Importance of a Bone nut and saddle

[perttime]

But what bone is it?
Bones come in hugely different densities and strengths.

[ChalkLitIScream]

I want to marry this thread with the one about damping. It would be nice to know how each material dampens certain frequencies, but not others when a note is played. That would give us some guide as to what to expect.


That is, after fit, height of saddle and guitars are the same.

[gmel555]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

......But I wanted to add that the nut can have more of an impact on the tone than you might expect...........

...............It does seem to add some clarity to the sound. It’ll never be as influential for the tone as the saddle materials are, but it does have a subtle tonal impact.

Wade Hampton Miller

Wade, thanks for posting this. I've changed a number of saddles, but never a nut unless it was broken or worn. I've had the impression, perhaps erroneously, that there was no noticeable tone difference between properly configured "quality" materials (bone, micarta, TUSQ, etc.). I picked this up from reading AGF, but perhaps I wasn't reading closely enough. Ironically, I own one example which has been questioned before. My Custom Shop 12 fret 000-15sm has an ebony nut (which surprises many). I think Martin was re-creating a circa 1930s look and tone for this particular limited run, as it has other "vintage" appointments. As I've posted before I'm very happy with the tone, response, etc.; but darn it, I might just have to experiment with a bone nut now (or maybe Graphtech TUSQ). (I'll keep the original ebony one handy though). Thanks again.

[AcousticDreams]

Originally Posted by ChalkLitIScream

I want to marry this thread with the one about damping. It would be nice to know how each material dampens certain frequencies, but not others when a note is played. That would give us some guide as to what to expect.


That is, after fit, height of saddle and guitars are the same.

Yes it would be very nice to know. However there probably never will be an exact guideline for us to follow. And the reason is; that frequencies probably react differently to each Top wood, and to each back and sides wood. We can only make educated guesses based on our basic knowledge of materials.

I can tell you that in my very limited experiments, unbleached bone seems to give off more lows and more harmonics. Camel bone gives seems to focus more on the fundamentals with less harmonics and less lows. It offer a tiny bit more clarity in comparison because of this. So it all depends on what you want.

When I had my new Unbleached bone put on, my guitar's evenness greatly improved. ( you will have to read my last entry in the Damping post about valleys and Peaks) However, I also suspect that part of my new balanced sound also has to do with the fact that my strings were lowered at the nut. Thus when I push down there is less distance the string is traveling to the frets.

Because of this, I am playing much more evenly. Not working as hard to pull out tone. And as a result I am becoming a better player. Very Exciting!

[Graham H]

Originally Posted by gmel555

The few guitars I've bought which came with micarta saddles I changed to bone, greatly improving the tone. One guitar I have however, favors a TUSQ saddle over bone. It's just a little warmer than bone but still with nice articulation. My experience is to favor TUSQ over micarta as far as synthetics go.

I have a Yamaha LL16D A.R.E. Black that just sings with the Tusq saddle, nut, and bridgepins, I never expected what I got !!! I tried a bone saddle, and lost the harmonics on the 5th fret, I put the tusq saddle back in, and the missing harmonics ring like a bell !!! Go figure.........just love the tusq !!!

[gmel555]

Originally Posted by Graham H

I have a Yamaha LL16D A.R.E. Black that just sings with the Tusq saddle, nut, and bridgepins, I never expected what I got !!! I tried a bone saddle, and lost the harmonics on the 5th fret, I put the tusq saddle back in, and the missing harmonics ring like a bell !!! Go figure.........just love the tusq !!!

Yep. My Larrivee D-19 came with TUSQ. I liked the tone a lot but thought I'd see if a bone saddle would take it to another level. It did, but the wrong level. It was so HARSH I was shocked. I gave it one day before switching back to the original TUSQ.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by gmel555

Yep. My Larrivee D-19 came with TUSQ. I liked the tone a lot but thought I'd see if a bone saddle would take it to another level. It did, but the wrong level. It was so HARSH I was shocked. I gave it one day before switching back to the original TUSQ.

The exact same thing happened with my Larrivee OM-03W: it came stock with a Tusq nut and saddle, I had my guitar repairman swap out both pieces with bone, and hated the tone that the bone saddle gave the guitar. So I went back to a Tusq for the saddle, but left the bone nut in place.


whm

[Bridgepin]

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

Strongly suggest you fit bone pins too - you may find you gain even more sustain, volume and clarity.
I did when I swapped from original plastic to bone on my Epiphone EJ-200.

