Bridge pins alignment on Rainsong guitars.

[gerardo1000]

Just curious...the bridge pins on Rainsong guitars are not aligned parallel to the saddle, instead they follow a sort of curve so that the low E and the high e pins are quite close to the saddle, and the middle pins quite distant. These make the middle strings have quite a low break angle when they touch the saddle, and I always read that a break angle too low could weaken the string's response . Any opinions?

[casualmusic]

The break angles on my HDR/T are steep and almost identical across the six strings. The fretboard curvature means that the lowered E strings going a short distance to their bridge pins results in about the same angle as the somewhat higher middle strings going a bit further to pins.

Cheers.

[David Eastwood]

Originally Posted by gerardo1000

Just curious...the bridge pins on Rainsong guitars are not aligned parallel to the saddle, instead they follow a sort of curve so that the low E and the high e pins are quite close to the saddle, and the middle pins quite distant. These make the middle strings have quite a low break angle when they touch the saddle, and I always read that a break angle too low could weaken the string's response . Any opinions?

The only time break angle is really an issue is if the saddle is so low that the strings no longer rest securely on it. At that point, there are other things which need attending to

There have been many discussions over the years here about break angle, how much is good, how little is bad, and whether it even matters - look for (among others) Alan Carruth’s writings on the subject.

Also, Rainsong has been around a long time. Surely, if they considered that it was an issue, they wouldn’t be doing it, would they?

[SpruceTop]

Originally Posted by gerardo1000

Just curious...the bridge pins on Rainsong guitars are not aligned parallel to the saddle, instead they follow a sort of curve so that the low E and the high e pins are quite close to the saddle, and the middle pins quite distant. These make the middle strings have quite a low break angle when they touch the saddle, and I always read that a break angle too low could weaken the string's response . Any opinions?

The "Smiley Face" bridgepin arrangement. Not only RainSong but a few other makers use this arrangement. As noted, break angle is mainly a function of saddle height.

As Aside: Larry Fishman in a pickup/preamp makers' symposium that was featured in, if I remember correctly, either Acoustic Guitar Magazine or Guitar Player/Frets several years ago, and mentioned something about how he doesn't like the "Smiley Face" bridgepin arrangement as he feels it may result in varying string-to-string downward pressure of the bridge saddle on a UST pickup resulting in more potential for unbalanced string-to-string signal output. I haven't really noticed this with either a Fishman Matrix UST or an LR Baggs Element UST in several RainSongs I've owned over the years. As long as the saddle's bottom is flat, the string-to-string signal output should sound balanced. I've had, however, a 2009 RainSong DR1000 with an Element-based system that had a hot E-1st string signal output compared to the other strings. It remained so even after making sure the bottom of the saddle and the saddle slot were both flat. I contacted RainSong with my concern and they sent me a new Element UST and all was well! The above was related by me at the time it happened in an AGF posting viewable here