B-Bender change THE sound?

[KnopflerStyle]

Last week a luthier told that the B-Bender will change the sound of my tele. Someone has put a B Bender and feel something different in the sound.

I am looking for some B-bender but now i think i will find another guitar too.

[Pete Galati]

I've never added a Bender to a guitar, but my feeling is that routing that much wood from a guitar body has to change the sound. So I'm sure your luthier is right. I imagine it'll add some weight too.

[Rick Towne]

Well.....I have 2 Glasers and 2 Parsons. There's no meaningful change to the weight or the sound from adding the bender(s). The Glaser routing is minimal, and the Parsons rout is offset by the hardware. Doesn't seem to be any sound chamber effect with the Parsons rout. In contrast, putting a G&L vibrato on another ASAT Classic did make a substantial change to the tone.

Unfortunately [IMHO] the earlier Glasers with the middle strat pickups, as used by Ricky Skaggs and Steve Wariner, sound thin, weak and [IMHO] awful. Jimmy Olander's is much better. Parsons' players, many of whom I know from the CWF Forum, prefer a fuller tone, like Clarence White's.

[KnopflerStyle]

i think that the sound could be closer to a Thinline maybe.

[Don Miller]

Yeah it makes your notes sound all slithery...


There maybe slight changes to the B string since it no longer goes thru the body...The resonance-thinline sound isnt there on a regular PW bender install. I have a Clarence White clone with the extra 1/2 body on the back and a piece of pickguard material covering the opening. There is a definate acoustic resonance to that guitar, the back is open space.

The conventional wisdom is to pick a good sounding guitar, install the bender, and you have a good sounding guitar with a bender in it...