Intonation with wooden bridge

[ocnote]

Hi everybody,

a beginner question:

I saw that the Ibanez AK-95 comes with a wooden bridge. Does this make it harder for a beginner to do a full set-up, in particular action and intonation?

thanks for your answers.

best,

ocnote

[kris]

Big problem.
It is really difficult to set up good intotation with wooden bridge.Compensation bridge work better but if change strings for different sets ...you have to do new set up.
if you use tuner you can see small differences in octave tuning.
I changed my wooden bridge for tune-o-matic with wooden base.
Now intonation of my arch-top is perfect!!!
Kris

[billkath]

Easier, if anything. It's pre-intonated. Basically-if both E-s are correct, everything else should be as well. Bad thing about them is if you get a string that's not quite right you can't compensate for it. And, believe me-strings can easily change from set to set.

[hot ford coupe]

Originally Posted by billkath

Easier, if anything. It's pre-intonated. Basically-if both E-s are correct, everything else should be as well. Bad thing about them is if you get a string that's not quite right you can't compensate for it. And, believe me-strings can easily change from set to set.

I tried something a little different that was recommended in another thread by another member who unfortunately I forgot his name. I intonated the B and the A and the intonation on my particular instrument got better.

[docbop]

The only way to truly intonation a wooden bridge is to make a custom bridge. The factory wooden bridges are an average setting that is close enough for most. If you are good at doing wood working you can buy blanks and make a custom bridge or most luithers don't charge too much. Also Sadowsky now sell a compensation bridge that is pretty close but make sure it will fill the posts on the bridge based of your guitar.

[ocnote]

thanks a lot for the answers so far. I'm definitely no use at woodworking, so making my own bridge is definitely out of the question.

But am I right in the assumption that a wooden bridge does make a big difference in tone, and hence worth the (potential) extra hassle?

-ocnote

[NiAg]

In my opinion, anyone claiming perfect intonation is using a very limited test to determine this. Bridge compensation partially corrects the most significant cause of intonation trouble. But even ideal bridge compensation for each string, leaves some minor intonation troubles.

In my opinion, almost all wooden bridges can be tweaked to the point that any remaining imperfection in the bridge position is a minor issue that sits with all the other minor issues with which we live very happily.

Now if you are using very light strings and a plain G, then you may have some difficulty with a wooden bridge - particularly if it is set up for a wound G. Otherwise, a little effort and discussion will likely get you all sorted out.

If you can describe your string set and post a pic of the bridge, then I think we can get you extremely close using your existing bridge.

>>> am I right in the assumption that a wooden bridge does make a big difference in tone,

Sometimes it makes a big difference. Then and on some guitar/string combinations the difference is far less than you might expect.

On some guitars an ABR-1 T-O-M sounds more woody than a wooden bridge. Try a "wood vs. ABR-1" test on a Byrdland sometime.

Anyway, what strings are you using and what does the bridge saddle look like?

>>>something a little different that was recommended in another thread by another member who unfortunately I forgot his name. I intonated the B and the A and the intonation on my particular instrument got better.

Yeah that was suggested by some jackass who also seems to think there is actually silver (Ag) in fretwire.

But, yes for "ocnote" (the original poster here) is is very likely that he will get the best fit bridge setup not by checking the 12th fret note vs. open string note only on the high E's.

All in my opinion - well except for the fretwire, which contains no sliver regardless of the name "nickel silver".

EDIT: ABR-1 is the original tune-o-matic, the light one with the retaining wire. Even with the ABR-1 design you can have brass saddles, aluminum saddles, and nylon saddles (ad maybe other saddle materials as well). The saddle material difference can be un-trivial on some guitars.

[hot ford coupe]

Originally Posted by NiAg

>>>something a little different that was recommended in another thread by another member who unfortunately I forgot his name. I intonated the B and the A and the intonation on my particular instrument got better.

Yeah that was suggested by some jackass who also seems to think there is actually silver (Ag) in fretwire.


All in my opinion - well except for the fretwire, which contains no sliver regardless of the name "nickel silver".

Gotcha. Thanks for the reminder and thanks for the tip. The technique works.

[jazzbow]

Originally Posted by NiAg

>>>something a little different that was recommended in another thread by another member who unfortunately I forgot his name. I intonated the B and the A and the intonation on my particular instrument got better.

Yeah that was suggested by some jackass who also seems to think there is actually silver (Ag) in fretwire.

Hey NiAg
I suggested setting compensated wooden bridges by intonating on the 2nd and 5th string using the 19th fretted/harmonic note, the silver fretwire mix up however was from someone else.
Also you went on and actually said I was kinda correct!

