Saddles..Tusk or Bone?

[NEGuy]

Originally Posted by piper_guitarist

As a mostly fingerstyle player who prefers a little more high articulation while retaining good bass response, I've found favor with WAHI/FWI saddles personally.

I like these saddles for the same reason, but in my last guitar, the tone was just too dry, so I swapped it out for bone -- which was much better.
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[Wade Hampton]

Most of my stringed instruments, not just guitars, have bone saddles and nuts. But two other materials I have found useful for saddles have been Tusq/Graphtech and micarta.

Tusq, which is a product of the Graphtech company and is sometimes marketed under the Graphtech name, tends to be slightly softer than bone. Micarta is generally somewhat softer than Tusq.

My experience has been that some guitars sound a bit harsher with bone saddles, with an unpleasant quality to the treble response. When this is the case, generally I'll experiment with using a Tusq saddle on it first. If that doesn't solve the problem, then I'll try micarta.

As a result I've got two instruments with micarta saddles, three or four with Tusq, and the rest all have bone.

Dakedi wrote:

Originally Posted by Dakedi

I keep hearing one is better than the other in a particular guitar and it depends on what you like ... but is there any more specific info like what made it better or what general quality differences there are one to the other material like emphasised of bass/mid/treble etc. ?

Perhaps in direct response, Jupiter Tarts wrote:

Originally Posted by Jupiter Tarts

Generally, I find that tusq has a tendency to accent the trebles and bone has a tendency to accent the bass.

But that's just about the opposite of what I've experienced. I use Tusq to tame harsh trebles from bone saddles, and then try micarta if the Tusq doesn't quite do it.

Which is why I hesitate to assign fixed tendencies to any of these materials, Dakedi, because both the instrument itself and the ears of the person deciding which they prefer can vary so much.

But my usual experimentation path runs: bone first, then Tusq if need be, then micarta if need be.

All of these materials have their own attributes, and all of them are equally useful on occasion. So to my mind it's best not to rule any of them out, but to keep them in reserve should the need ever arise.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[MexicoMike]

Basically, all of our opinions are meaningless drivel. YOU have to decide what sounds good to YOU. My experience with bone/TUSQ on a Taylor 414ce has nothing to do with what YOU might have thought of the sound. You might have preferred the sound of the bone saddle on that guitar when I did not.

You cannot know how it will sound on your guitar to YOU based on anybody giving you opinions of how it sounded on a different guitar to THEM. Try some different saddle material and decide what you think.

[Penrith Pete]

Wade,my experience with Tusq is pretty much identical to yours.When I have swapped Tusq for bone I have generally noticed harsher trebles and less complexity. Those guitars tend towards being 'trebly' and Tusq takes the edge of it and rounds out the sound nicely also seeming to allow more bottom end to come through. But, that was just on those guitars and I certainly can't say that the new D18s are naturally trebly or shrill, so can't predict what that might be like.

Give it a try OP! :-)

Pete

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Penrith Pete

Wade,my experience with Tusq is pretty much identical to yours.When I have swapped Tusq for bone I have generally noticed harsher trebles and less complexity. Those guitars tend towards being 'trebly' and Tusq takes the edge of it and rounds out the sound nicely also seeming to allow more bottom end to come through. But, that was just on those guitars and I certainly can't say that the new D18s are naturally trebly or shrill, so can't predict what that might be like.

Right. Most of the guitars I've owned that have tended to sound their best with Tusq/Graphtech saddles have been Larrivée guitars, which previously came stock with Tusq appointments. Most of the times I've tried putting bone on Larrivées I haven't liked the sound, so I've gone back to Tusq.

That's the only specific brand of instrument where I've noticed a pattern like that, and I recognize that it's every bit as likely that it's the way that I, personally, happen to play guitar that makes this the best choice for me on those specific guitars. Somebody else could play those same guitars and bring an entirely different right hand attack and/or pick material to the equation, and for them bone might be a much better choice.

So far in this thread I haven't seen anyone bring up the fact that right hand attack and choice of pick materials have a huge impact on tone. But those are probably the two most important factors in determining how well these saddle materials work with any given guitar.

Which is why so much of this is an "it just depends" kind of situation, and why it's mostly impossible to give a one size fits all answer to questions like the one Dakedi asked earlier in this thread. Whenever somebody does give what they think is a definitive answer, all they can REALLY do is tell the rest of us how these different saddle materials work with THEIR right hand attack and THEIR choice of pick.


whm

[janmulder]

Originally Posted by brian a.

This may answer your questions. Check this out:
http://www.guitarsaddles.com/gen_info.asp

Well, the site is selling bone/ivory saddles and reading through the 'information' it starts to sound more like marketing speak than information. I wouldn't really call this completely unbiased

The message seems to be natural material (like bone) is better than plastic ... and then the very first argument for this you'll see is "Nearly every guitar in the higher price range ($2000.00 and up) will come with a bone saddle and nut as the standard material."

But here are the other reasons...

