Quote:
Originally Posted by wralston1025
I'm currently doing solo acoustic gigs with a Martin GPCPA4 and have been told that replacing the bridge pins, saddle and nut might give me a little tone improvement.
Has anyone has any luck or experience with this? I haven't done many repairs and don't want to screw anything up because it plays well now. I'm just looking for a little more bottom end if possible.
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It's tricky. Most people change entire sets of bridge pins and claim they hear little difference. There is a reason for that: When you change an entire set of pins you shift the tonality of the entire guitar and your ear then adjusts to the differential (neuro-sensory adaptation). The tones of the strings largely remain the same in relation to each other.
However, if you change (only) one bridge pin (or sometimes in pairs) with the correct material in the appropriate string position you can affect a more dramatic change because not only does that string's tone/reponse get altered, but the sympathetic vibrations/overtones/resultant harmonics change in the other strings as well!
So the trick is to identify what you'd specifically like to change and then have the understanding of the pin materials so that you can affect the change in a positive way. I'll keep it simple and limited, but describe 4 bridge pin materials' sonic properties as it relates to most guitars...
1) Blackhorn buffalo horn- This material provides a piano-like quality with more clarity, definition and sometimes more volume. Often a great selection for the 6th string.
2/3) Ebony: Warm and lush and full. A great basic set to begin with and possibly a slightly warmer alternative to bone pins which are slightly "colder" sounding than ebony.
4) African Blackwood- These pins do the opposite of Buffalo horn. They reduce the clarity and definition and often tamp down excessive highs in strings. They can sometimes reduce volume of the perception of the loudness of the strings they secure.
As for bone saddles? I'm a proponent of them and haven't had a guitar that didn't sound better when the existing non-bone saddle was supplanted by bone. Bleached and unbleached bone have slightly different properties from one another.
Good luck.