I aint no jackass, might be a bit slow sometimes.

Well, the upshot is that there is many a way to skin a cat.

Works for me

Meow.....

[NiAg]

Jazzbow,

>>>I aint no jackass,

Indeed. It was not my intention at all to suggest that you were. I had meant to refer to myself.

>>> the silver fretwire mix up however was from someone else.

I was making fun of my dopey forum name, NiAg - arguably suggesting that nickel silver had anything to do with silver.

And I do not recall the details of the wooden bridge thread, but I am sure that you are correct and that you made this very helpful suggestion to HFC.

>>> Also you went on [and on, and on,...]

No doubt I added minor blather to a point already well and simply made by you.

Sorry for any confusion Jazzzbow; I had only meant to poke fun at myself.

[jazzbow]

Hey NiAg,
No offence taken mate.

As for the OP, intonation and placing TOM/compensated bridges is a case of move a little/check fretted/harmonic note with tuner etc etc.

Remember that bridge position is effected by string height and gauge.

Another point, I did a new nut for a customers electric guitar and he insisted on his favourite cheapo brand of strings, when it came to setting the intonation I spent 3 hours of fiddly f*****g intonating! Rechecking tolerancies, nut slots, pickup magnets pulling strings out of pitch(stratitis). In the end I took those strings off and replaced them with a quality brand and took five minutes to set the intonation. I told the customer that his string choice was poor and once he played his guitar for a few minutes he was smitten on the new brand (and he paid for them aswell).
So the moral of that story is that after all your fiddly f*****g intonating and your guitar still won't tune up the fingerboard don't call me! Ha ha ha ha.
....Or change your strings

[ocnote]

Originally Posted by NiAg

In my opinion, anyone claiming perfect intonation is using a very limited test to determine this. Bridge compensation partially corrects the most significant cause of intonation trouble. But even ideal bridge compensation for each string, leaves some minor intonation troubles.

In my opinion, almost all wooden bridges can be tweaked to the point that any remaining imperfection in the bridge position is a minor issue that sits with all the other minor issues with which we live very happily.

Now if you are using very light strings and a plain G, then you may have some difficulty with a wooden bridge - particularly if it is set up for a wound G. Otherwise, a little effort and discussion will likely get you all sorted out.

If you can describe your string set and post a pic of the bridge, then I think we can get you extremely close using your existing bridge.

>>> am I right in the assumption that a wooden bridge does make a big difference in tone,

Sometimes it makes a big difference. Then and on some guitar/string combinations the difference is far less than you might expect.

On some guitars an ABR-1 T-O-M sounds more woody than a wooden bridge. Try a "wood vs. ABR-1" test on a Byrdland sometime.

Anyway, what strings are you using and what does the bridge saddle look like?

>>>something a little different that was recommended in another thread by another member who unfortunately I forgot his name. I intonated the B and the A and the intonation on my particular instrument got better.

Yeah that was suggested by some jackass who also seems to think there is actually silver (Ag) in fretwire.

But, yes for "ocnote" (the original poster here) is is very likely that he will get the best fit bridge setup not by checking the 12th fret note vs. open string note only on the high E's.

All in my opinion - well except for the fretwire, which contains no sliver regardless of the name "nickel silver".

EDIT: ABR-1 is the original tune-o-matic, the light one with the retaining wire. Even with the ABR-1 design you can have brass saddles, aluminum saddles, and nylon saddles (ad maybe other saddle materials as well). The saddle material difference can be un-trivial on some guitars.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I don't have the guitar in question yet, but am considering purchasing my first hollow body. I have to buy online, as there are no hollow-body guitars in the guitar shops near me. I was eyeing an Ibanez Artcore and saw that the AK-95 comes with a wooden bridge, while another candidate the AF-75 has what looks like a hybrid bridge (metal on wood), which seems essentially more "tunable" and hence the question.

Ibanez.com | Hollow Body Guitars | AK95
Ibanez.com | Hollow Body Guitars | AF75

Thanks for you input.

- ocnote

[hot ford coupe]

Whoops!! Looks like I thanked the wrong tipster. Sorry jazzbow. Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

[NiAg]

HFC,

>>> thanked the wrong tipster. Sorry jazzbow.

Yeah my advice, as I recall, was that plaid pants go with any outfit. Have you tried that?

(Britons, I mean plaid "trousers", but plaid pants would be great too,... "Separates and lingerie, Seven pairs of shoes, Lots of Woolworths makeup, A pair of Black Watch trews,..." not jazz, I know.)


Ocnote,

If you use a wound G and strings that are .011 to .049 or heavier (really I'd consider "11's", as they say to be the lightest end of prcatical), I think you will be able to get the bridge adjusted with no trouble.

