beautifully balanced. Just gorgeous sounding.

After reading all the pro and con arguments on this forum about how much saddles effect the tone, dynamics and sustain, I can honestly say that they absolutely make a difference; they are as important a component as the pickups are in altering the sound of a Tele. I'm serious - the difference in the sound of these pickups is night and day since I changed the saddles. Like I said I was about to replace them - now they are staying. The KTS Titanium saddles are also very beautifully constructed. A big thumbs up for KTS.

[NasalFloss]

Glad you've installed a satisfying upgrade. There's nothing quite like the anticipation of plugging it in for the first time, and hearing a positive sonic difference afterwards.

Twang on!

[otaypanky]

Billy Penn over at 300guitars.com did a review of them a few weeks back and liked them a lot too. Enjoy your 'new' guitar : )

[caytele]

...titanium does seem to bring out certain frequencies that add something to the sound spectrum of a tele...i have some on an all mahogany tele/ebony fretboard and the complexity of sound is startling...not to mention, the strings have lots more energy retention,(this property probably also accounts too for the increased harmonic content of the sound)... so much so that they will rattle against the frets even when they are not particularly close( ie.low action)!!

[boris bubbanov]

Glad you got a good result!

Glendale blew out some Titaniums maybe 2 years ago and I shoulda bought a set.

My take is they can work nice on a plain AV52 style hot rolled steel bridgeplate. They can also sound almost exactly like brass saddles, depending on the guitar and the frequencies it resonates at.

I don't like a saddle I can't tweak. Do NOT expect to be able to machine titanium with ordinary tools. Your efforts will be silly. And you can well imagine how I know this. ^

My attraction to titanium is frankly in bent style strat saddles. This is a cool way to approximate the sound of brass in a bent steel design that cannot be executed in actual brass - if it were done in brass it would last 5 minutes and break.

[bender-freak]

i've had a set on my Hiway1 tele since the first month i bought it, big difference on that one; went from a great sound to a GREATER sound. they'll not come off.

put a set on my CVC to see if it went from great to GREATER like the Hiway1. didn't happen, lost sumthin' by changing so i changed back to the stock threaded saddles. why no improvement on the CVC..??? i have no idea, but the sound degraded with titanium plugged or unplugged.

i put a set on my MIM Nashville and there was a big improvement on it. i have a set on my Paisley and it was an improvement for it, also.

i still have couple sets of KTS saddles in my parts stash. also have half a dozen sets of compensated saddles that i got stupidly cheap and tried them on different teles i have with vintage bridges. they are back in the parts stash. i could tell very little improvement if any in so-called tuning issues with stock barrels, but that's just my experience with comps.

anyway, i'm sold on KTS except for my CVC....

[Colt W. Knight]

I have a glendale set that is simply amazing. How much are these KTS deals?

[Maxwell Street]

Dale still offers titanium...

[Martin-Tele]

Dale is the BEST
he also has a titanium bridge

[Stylemaster]

Originally Posted by Colt W. Knight

I have a glendale set that is simply amazing. How much are these KTS deals?

The KTS set is $95 on Allparts which sounds like a lot but I just looked at Dale's and they are $99.99.

[bender-freak]

Originally Posted by Stylemaster

The KTS set is $95 on Allparts which sounds like a lot but I just looked at Dale's and they are $99.99.

i've been lucky enough to find mine on Ebay from sellers that had them listed as "regular used" tele saddles; got one set complete with screws and vintage bridgeplate for $15 plus shipping. i bought one set from a forum member several months ago at an extremely good price.

dig around on Evil-Bay and you'll sometimes run across them for a heckuva good price, just have to be lucky AND patient and pull the trigger quickly when you find them. they ARE out there.

i consider anything under $50 a set to be a good bargain for them.

[Stylemaster]

Originally Posted by bender-freak

i've been lucky enough to find mine on Ebay from sellers that had them listed as "regular used" tele saddles; got one set complete with screws and vintage bridgeplate for $15 plus shipping. i bought one set from a forum member several months ago at an extremely good price.

dig around on Evil-Bay and you'll sometimes run across them for a heckuva good price, just have to be lucky AND patient and pull the trigger quickly when you find them. they ARE out there.

i consider anything under $50 a set to be a good bargain for them.

