Choice of wood for bridge saddle - tonal variation

[gitman]

Many if not all here have at some point swapped out the bridge saddle (or the whole thing including the base) on their guitar(s). Please
share your findings regarding :

- the difference in acoustic volume
- in attack/decay
- in balance (lows/mids/highs)
- in balance re fundamental and overtones

I am NOT talking about metal bridges with individual saddles for each string - my interest is a more or less clear classification re the tonal impact
of the different sizes and choices in wood that are available. I am convinced that the "right" choice of bridge material will have as much effect on the acoustic tone
of a guitar as the choice of pickup has on the electric/plugged-in tone. It's also less expensive . The usual contenders are ebony, different types of rosewood, maple, wood with bone inlays,
cocobolo and synthetic materials. It would be very helpful to have a set of clearly defined parameters (based on our individual/personal experience+expertise)
which could be used to make (better) educated decisions when looking for a new bridge. Sometimes a guitar needs to be brightened up, toned/tamed down, some lack
attack, ... you know. This might take a while to organize and sort out but I think it will also help us to understand the finer aspects of our favourite instrument.

[deacon Mark]

The question does not make sense in a Poll at all. It says darken/brightens tone. So you have to first answer the question of what you want to do and the usual way the tone changes.

To me a metal saddle makes the tone a bit brighter but not rounded. A bone saddle overlay would at least in my opinion be very bright but rarely ever seen on archtop guitar. Rosewood and Ebony both to my ears make the sound smoother and bit less bright but usually more warmer overtones. The difference between rosewood vs ebony is not much but given the choice I prefer ebony. Ebony is harder and stands up a bit more in staying stable, minute differences. Maple is rarely used but I guess it could be but never as a saddle would I use it. It would not hold up like rosewood or ebony.

I gave you a rundown on my take of the choices a person might look at but the poll does not make sense. I prefer an Ebony saddle by far but truth be know one could switch it out and no really hear any differences or very slight.

[Roy Boy]

When I finished my L-5 style archtop, I searched far and wide for a quality wood bridge (I know firsthand what a difference they make on a good mandolin). Lot's of cheap Chinese ones were abounding but no quality to be found. I ordered Cumberland Acoustics' reproduction bridge for a princely sum. Lots of ebony mass and tiny thumb wheels. True to the vintage era, it is not compensated on the B and E strings. After spending the substantial requisite time to perfectly mate it to the top of the guitar, I found I could not get the intonation accurate on the upper fretboard (surprise, surprise?).

I tried one of the cheaper bridges. Properly fitted, the wound strings sounded fine but the B and E were on the thin sounding side, ugh! Out of desperation, I tried a Graph Tech polymer bridge which is reputed to be free of the irregularities of woods. I was shocked how good it sounded. Very balanced all across the strings an good response in the upper registers. The tone is not the bright and thin I feared, but full and responsive. No extra harmonics. The sustain is probably longer than wood but it's hard to tell because I X-braced this guitar so it already has a lot of sustain.

Wood quality in a bridge does make a real difference. The quality of the wood in the first place and the grain orientation affect the transfer of string energy. If you're playing electrically all the time it's probably a moot point.

[gitman]

Ok, I didn't really know how to phrase or set up this poll and maybe it's not so useful after all ... at least not for the stated goal.

I have my own experiences with different bridges and I have also had good results with a Graph Tech model : unexpected but never-the-less the intonation on my Trenier Jazz Special was off from the start and no matter what I tried I could not find a tolerable compromise so I swapped the ebony bridge out for the Graph Tech (I had to relocate the posts) and all was good. I did not notice a difference either in tone nor in volume.
Re other materials : a very knowledgable and experienced player once wrote here that he received several bridges out of various woods with his Monteleone guitar but he didn't elaborate on the effects of these - it does tell me a lot though.
I have seen a few D'Aquisto guitars which had a "hybrid" bridge saddle of ebony with small pieces of bone set into the wood but these were models from the 70's or early 80's - on his later guitars all I ever saw were all-wood bridges. Dan Koentopp offers a model with a one-piece maple bridge.

[Cunamara]

About 10 years ago I had somehow damaged the ebony saddle on my Cushman archtop, taking a chunk of wood out under the A string. I still have no idea how that happened and neither here or there. I contacted Matt Cushman who sent me a new ebony bridge top and also sent me a rosewood one. The rosewood was brighter and even jangly compared to the ebony. It sounded more like a flattop with the rosewood and more like an archtop with the ebony. Very surprising to me as I expected the rosewood to be darker (I think from associating it with the ES-175 and the Jim Hall sound, compared to ebony which I associated with the Johnny Smith sound. Obviously a misattribution of cause and effect.)

When I compared notes with Matt about this, he said that his observation had been that the mass of the bridge saddle matters more than the wood it's made from. Heavier saddle, more fundamental; lighter saddle, more overtones. On the undersides he had written the mass of each saddle top, the ebony was 16g and the rosewood was 9g. Otherwise the designs were identical. And yet mass cannot be the solely factor because a TOM is much heavier than any wood saddle and yet tends to sound brighter and twangier. On my TOMs I use either nylon or GraphTech saddles to de-twangify.

[Jimmy Mack]

Cunamara: do you think that a nylon saddle on a TOM for the 1st string can possibly mellow out the BRIGHTness while the other saddles remain steel? On my 335 with T-tops, the 1st string is just too bright.
I know, I know, try it and find out! But to change that saddle on a Faber bridge is a bit of a Tug-of-War.

[Cunamara]

Sure, I think that would work. There is a little less sustain with the nylon saddle compared to metal saddles, but the twang is eliminated. I think they sound pretty good for jazz.

The GraphTech saddle has a similar effect but a bit more specific; there's a spike around 2000 Hz with metal saddles that the GraphTech eliminates. However, a set of those is silly expensive and there's about 20 different variants to choose from to find just the right fit for a specific TOM bridge. It seems like every manufacturer has a slightly different set of dimensions that they use, and GraphTech makes a saddle for just about all of them.

The trick is going to be buying just one saddle.

[GuyBoden]

I used the top of an Ebony bridge on a Tele 7 string for many years.

Nice smooth sound