Angled saddle surface; do I need to maintain the angle?

[Ephemeral]

Question about filing saddles on acoustics... I have a new Fender Paramount acoustic and went to adjust the saddle height, but the bottom of the saddle is ground at an angle instead of perpendicular to the sides of the saddle. I've never seen this! Do I need to maintain the angle or can I flatten it?

[Rodger Knox]

I can't see the pictures, but the bottom of the saddle needs to match the bottom of the saddle slot. If the bottom of the slot is angled, which is highly unlikely, then the saddle should match. There's no good reason to angle the bottom of the slot, and it's more difficult to do, so I'd suspect a bad saddle.
edit: looking at the pictures, it may be by design for the round UST, but I doubt it matters much.

[Ephemeral]

*fixed the images

Well I popped the saddle in the bridge upside down and the bottom angled surface is pretty clearly parallel to the top of the guitar, so I'm certain now that it's angled by design. The guitar sounds really nice so intuitively the angle certainly wasn't hurting anything.

Looks to be a 5.675 degree angle -- I'm going to use my miter saw to cut a block of wood to this angle and sandwich the saddle in it to allow easy filing.

[John Arnold]

With a routed saddle slot, the bottom must be perpendicular to the sides of the slot.
I have seen angled saddle bottoms on factory guitars. IMHO it is nothing more than shoddy workmanship.

[WaddyT]

If it's angled toward the tail of the guitar, it could be on purpose. I have seen explanations of the value of tilting the saddle toward the string tie/pin position.
I spoke too soon - even in the case of a slanted saddle, the bottom should be perpendicular to the sides.

[Quickstep192]

Maybe they angled the underside of the saddle to try to make contact with the UST and the bridge?

It seems that the UST will really impair contact with the bridge.

[John Arnold]

Maybe they angled the underside of the saddle to try to make contact with the UST and the bridge?

That may be true, but it will only be necessary if the saddle is loose in the slot. Very often saddles used with UST's are purposely loose, in order to prevent binding that could cause uneven pickup response. But too loose is too loose, and a leaning saddle can crack the bridge and cause sharp intonation.

It seems that the UST will really impair contact with the bridge.

Every time I remove a UST, the sound improves. That tells me all I need to know about them.

[martingitdave]

Dan Erlewine of StewMac recommends that the saddle in a UST equipped guitar be filed at a -4 degree angle from perpendicular and slightly loose. This way, when under tension, the saddle will stand tall and perpendicular.

This was done purposely by Fender. Like all things guitar, there are different opinions on this topic, and you can get good results with flat or angled bottoms. However, they need to be FLAT regardless of the angle.

Like John, I am not a fan of all UST pickups. The braided pickups tend to degrade acoustic tone to my ears. The Fishman Matrix is hard material and doesn’t seem to negatively impact tone. That said, don’t bother changing the UST. It’s nota significant enough difference for that guitar to warrant worry. And, this topic is also hotly debated.

Good luck. Also, don’t take too much off. Those guitars are set pretty low from the factory. Check the neck relief first.

[Ephemeral]

Thanks all! I removed 1mm from the low e side and .6mm from the high e side to get to about 2.38mm and 1.98mm string height at the 12th fret. I maintained the saddle angle via a simple jig made from hardwood. The action is improved and I'm still getting good tone!