acoustic guitar bridge with variable intonation AND string height

[lusthansa]

Dear all,

I want to have a guitar built for myself starting from 27th of December 2011 in Germany. It shall be a western guitar. I will order the piece at a Bavarian guitar manufacturer. I want to have the guitar equipped with a bridge system fulfilling the following specifications:

* variable intonation (to correct for alterations in string height, see point 2)
* variable string height (e.g. for Slide Guitar AND Finger Style on 1 instrument)
* evtl. variable saddle height
* no loss in acoustic quality due to the built-in measures under 1 thru 3.

I have heart anything 'bout Buzz Feiten ... does this guy / firm offer a system that fulfills 1 thru 4? Or is there no patented system yet?

I thank you for any help in advance.

Yours, lusthansa

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by lusthansa

I want to have a guitar built for myself starting from 27th of December 2011 in Germany. It shall be a western guitar. I will order the piece at a Bavarian guitar manufacturer. I want to have the guitar equipped with a bridge system fulfilling the following specifications:

* variable intonation (to correct for alterations in string height, see point 2)
* variable string height (e.g. for Slide Guitar AND Finger Style on 1 instrument)
* evtl. variable saddle height
* no loss in acoustic quality due to the built-in measures under 1 thru 3.

Well, getting a bridge saddle that is that adjustable without killing the acoustic tone is the tricky part - all the adjustable acoustic saddles I've ever encountered have dampened too much of the tone.

The Swedish-made Goyas and Levin guitars from the early 960's had a system of individually adjustable plastic saddles that went under each string, but they were molded out of a cheap plastic and didn't transfer the tone as effectively as a regular bone saddle.

Originally Posted by lusthansa

I have heart anything 'bout Buzz Feiten ... does this guy / firm offer a system that fulfills 1 thru 4? Or is there no patented system yet?

The Feiten system has more to do with intonation, and it's controversial as to whether it does that any better than any other approach. I'm not convinced, and none of the guitars I've played that have been "Feitenized" have impressed me enough to want that done to any of my guitars.

Lusthansa, something that you might want to think about is that, rather than trying to have an acoustic guitar built that will precisely duplicate the adjustment range of an electric guitar, you recognize that electric guitar and acoustic guitar are really very different instruments in a lot of ways.

I compare the differences between acoustic and electric guitar to the differences between piano and organ - yes, the notes are the same, but the attack and techniques and skills needed for each don't all automatically transfer.

Same thing with acoustic guitar - you're going to need to develop a somewhat different skill set. Part of that will be learning to pull the tone out of it, and part of it will be to learn how to deal with intonation issues like this one.

My suggestion is that you get an acoustic guitar that's optimized for the best possible tone, then once you've had a chance to experiment with different string gauges and alloys, have a saddle carved to give you the best possible intonation for whatever set of strings you decide sounds best.

In the long term, you're probably going to be happiest doing that. You may find that it's necessary to have a cold weather saddle and a warm weather saddle, to adjust for seasonal fluctuations, but most of us don't really need to even do that.

Just a suggestion, but unless some hidden genius has produced an adjustable acoustic guitar saddle that I haven't heard about and which doesn't kill a lot of the tone, I think my recommendation is going to be the most workable for you.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[lusthansa]

Hello, thank you for the reply.

You write:

The Swedish-made Goyas and Levin guitars ...

Did they have a patent for it? I ask, because let´s say I like that Goyas-Levin-thingamabop and have my guitar producer build it ... will he then break a present patent? I mean, this guitar guy is NOT A HOBBY guy, he is a certified master of guitar construction with an own master workshop near Munich, Germany ... so: can I have it built by him (re-built by him ...) legally??

Yours lusthansa

[Wade Hampton]

So far as I know, Levin was purchased by the C.F. Martin Guitar Company back in the late 1960's, and they have no particular interest in using that bridge system. What's more, as a one of a kind handbuilt guitar, there's usually a lot of leeway given to experiment with this sort of thing.

If your guitar builder was interested in setting up a production line guitar factory using the old Levin/Goya individual plastic saddles, then some sort of legal licensing accommodation would probably need to be reached. But it shouldn't be an issue with something like this.

But you should discuss this with your luthier and see whether this is something he cares to use. It's arguable that the bridge saddle is the single most critical part of the guitar when it comes to sound transference, and he probably has a bridge and saddle arrangement he's used to using.

Those individual saddles were threaded, so that each operated like a bolt going into a nut. Obviously, the wood of the bridge had to be threaded at each "saddle hole," as well, in order to accept them and hold them at the desired height.

I just did a search on Levin and Goya guitars, and couldn't find any photos to illustrate what I'm talking about. So evidently it wasn't a system that Levin even used for all that long.

But what it would entail would be to precisely carve plugs of bone with threading and drilling the holes in the bridge that matched that threading.

Personally, I think you'd be much better off simply learning how to adapt to standard acoustic guitar bridge saddles, but if your luthier agrees to try this, good luck with it.


Wade Hampton Miller

[lusthansa]

Hi, yes, a normal bridge would be ways safer. But for the first experiment I would use an old, trashy Aria A550 concert guitar. If this fails I would naturally not do the same to the more expensive steel string guitar to be built ;-)

Yours lusthansa

[ac]

[IMG]http://api.ning.com/files/Po2hWUTA8KrBpEOQhDlVyJDXpv4m6a3XDPY9Bmq5t-95XF8ZNm6-DoalosKLmnfO9CtFsR8spG6vV*BRLcmzFQnl*6JDjmNn/Levinbridge.jpg[/IMG]

(Well the image showed in my preview but disappeared when I saved. Sorry.)

Maybe this is the saddle system you are referring to and there is a rebuild page showing more detail at:

http://fretsnet.ning.com/forum/topic...ustable-saddle