Selmer style and archtop floating bridges.

[Bax Burgess]

Archtop bridges are either all contact or 'two footed'. Do Selmers use both? Is there a tonal difference of consequence?

[Bax Burgess]

I did find info from several sources, condensed into the following.

If a guitar is too lively, a bit scattered or with very bright ‘ice-pick’ high notes, consider putting on a full footprint bridge to calm things down. Do the opposite to make a dull sounding guitar a little more vibrant. Bass probably won't change that much from bridge to bridge. More sustain and overtones can be achieved through a one piece bridge. An ebony bridge will generally give a brighter/louder response than rosewood. A bone saddle insert can brighten the trebles more than ebony.

[redir]

I've tried both ways and couldn't tell the difference. I've always thought that at least in theory anyway full contact makes more sense so that's what I tend to do. Maybe I should revisit this idea.

[mr. beaumont]

Every Selmer style I've ever come across is two footed.

[Bax Burgess]

Mine has a double-footed, single piece, ebony bridge/saddle, which I will compare to a full-footed rosewood replacement custom fit to the top. Sonically, the guitar is already in a good place. What I want to hear is a distinct difference, good or bad.

[Bax Burgess]

With the ebony 'two-footed' bridge, the sound is light/airy and loud. With the rosewood 'full contact' bridge the sound is reigned in, smoother/firmer. Still extremely responsive, I now hear characteristics that had been hidden behind the flash. The result correlates with the info I had mentioned.

[Bruce Sexauer]

See if the bridges are actually the same weight. Smother/firmer may be a characteristic of increased weight.

[Bax Burgess]

What I used for the rosewood bridge was just the saddle from an archtop, but the action being unacceptably low for a finished selmer style bridge, I have glued together the saddle and bridge to be pared down and shaped. The ebony bridge is currently worlds lighter than the joined pieces, and I wouldn't be surprised if it had been lighter than the saddle itself.

[nickv6]

I've had many selmer type guitars including one genuine Selmer. This is what I have found (just in my experience of course).
The guitars have always sounded far better when the bridge is as light as possible and rest on two feet which line up over the internal strutting. I once had a cheap selmer copy which sounded very ordinary. It had a solid, full length bridge. But it played really well so I reshaped the bridge to just have two feet and hollowed it out as much as possible. It became the loudest guitar ever and sounded amazing. So good that a top player bought it from me.
Nick

[PHJim]

My mandolins, bouzouki and banjos all have 2 or 3 footed bridges.

I've often wondered if the strings over the contact sound any louder than those over the empty space.
If so it's insignificant to my old ears.

The young folks they're growin' exceptionally tall
And the newspaper print it's becomin' quite small
And folks speak so softly you can hardly hear at all
It's time, just time. Shel Silverstein

[Bax Burgess]

Someone who advised me how to work on traditional flattops, also made his own, told me that louder was always better, and I noticed that he arched the bottom center of his saddles, making them two-footed. I'm more of a full-contact adherent. I do hope that I can *significantly* reduce the rosewood bridge's weight, because I don't want that to be the dominant determinant, at least in the current test.

[PHJim]

Bax,
While boring holes up from the bottom of the bridge would reduce the weight, would it have much effect on sound/volume? I'm trying to think of a compromise.

[Bax Burgess]

The ebony bridge is hollowed out from below, and arched on the underside, so the rosewood approximation will have that much additional weight in its finished state, though, if the sound is more muted than with the aforementioned rosewood saddle test, I will take a cue from the ebony bridge to hollow out a single groove from below in order to lighten, but stop short of arching it.

[Bax Burgess]

My trial, using an all solid archtop (ebony, full contact, adjustable saddle/bridge) and an all solid Selmer (two-footed single piece rosewood bridge) for saddle/bridge alteration, comparing them to a control guitar (a second, unaltered, all solid archtop).

My take is that, whether a full contact, adjustable bridge on an archtop guitar, or a full contact, single piece bridge on a Selmer, the effect of arching (as little as 3/4" arch width) rounds/sweetens the #1 and #2 strings. I noticed no difference in the basses.