It increases clarity and sustain.
It provides better overtones.
It provides a better high to low end balance.
It provides a much more “focused” high end.
It provides a punchier low end.
It is not at all shrill like some plastic saddles render the guitar.
It long outlasts plastic saddles.
It can provides increased projection.
It gives better separation and definition of the individual strings during strummed chords.
It is a much more efficient transmitter of the energy of the string to the top of the guitar.

There you go ... no contest. It appears to better for everything

... erm, did I mention, the site also sells bone saddles ...

[michaelnel]

I find that Tusq accentuates the midrange, except on guitars where it doesn't and on those I find that bone flattens the lows and pumps up the highs except for guitars where it doesn't.

Oh, and my ears roll everything off sharply around 3.5 KHz, so why are you even reading this?

I agree, saddles are cheap and easy to switch, try several and see what pleases your ears. What pleases ours doesn't matter a whit.

[brian a.]

Originally Posted by Dakedi

Well, the site is selling bone/ivory saddles and reading through the 'information' it starts to sound more like marketing speak than information. I wouldn't really call this completely unbiased :hmm

If you want more balanced reading:

http://www.graphtech.com/products/brands/tusq

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Nuts,_sa...Q_Saddles.html

http://www.larriveeforum.com/smf/ind...?topic=30128.0

http://www.petrosguitars.com/features.htm

http://forum.gibson.com/index.php?/t...dle-with-bone/

IMHO, I prefer bone or ivory to tusq, mircata or plastic. I replaced the tusq saddle on my OM-1 with bone and it made a huge improvement in the sound. I have also replaced plastic saddles on less expensive guitars with bone and also experienced a huge improvement in sound. YMMV

This is what Frank Ford says on the topic, "Bone is the most universally agreed upon natural material, being hard, dense, and economical."
http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Musi...wsaddle01.html

[Chicago Sandy]

I switched out ALL of the Tusq saddles in my guitars (except for the 450), irrespective of brand, for either bone or fossil ivory (walrus or mammoth), and the guitars simply sound more "real." The only bone saddle I replaced with FMI is in my M-36 (and the store where I bought it in 1981 immediately replaced the original Micarta nut & saddle with bone when they set it up for me). The only guitars whose saddles I didn't replace already came with bone saddles (either factory/builder installed or installed by the immediately-previous owners).

I also replaced all the standard black or white plastic bridge pins with either ebony, rosewood, bone, FWI, FMI or (in the case of my D-15RS) fake tortoiseshell made from casein--a softer plastic. The only components I didn't replace were the nuts (except for that M-36). Thus, all my Taylors still have Tusq nuts and that D-15RS probably Micarta. (Considering Micarta & Formica were used interchangeably as surface materials in cheap furniture, or as countertops, I sort of have an aversion to Micarta in a good guitar--but replacing a nut can't or shouldn't be DIY the way changing bridge pins or grinding the bottom and sides of a pre-shaped saddle blank is).

It's just a matter of perception preference to me, perhaps even a sort of "placebo effect." But the brittle sound of a Tusq saddle or pin dropped onto a wooden surface (sounds like glass) seemed artificial to me compared to the sound of bone, ivory or wood hitting wood.

[Glennwillow]

I have one guitar with a Tusq saddle, a Taylor 12-Fret. I never changed it to bone because I like the way it sounds right from the factory. I have a Taylor 514CE and a Voyage-Air VAOM-06 that came with Tusq and I wanted more bass and less strident trebles. So I changed the saddles in those two guitars and the improvement in sound FOR ME and MY PREFERENCES was quite dramatically better. (I find that bone provides improved bass and mellower trebles, but that may be a function of how I play, I'm a finger picker.) I also changed out the Tusq saddle to bone on a Taylor GS8 and I thought the tone improved. So in general, for me, bone is better.

However, I recommended a change to the bone saddle to some others on this forum for the Voyage-Air VAOM-06 and some liked the improvement (Harvey Leach was one) but at least one person was disappointed and went back to the original Tusq saddle. So this teaches me that it's not absolute, it's about each player's preferences.

- Glenn

[MexicoMike]

Originally Posted by Chicago Sandy

But the brittle sound of a Tusq saddle or pin dropped onto a wooden surface (sounds like glass) seemed artificial to me compared to the sound of bone, ivory or wood hitting wood.

So I guess none of the pros use Tusq nowadays at the international guitar saddle-dropping competition!

[Tonya7]

Hi all, I once made a saddle from the ankle bone of a deer. It's one of the most dense bones on the planet. Sounded great. T.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by Dakedi

Well, the site is selling bone/ivory saddles and reading through the 'information' it starts to sound more like marketing speak than information. I wouldn't really call this completely unbiased

Gosh, you noticed that, did you? But by golly, you don't think the guy might be trying to SELL us anything, do you?


Wade Hampton "Of COURSE All That Information Is Unbiased And Objective!" Miller

[NevadaPic]

Tusq/plastic is a poor substitute for bone in guitar saddles. I have replaced Tusq saddles in every guitar that has come my way over the years to good effect. Rather than produce my own, Bob at http://www.guitarsaddles.com/ has supplied me. Da kine! The best.

[Luke_]

My plastic to bone upgrade on my seagull made a huge huge difference I all aspects. Best $ I sent on it so far