Also, laying an Asian T-O-M on the bridge base in place of the stick bridge is very inexpensive.

I'd get the guitar that you want, regardless of the bridge. I am 100% sure that you can make either type of bridge work with a little tweaking - which Jazzbow or I can help with if you want.

[billkath]

Lots of my friends swear by John Moriarty's (the Irish Luthier) wooden bridges

Check them out here
Archtop.ie - Luthier John Moriarty - Customisable Compensated Bridge for Archtop Guitar

[jzucker]

remember all the old guys managed to make great music with a wooden bridge. Guitar's not a perfect instrument. That being said, I have replaced the wooden saddles on a couple guitars with a tuneamatic and the difference in tone was minor.

[hot ford coupe]

Originally Posted by NiAg

Yeah my advice, as I recall, was that plaid pants go with any outfit. Have you tried that?

(Britons, I mean plaid "trousers", but plaid pants would be great too,... "Separates and lingerie, Seven pairs of shoes, Lots of Woolworths makeup, A pair of Black Watch trews,..." not jazz, I know.)


.

Tried it?? I invented it.

Reminds me of a big fasion boo boo I made on a gig once. It was a Friday night gig at one of the big hotels in NYC so I was pretty excited about it. You know, one of those old art deco places where guys played the best and most famous guitars. I was in dental school then and the hotel was a just a few miles from the school so I had to take my axe and my tux to school. School was over and I started to get ready and I realized that I had my shirt, my jacket, the bow tie but I forgot the pants (trousers over the pond). They must have slipped off the hanger at home. The ones I wore to school were mostly white with a small hounds tooth pattern which had some little black and red checks. I asked the leader if he could put me behind the piano which I thought would hide my lower half pretty well. Of course he said, "No, I want you right up front." I looked ridiculous. On top of that, one of the hostesses at the gig was a girl I went to high school with 7 years earlier. There she stood, 5'9", dressed in a full gown and drop dead gorgeous and she was coming over to talk to ---ME ! Damn she smelled good. There I stood, the "cool" jazz man with my pink ruffled shirt, my pressed tux jacket, my classic axe ---and those stooopid pants looking exactly like the classic nerd I looked like in high school. It could have been the famous night to remember. Instead, it was the nightmare to remember.

[Jabberwocky]

You didn't get the girl and it wasn't happily ever after? Bet she's regretting it now.

[oldane]

Originally Posted by billkath

Lots of my friends swear by John Moriarty's (the Irish Luthier) wooden bridges

Check them out here
Archtop.ie - Luthier John Moriarty - Customisable Compensated Bridge for Archtop Guitar

I second that. He will custom make bridges or bridge saddles for your exsisting bridge base - also for unusual setups. He made saddles for my Triggs Master 400 and my Gibson 175. In th the buttom row of pictures is a couple of more unusual bridges (very low and very high) for unusual setups. The one for high action is mine (in place on the Triggs).

I suggest measuring the compensation with a Tuneomatic on the bridge base with the preferred action and relief set as desired and the string brand and gauge which is going to be used with the instrument.

Even with a perfectly made saddle, the intonation may drift a little with time. That will happen when strings get older, and when changing strings - even with the same brand and gauge. It can never be 100% perfect.

Also bear in mind that intonation imperfections also often arises from the nut. If the nut is not cut well the strings may break not at the front but randomly at someplace along the width of the nut, and then the open string is longer than it was meant to be. In addition, nut slots which are too high will cause the strings to be stretched when fretted (especially in the low positions) which raises the pitch and accurate tuning all over the fretboard can be affected adversely. Both will give misleading results if one sets intonation/tunes up using open strings. In that case a seemingly perfect tuing of the open string will make fretted notes/chords play out of tune. The Buzz Feiten nut system is an attempt to compensate the nut like bridges are compensated. I'm sure that our forum member NiAg can tell a lot more about this (which is a long and technical story). There has also been attempts to compensate the frets - each string has its own little fret at each position which is a bit offset from the fret for the neighbour string. I saw such guitars in the Music Instrument Museum in Berlin recently. I have no idea how well it works but it must be an immense work for the luthier, and I guess one will be locked up to one setup for ever.

Finally, all intonation and tuning efforts is an approximation to a perfect state which will never be fully reached - and that is clearly audible for a sensistive ear. Also remember, thar the tempered scale actually is a scale where all intervals - except the octave - are slightly "out of tune" to the same degree (necessary for playing in all keys without retuning). If one tunes a guitar so one interval is perfect (the sound doesn't "beat"), the others will be more pronounced out of tune.