Yes I agree, almost all of my acoustics have been changed out to Bone pins and this one will be next to be fitted.

My Taylor 810 LTD didn't end up with a tone that I liked. I ended up putting the Ebony pins back in, much warmer.

[Golffishny]

Folks here enjoy different saddle materials and that's great. You may want to play it as is for 3-6 months and see how much of the change is due to new strings. Anyway, I'm glad you like it.

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by fwellers

Is there any synthetic material like carbon fiber or something else that improves tone as much as bone?
I personally would prefer a guitar with no animal parts in it.

Thanks,
Fliyd

Micarta is close, but doesn't have the warmth of bone.

Originally Posted by Brucebubs

Strongly suggest you fit bone pins too - you may find you gain even more sustain, volume and clarity.
I did when I swapped from original plastic to bone on my Epiphone EJ-200.

What???? You're not saying that bridge pins make a difference? Blasphemy!

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Hoyt

While I think bone generally sounds better, and have had bone on most of my guitars over the decades, you can never tell what will sound good.

I bought a guitar that sounded great in the store, but had a plastic saddle. Replaced it with a nice bone saddle from a reputable supplier. It did not sound better, nor did the next one I tried and had fitted by a luthier.

Similarly, I've bought guitars that had a saddle with an irregular, choppy bottom such that it didn't mate with the bridge completely in a lot of areas. The sound actually deteriorated when I installed a well fit saddle.

The best example, although not a saddle, I bought a cheap Johnson resonator ukulele years ago. When I got it, the cone was bent to heck and rattled like crazy. But it sounded great, with unbelievable mojo. Of course, I figured if the bent cone sounded good, a perfect National cone would be superb. $65 later, the new code made the instrument sound bland and uninspiring.

One other example. I have a nice mandola about 20 years old. I recently bought a special bridge for it. Before spending the time to sand it to fit my instrument, I put it on as it came with all kinds of gaps between the bridge and top. After fitting it, it sounded not nearly as nice as when it had gaps. I'm thinking about buying another ill-fitted one and not messing with the fitting.

Moral -- Keep whatever you are replacing, you might want it back later.

With that said, a good, well fitted, bone guitar saddle is usually an improvement, and is not a big investment.

I had a bone saddle fitted to my Gibson AJ. It sounded horrible; thin and tinny. I reverted back to whatever was the original material. There's no guarantee that bone is going to sound better in every guitar.

[AndrewG]

Originally Posted by Golffishny

Folks here enjoy different saddle materials and that's great. You may want to play it as is for 3-6 months and see how much of the change is due to new strings. Anyway, I'm glad you like it.

You sort of touched on my contention; did new strings go on with the new pins? Did the temporarily restored brightness of old strings de-tuned and re-tuned fool you into thinking it was the pins? I must have tin ears because in over 50 years of owning goodness knows how many guitars, and with a variety of bridge pin materials, I still fail to hear any difference. Any changes I made were for purely cosmetic reasons.

[DesertTwang]

Originally Posted by fwellers

Is there any synthetic material like carbon fiber or something else that improves tone as much as bone?
I personally would prefer a guitar with no animal parts in it.

Thanks,
Fliyd

I may be the outlier here. I had the TUSQ saddle and nut, along with the plastic bridge pins replaced in a Martin SWDGT and noticed no change whatsoever. Waste of money, wouldn't do it again.

Granted, since by the nature of that swap I couldn't do a properly controlled side-by-side comparison, and there is of course a possibility that bone may have improved the sound, but again, not to any extent that made me raise my eye brows. In fact, I was disappointed as I really expected something very noticeable.

What I can say with confidence is that string choice will have a much, much, MUCH bigger effect on your guitar's tone than the material of the nut and saddle.

[Bridgepin]

Originally Posted by Golffishny

Folks here enjoy different saddle materials and that's great. You may want to play it as is for 3-6 months and see how much of the change is due to new strings. Anyway, I'm glad you like it.

I never changed the strings. I just detuned the guitar and replaced the parts.

I did this twice old vs new, old vs new. At at the end of the second test I just left the bone nut and saddle in place.