Tusq v bone - my experience

[sirwhale]

I got my Blackbird Lucky 13 (2013, with pickup) with the usual tusq installed. It sounded great and especially so (in my opinion) with 13s and John Pearse pure nickels.

The I got the onto the whole idea of getting a bone saddle, just to see if there was an improvement. The only other time I'd swapped saddles before was on my ukuleles when I swapped out a bone saddle for a tusq saddle and on another ukulele, a micata for tusq. The bone to tusq swap increased the volume, but the tone remained brash. On the micata for tusq swap it seemed the same, nothing I could probably perceive with my own ears. It was essentially a swap to deal with a compensation issue of the strings, which it solved.

So, back to CF. I got a very nice Colosi saddle, which I spent hours sanding to match the original. I was hoping for a perceived difference, but didn't really notice any. I was still happy.

Then recently I lowered the saddle as my action was a tad on the high side, especially with 13s. I play 100% fingerpicking blues; it's not often I play barre chords up the neck so I didn't really notice the difficulty until I was practising the CAGED system. So I lowered, but then I didn't like that fret slap noise you get with you play rough on the bass strings. I'm terrible for digging in, just part of my style. I wanted the pure bass note, without the slap.

So only one way to go back up. I had a black tusq saddle from a while ago and got sanding. This time sanding to raise the bass side slightly higher than normal compared to the treble, so I wouldn't get the fret slap while getting low action on the treble.

What I've always noticed about tusq is how sonorous it is when dropped on the table or my tile floor. The same for the tusq pins. I like the sound. The bone just gave me a dull thump. And I noticed that the original grey tusq saddle gave a slightly lower clink compared to the new black saddle that gave a brighter clink. This, despite the black saddle being larger at the time. It was very obvious.

Anyway. I got the treble side to about 1.9mm and the bass side is high up at about 2.75mm, pretty high, I thought I could go lower later if I wanted but. I love the new sound. It was very obvious that the guitar now sounded better, more balanced across all strings and louder on the treble side (same strings which had been loosened and put up to tension several times in the process). My girlfriend commented on it instantly and I was taken aback as I didn't expect anything.

I got it out this morning to check and I am convinced of the change. So another positive result for tusq for me