[kris]

I heard many jazz guitars /Gibson,Ibanez/ with ABR-1 and I heard many jazz boxes/Benedetto/ with wooden bridge.
All sounds very good....but acousticly instruments with wooden bridge sounds more woody.Good wood is a key.
Kris

[NiAg]

As already mentioned, the ideal (but still a compromise) bridge compensation varies with action height, relief, AND the exact string you have on at the time.

Strings are not perfect - even nice ones. They are certainly good enough to make great music, but obsessive setting of any component for a new set of strings is arguably going to be good for a very short time.

I used to have to do this sort of twice-a-year promotion for neck adjustment and intonation for a promotional price to get new players/students in the area familiar with the business. Worked great as a marketing move - and since most guitars are a mess anyway, you could make a significant improvement in many guitars in a short period.

It was, however, an intense experience. Take no prisoners, and get through that stack of cases by lunchtime,...

I would set every bridge based on a basic standard considering the strings they used. Then if any given string was noticeably off, I did far better to change the string than to adjust for a particular wacky piece of wire. Yes every guitar got a specific tweak, but if anything was really significantly different than the typical compensation pattern, I would not just force the bridge into a wacky pattern. There was often a reason/problem elsewhere.

If you look at the very good pics of the new-ish Sadowsky bridge saddles one for a plain and one for a wound G - they look exactly like the images I got burned into my tiny brain 30+ years ago. It seems overwhelmingly likely that Sadwsky and Co. did their research and aimed for the fat part of the bell curve.

Sure, there are some unusual string sets that will not work absolutely perfectly with the Sadow' saddles. But the actual error in those cases will be smaller than the other errors that are still not addressed with bridge compensation anyway - in my view.

Also, if you had a setup that called for a bridge compensation that looked markedly different from the S'-man bridges, I'd look for other troubles (bad string, goofed up nut, locusts,...) before sending a player into a gig with a weird bridge configuration.

Soooooo,... yes, a t-o-m bridge is great - and can sound very woody on many guitars. Also using a t-o-m to design a wooden saddle for a given guitar can be a nice tool. But this momentary success of selective precision should, in my opinion, always be checked against the sort of general compensation (one for a plain G another for a wound) that works for most guitars over a period of time (wherein strings get dirty and the general range of string quality is experienced.)

OR,... If you have a setup that looks MUCH different from a Sad-meister bridge, it may still be great, but there are probably very specific reasons (that can be found if you like) for such a given unusual configuration to work.

[pingu]

Just run your guitar through an autotune

[kris]

Yes...strings..another problem...:-)

[ocnote]

Awesome!! Thanks everybody.

I'm taking away from this discussion that I'll be OK with a wooden bridge, and that there are always ways to get good intonation.

This forum is great!

- ocnote

[hot ford coupe]

Originally Posted by Jabberwocky

You didn't get the girl and it wasn't happily ever after? Bet she's regretting it now.

She's probably married to some billionaire living on the Riviera being miserable all the while.

[va3ux]

Sadowsky now also offers a compensated wood bridge. It's called the TrueTone bridge. Check out his website under On-Line Store

[kris]

I did by myself compenated ebony bridge similar to Sadowsky.
I took compesation from ABR-1.
Work very good.
Piece of ebony cost me $3.

[NiAg]

After doing thousands of setups, it is my opinion that you need to be careful in taking one set of strings, setting a tune-o-matic bridge based on the traditional and deeply error-prone "12th fret" rule of thumb, and then deciding that you have found the perfect layout for making a wooden bridge.

Strings are not perfect.

Testing only one fretted note (traditionally the 12th) increases the chance of a minor string error being emphasized.

Having a nut that is not first set up very well, adds a fundamental (if minor at the 12th fret) error.

If after using a t-o-m bridge as a setup tool, you find the string compensation to deviate significantly from the Sadowsky patterns (one for a wound G and one for a plain G), then I would definitely look for the reason why this is the case rather than deciding you have found intonation Valhalla.

OR,...

Considering that even a "perfect" bridge compensation will not result in perfect intonation, possibly use the well-conceived, "best-fit" pattern as illustrated on the Sadowsky design and then go play.

In my opinion, the Sadowsky bridges are a little untraditional and "CNC" looking. But they sure appear to be dead-on for a standard and significant improvement over a simple straight saddle. The Sadowsky design is also, in my opinion, a major improvement over the odd overcompensated saddle that Guild used for a long time (notably with no widespread dissatisfaction,...)

[kris]

My set up from ABR-1 is completly different than Sadowsky...:-)
best
Kris

[NiAg]

If you are happy with your guitar, that is certainly more important than my online opinion.

Glad it all worked out well for you.