Pinless bridge affect tone?

[rmsstrider]

I am just curious. I read many posts about how changing the pin material can affect tone. Plastic vs ebony vs bone etc. So does a pinless bridge affect tone?

[lowrider]

How would you know? You can't compare it to anything.

[guitar george]

It affects the tone to whatever it sounds like and can't be changed. One less thing to worry about.

[rmsstrider]

Originally Posted by lowrider

How would you know? You can't compare it to anything.

Good point. Maybe i didnt word it correctly.
If you had 2 identical guitars and one had bridge pins and the other a pinless bridge , would there be a tonal difference.
Say they are carbon fiber guitars so more likely to be less affected by wood variables.?

[Dustinfurlow]

From what I hear from reputable builders: its extremely negligible. Bridge pin material changes can be pretty significant, in my experience, but as long as it's an ebony pinless bridge vs. a regular ebony bridge on a guitar with similar tonewoods you're talking almost an undetectable difference.

[Alan Carruth]

So far as I can tell through several experiments, the only way anything behind the saddle can affect the tone is through it's mass, all else equal. Different sorts of bridge pins have different mass, and that's what changes the sound when you swap them out. Adding or subtracting weight from a pinless bridge would have the same effect, but it's not usually done.

[12barBill]

If a tree falls in the forest...

[rick-slo]

There are somewhat different torque vectors on the bridge which could come into play soundwise, for better or worse depending on several other variables.

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by Alan Carruth

So far as I can tell through several experiments, the only way anything behind the saddle can affect the tone is through it's mass, all else equal. Different sorts of bridge pins have different mass, and that's what changes the sound when you swap them out. Adding or subtracting weight from a pinless bridge would have the same effect, but it's not usually done.

I'm not sure that I can agree with mass being the sole difference, Alan. Mass difference would be an easy and logical explanation. But I just weighed 4 different pins with a jewelers scale that measures to the 1/100th gram (0.0004 ounces). As you can see from the makeshift chart below, ebony, buffalo horn and African blackwood are within .07 grams of each other, yet each can have a significantly affect change in when one is swapped for the other. If it were simply a challenge between bone and ebony one could easily make the case for mass as the bone has nearly twice the mass of the ebony. But the other pins' mass similarity to each other negates the hypothesis of mass being the sole property. [Note the Buffalo pin is a little longer possibly accounting for being slightly heavier... But it's still close.]

But you know what? The more I play with this stuff the more I am coming to realize that pins don't affect tone as we might want to describe tone. But change the perception of the sound through increased sustain, or articulation... or the inverse. And what we often hear as a result are increased or decreased harmonics, attack and decay of both fundamentals and harmonics. And I suppose you could call that tone... but perhaps not exactly and maybe we need another term of description from the results of what different pin materials can do?

[AuntieDiluvian]

Originally Posted by rmsstrider

I am just curious. I read many posts about how changing the pin material can affect tone. Plastic vs ebony vs bone etc. So does a pinless bridge affect tone?

Once the drums come in, what difference does it make?

[vindibona1]

Originally Posted by rmsstrider

I am just curious. I read many posts about how changing the pin material can affect tone. Plastic vs ebony vs bone etc. So does a pinless bridge affect tone?

I got side-tracked in my previous reply so I'll try to be more direct. Sorry.

With a pinless bridge the tone is the tone and becomes one less element that is adjustable. Simple as that.

But I think when we get into these bridge pin tone discussions we should probably get past the generic idea of "tone" which we've found almost impossible to describe. I forgot who brought forward the idea of the ASDR envelope (Attack, sustain, decay, release). But perhaps we should be talking more specifically with how bridge pin changes might affect those individual properties of a guitar's sound as it relates to the tone.

[Wade Hampton]

Originally Posted by rmsstrider

I am just curious. I read many posts about how changing the pin material can affect tone. Plastic vs ebony vs bone etc. So does a pinless bridge affect tone?

In practical terms, there’s no discernible difference. We can get bogged down in endless “how many angels can dance on the head of a bridge pin?” discussions (and some of us love nothing more,) but it’s really not all that big of a deal.

Some of the finest-sounding acoustic guitars I’ve ever played in my life have had pinless bridges.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[zmf]

Wonder what would happen if you drilled holes for bridge pins in a pinless bridge and started playing around with bridge pin material.

[Wade Hampton]

Well, you’d probably weaken the structural integrity of the bridge, to begin with.


whm

[whvick]

I don’t know much about guitar build, but pinless does not look as strong structurally. True or false?