Guitar Nerds Anonymous

anyone a member on thefretboard.co.uk?

Couple of strats came up in the classifieds that i was interested in, I registered but waiting for mod approval. If anyone is on there already then appreciate if you can give them a nudge (I'll pm you my details)

Also, thinking of selling my prs se if anyone wants to try a prs for cheaps

Just got reminded of this....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7NkWU2JVM

I'm a member if you're still waiting for approval

Will pm you, thanks

how about this https://www.thefretboard.co.uk/discussion/198001/fs-1997-fender-usa-fat-telecaster-california-series-price-drop

humbucker up front, 5 position switch, going to be quite different to a strat

That's actually really nice. Humbucker would be different! Is the "bridge saddles are not original" an issue? Would I be able to get original ones? Although I notice further down the thread, there's some chatter about them being original. Does it matter?

And would I need to register to purchase? Don't have an account with them.

I was sort of considering making an offer on this, but I'm a bit concerned that I won't use my Strat anymore!

There’s a comment further down from a guy who owns one saying the saddles look original to him (that style of six small saddles is unusual). Looks like a pretty nice guitar to me, especially at that price.

Oof, why did I start browsing eBay...

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Limited-Edition-USA-Fender-Telecaster-Silverburst-/133646686317

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Guise. Tele’s have three saddles, preferably brass, and a tin ashtray bridge. Angle the saddles if you must.

How are you getting on with the new marshall?

What if you already have one of those? 🤔

Guise. Tele’s have three saddles, preferably brass, and a tin ashtray bridge. Angle the saddles if you must.

Could you explain this to a simpleton?

It’s like Sugino 75 on a track bike 👍

The Telecaster was the first mass produced solid body electric and Leo Fender was really good at finding simple engineering solutions that were kind of crude but worked really well and were tough as nails.

The Tele bridge design has a stamped plate screwed to the body with holes for the strings to come through from the rear of the body. They go over brass bar saddles that are elevated from the bridge plate by grub screws and adjusted fore and aft by a longer sprung screw through the raised lip of the rear of the bridge plate.

All this was intended to be hidden under a metal cover that looked like an ashtray when it was removed (you can see where it would have been in that pic). Some models still come with the ashtray...

The three straight saddles don’t allow for particularly good intonation (you have to “split the difference” between pairs of strings) but that’s kind of the traditional Tele vibe. Nowadays you can get compensated three saddle designs or six bent steel saddles that are more like a hardtail Strat bridge.

@Pifko lol

I'm sure it would sound great but I just don't really see the point in a tele with 2 humbuckers, at least the bridge one should be the angled single coil.

I definitely prefer the Custom to the Deluxe, but also they’re not really the sort of humbuckers that you’re going to overdrive too hard, kept a little clean I think it’s a different sound to a Gibson humbucker type of thing.

For a second I was half contemplating getting something like that to put the cunife pickups in but then I saw they’re like £400 for a pair.

That's hot! Excellent grain. Needs brass saddles and a p90 in the neck though.

a certain amount of twangy-ness and that reassuring plank-like feel remains, even if the thing has two EMGs in there. one of the guys in my band has/had (I can't keep track) the Jim Root one and it is enjoyably different to the les pauls and stuff we also have knocking around. It is definitely mainly in the playing sensation once you've got hardware like that in there though

This is the way. I put a 6-saddle 'modern' Gotoh thing on my Tele when I was building it. It was fine, but it wasn't a Telecaster. It's got a standard Fender-stamped bridge now that I cadged from a mate, and it's perfect. It makes a big difference to the sound, and a huge difference to the feel.

mais oui

Nowadays you can get compensated three saddle designs or six bent steel saddles that are more like a hardtail Strat bridge.

I can see in my eBay watch list, there's a mixture of the two types, three and six between the guitars. It appears the ones with the humbucker are more likely to have six.

@ Jung

Needs brass saddles and a p90 in the neck though.

What's the benefit of brass over the three or six above? And would a P90 be preferable to a humbucker at the neck?

I can see in my eBay watch list, there's a mixture of the two types, three and six between the guitars. It appears the ones with the humbucker are more likely to have six.

It gets a bit complicated… within the three-saddle niche you have plain (straight) brass saddles, straight steel saddles (straight saddles often have some kind of slot or threaded surface to stop the string from moving), compensated ones where the saddles are threaded at an angle to stagger the strings, compensated ones with peaks or grooves shaped into the saddle where one peak is further forward, and the "hot rod" ones where you have raised peaks but you can actually move one side to fully adjust the intonation.

Then you have the six-saddle variants.

The more modern designs tend to be more convenient but you usually find guitarists complaining they don't sound right, because guitarists.

If you like to thrash your Fender avoid saddles without grooves for the string to sit in. Ugh, and those multi-grooved saddles that the jags come with in the pic. Maybe it's just jags I've played as they don't have much tension across the bridge but the strings all bunch up into the middle.

Steel and brass have different densities so sound slightly different. Brass should have more sustain, too. This is definitely way out of my geek league to worry about though. Play in a rubbish venue with a rubbish engineer and nobody will care what the saddles are made of.

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I have Graphtech stringsaver saddles on my tele as I snapped loads of strings when I was gigging. I doubt anyone could tell the difference - I certainly can't!
That was built for abuse though, with a tex-mex neck singlecoil and hotrails in the bridge.