Wow that's great. Still I think they are worth the retail price. You can take a good Mexican Tele (like a Baja) and upgrade the hardware and pickups for a few hundred and have a guitar that rivals CS and boutique, IMHO.

[Colt W. Knight]

I got mine from Dale when he had them on sale for 50$.

[bender-freak]

Originally Posted by Colt W. Knight

I got mine from Dale when he had them on sale for 50$.

over Glendales is the fact that KTS saddles have a nice narrow string "groove" in them, where the Glens don't.

as stated, tho, i prefer the NON-comps, myself. i have long thought that if anyone would come up with comps of titanium AND string grooves both, they would have a HUGE winner, but i've never seen any. yes, i know i could gently and carefully "file" my own grooves in the comps, but it just seems to me they should BE there to begin with, ya know??

stock fender saddles with the "grooves" don't work too well for me because the grooves are too wide and "sloppy" feeling, but that's just my take. threaded saddles such as on the CVC are okay once you get the strings in the right place, which can take several tries for me

[bender-freak]

one more thing to add, and i'm done.....the is a seller on Ebay RIGHT NOW selling the grooved non comps for 69.99 and free shipping. the seller is pitch_perfect_music

[jrfrond]

By total coincidence, the rep from KTS came into our NYC shop the other day. He asked me to test-drive a set of saddles and give him a report, so a compensated Tele set is on the way. According to my good friend and Telemeister Billy Penn, the saddles make a WORLD of difference and open up tone that you never knew you had, even if the guitar sounds great already. I am anxious to try these. Not pricey either, when you consider that a set of Bardens, one of the most popular Tele upgrades, is $320!

[Stylemaster]

Originally Posted by jrfrond

By total coincidence, the rep from KTS came into our NYC shop the other day. He asked me to test-drive a set of saddles and give him a report, so a compensated Tele set is on the way. According to my good friend and Telemeister Billy Penn, the saddles make a WORLD of difference and open up tone that you never knew you had, even if the guitar sounds great already. I am anxious to try these. Not pricey either, when you consider that a set of Bardens, one of the most popular Tele upgrades, is $320!

No coincidence - Stan's the Man! I'm a test driver too. Funny this thread should perk up again; I'm going through my semi-annual bridge-and-saddles thing again. I'm still loving the KTS compensated saddles. Very different from anything else I've tried - in a good way. But now I'm thinking of changing out the Glendale cold-rolled steel blackguard bridge plate as I'm thinking it might be too bright and peaky. Might actually try a regular Fender plate. Although I love the Glendale "boat ramp" stainless steel plate in my other Tele (Don Mare carved the lip off and called it a "boat ramp" and signed the back! how cool is that?)...

[robt57]

My #1 has hand made threaded Ti saddles. It has a kind of dry stingy twang about it I like very much. I can get the KTSs for 1/2 of retail, and I need to try them at some point...

[OuttaspaceMan]

A friend of mine swears by them too. Ever since he installed the KTS on his tele, they never went off and it was 1 of the best things he ever did for his tele. He always spoke highly of it. One day, he finally made me try it and I instantly noticed it was rich with "metallic" overtones and lots of harmonic content. Really clear, spanky, twangy but still with "body" just as brass saddles offer but really much more "hi-fi" sounding. He said that it actually brought out the good characteristics of his tele. Initially I thought this was overkill as it was an overwhelming aural experience - but after playing thru it I really liked it and I thought it sounded really good. I certainly thought it was a unforgettable encounter. He also said KTS has these in "brass" colored titanium saddles but I have yet to find one.Hopefully in the future I get to try these on my teles.

Congrats on your KTS Ti saddles! =)

[LiamDalmon]

Sorry, probably a silly silly question but what particular property of titanium is it that makes it good saddle material? All I know about titanium is that it's strong, difficult to work with and that it retains magnetism when removed from a magnetic field. Please excuse my ignorance.