Any advice re: switching from brass barrels to Graphtechs?

[Bach5G]

Thinking about doing this on a MIM Tele. Less concerned about intonation than tone.

[Cunamara]

All I can say is try it and see. It's not a cheap exercise as the Graph Tech saddles are fairly expensive. I use them on all of my Fender style instruments, because I think they are very helpful for all styles of music except maybe country (which I don't play). Metal saddles, to my ears, have a pronounced high frequency "ping" that I just don't like and find myself rolling the tone down too far to try to eliminate. I have had the same experience with TOM bridges with metal saddles, as well. Just don't like them. Switching to the Graph Tech saddles eliminate that high frequency ping and I find myself being able to play with the tone knob up further. However, some people really like having that ping and feel that the Graph Tech saddles result in a lifeless, dead sound. I also always use six saddle bridges, because three saddle bridges are never, ever, properly intonated.

[stevo58]

I have a ‘76 Tele I bought slightly used in 1980. For several decades it was my main, and often only guitar. This is a guitar from the absolute worst time for Fender. The baseball-bat ash body is heavy (guitar weighs 10lbs). 1M pots. Thin sounding pickups. I kept it all those years because for a long time I couldn’t afford a new guitar, and then at some point it had sentimental value. But I was never really happy with the tone.

One thing (among many) I did was swap the barrels, first to compensated brass, then to Graphtecs. The GraphTecs had a very clear effect on the tone - the piercing, strident highs were smoother and less irritating. I was using a B-Bender at the time, and put the saddles on to improve the bending, and hadn’t been looking for a tone change, but there it was. The B-Bender eventually came off, but the saddles stayed on. I liked them enough to spec them on a custom build I had made a few years ago.

I’ve never had problems with breaking strings, so I can’t comment on that aspect of it.

I have thought about putting a brass saddle back on for the E/A pair, but that itch has never been strong enough to scratch.

[DawgBone]

I put graphtech saddles on an American Classic/Standard strat because of string breakage. It made the tone more tinny/plinky to my ears, which makes sense to me because it is lightweight graphite vs the not quite as lightweight cheap pot metal ones it's equipped with from the factory. It also didn't stop my string breakage issues. In the end I think the six point vintage style trem and it's stamped bridge pieces are better than the ones the am std series had at the time. I would look at some callaham pieces if I was unhappy with the factory units on a tele (or strat).

[marcwhy]

Marc Rutters is a fantastic builder and also maker of tele parts. His YT channel has some cool demos of different saddles (here are a couple examples):

This is a cool vid, too:

[Bobby Timmons]

What tone do you want? There's a significant difference. It does round off the top, but the bottom sounds less solid which is why I prefer alloy. You might like it tho.

[Stringswinger]

I have 4 Fender Solid Body guitars in the harem (Three Strats and a Tele). Two have Graphtech saddles and two have steel saddles. I do not use the whammy bar on my Strats and my bends are infrequent and not extreme, so string breakage is not an issue. The two guitars that have Graphtech saddles came to me from prior owners. My experience is that the Graphtech saddles do remove some high frequencies. But I also find that I can dial that out to my satisfaction with the tone knob. I do not like the high frequencies, so the Graphtech works and I do not find any loss of sustain with them or thinness of sound. As I can get satisfactory tone with the tone knob, I have no intention of replacing the steel saddles on the two Strats that have them. For me, Graphtech is good, but not necessary.

My Tele has three Barrel, compensated Graphtech saddles and the intonation is good. I have owned a Tele with three barrel saddles that were not compensated and I could not abide with the lousy intonation.

While I can hear the difference between Graphtech and steel, I cannot hear the difference between brass and steel. Others say they can.

Saddles are not that expensive. If one is not thrilled with their Strat/Tele tone, exchanging saddles is a fairly inexpensive route on the journey to satisfactory tone, certainly cheaper than swapping pickups or getting a different guitar.

[DawgBone]

This is a cool vid, too:

Same basic sonic change I experienced using the graph tech. No thanks on the graphite bridges or nuts for that matter but thanks for sharing the video marcwhy.

[Bach5G]

Interestingly enough, I have the same model of Tele, an FSR with the reverse control plate. Nice guitar. I like it a lot.

[Strbender]

I have a 2001 MIM Tele. I replaced the stock saddles with GraphTechs. I also replaced the two string trees (?) on the headstock with GraphTechs. I've never had any issues with strings breaking when bending. I used it a lot when I was teaching. I taught every kind of music with it, from hardcore punk to country and never had problems because of the switch. I'm not concerned if they changed the tone. It's easy to quickly find a sweet spot most of the time.