Lock screw- worth it?

[alex1fly]

I've never seen a bridge with a saddle lock. Or read about it in my 15 years on guitar forums. Not an expert. Doubtful it'll make any kind of significant difference. Gotoh is in the business of selling aftermarket bridges so it's most likely a gimmick that's intended to give guitarists a reason to buy their product over somebody elses.

 

[devastone]

I've never seen a bridge with a saddle lock. Or read about it in my 15 years on guitar forums. Not an expert. Doubtful it'll make any kind of significant difference. Gotoh is in the business of selling aftermarket bridges so it's most likely a gimmick that's intended to give guitarists a reason to buy their product over somebody elses.

Gotoh doesn't put it on their bridges, Babicz does, and apparently some more esoteric Peavey basses.

 

[RockinProf]

So it turns out that Leo Fender came up with the saddle lick and employed it on the G&L hard tail bridges. G&L makes the claims Babicz does and uses my thinking of locking the saddles and the bridge together makes all the metal virtually one piece to resonate and sustain. For the price of an M3 tap.... why not. The worst case scenario is that I back the screw out.

 

[JamesPaul]

If you can, please make some before and after notes or recordings and share your thoughts on the difference locking it together makes.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Despite what I said in my previous post, I think you should try it. It’s not gonna hurt anything, and I’m 100% in favor of satisfying curiosities by experience.

 

[Artie]

I saw Artie's (those clever Mississippians!) and I was aware of the Babicz bridge, but didn't know about the locking screw, makes sense now.

That said, no, I wouldn't bother with it.

A previous owner installed the Schaller. The "Mississippi" bridge was awful. But to be honest, I see no benefit of the locking feature. The bridge itself, though, is a nice upgrade from the Peavey unit.

 

[DavidRavenMoon]

Theoretically this would create a bigger surface area to resonate if the lock creates a tight joint.

That’s a bunch of marketing nonsense.
The strings are resting on the saddle. The saddle is resting on the bridge. The bridge is attached to the body.

That’s it. That’s all you need. This whole idea about total contact bridges and transferring vibrations to the body is nonsense.

Here’s why; locking the saddles, or even using a solid one piece bridge without adjustable saddles doesn’t change a thing. You don’t want parts to vibrate, but locking them together doesn’t change the mass of the bridge or the surface area.

And contacting the body isn’t important, or even required! You don’t want energy (vibrations) from the strings to be transferred to the body. That steals energy from the strings. That stops the strings from vibrating. The body doesn’t produce sustain. So screwing your stop bar tailpiece down to the body adds nothing.

Think about it this way, look at the difference between a hollow body/acoustic and a solid body like a Les Paul. On the hollow body some of the strings’ energy is removed (conservation of energy) and sets the top of the guitar vibrating. So you get more acoustic output and a little less sustain.

Let’s take it a step further; take a banjo. Almost all of the strings’ energy goes into vibrating the drum head. You get a loud acoustic output, and almost zero sustain.

When Les Paul thought about making a solid body, his idea was that most of the energy in the vibrating string will stay in the string. The body has enough mass as to be very difficult to vibrate much. It has a high mechanical impedance.

So you end up with very little acoustic output, but very long sustain. Higher mass bridges (higher mass = more weight, depending on what planet you are standing on) means more sustain. Because the puny energy of the strings can’t cause it to vibrate very much.

But that’s it. It’s about the mass and hardness. Not if it’s one piece or touching the body.

Indecently it’s the neck where you lost most of the energy on a solid body, and the neck contributes a great deal to the tone of the guitar. This is because it’s a long, unsupported structure that’s bearing the tension of the strings. So it tends to vibrate. This is why carbon fiber rods help even out the tone and increase sustain.


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[DavidRavenMoon]

So it turns out that Leo Fender came up with the saddle lick and employed it on the G&L hard tail bridges. G&L makes the claims Babicz does and uses my thinking of locking the saddles and the bridge together makes all the metal virtually one piece to resonate and sustain. For the price of an M3 tap.... why not. The worst case scenario is that I back the screw out.

It doesn’t. What is resonance? How would that create sustain? It’s a buzz word. When an object vibrates at a certain frequency it’s resonating.

Or you blow into a bottle. It makes a note. That’s the resonant frequency of the volume of space in the bottle.

You pluck a string on an acoustic guitar. The body resonates to that note. It has to do with the volume of air in the body.

But as I said in my last post, that’s the opposite of sustain. It kills sustain. That’s why solid bodies were invented.

We need to stop using these words and ideas. And that full contact bridge is a gimmick. It’s just a heavier piece of metal. Doesn’t matter how many pieces it is.

Meanwhile look how good light aluminum bridges sound.


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[RockinProf]

It doesn’t. What is resonance? How would that create sustain? It’s a buzz word. When an object vibrates at a certain frequency it’s resonating.

Or you blow into a bottle. It makes a note. That’s the resonant frequency of the volume of space in the bottle.

You pluck a string on an acoustic guitar. The body resonates to that note. It has to do with the volume of air in the body.

But as I said in my last post, that’s the opposite of sustain. It kills sustain. That’s why solid bodies were invented.

We need to stop using these words and ideas. And that full contact bridge is a gimmick. It’s just a heavier piece of metal. Doesn’t matter how many pieces it is.

Meanwhile look how good light aluminum bridges sound.


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While I respect your viewpoint, I’m going to disagree on the point of mechanical connection not contributing to sustain and not altering timbre.

Example 1 is the Gotoh 510BN tune-o-matic bridge. With this bridge the timbre becomes more balanced when the saddles are locked down to the bridge. Similarly sustain is unaffected. This is seen by locking the A string and unlocking the D. Then the reverse. In these tests it is very apparent that there is a tonal difference/timbre (some may say resonance) change. Timbre is subjective so I won’t say better or worse - simply different.

Example 2 would be alternate bridge block material when set to dive only on a vibrato equipped guitar. Here timbre is clearly changed as a function of the metal used. Fortunately I have a family member who is an engineer in a metals lab and persuaded him to cut and drill pure tungsten blocks for me. Using the test of my completely disinterested wife - even she remarked that the guitar sounds very different with tungsten- “like it has more thunk when you play”. Again, I won’t say better- just different. Sustain- I think there may be a touch more but I can’t say it’s not psychoacoustic.

With those things said, I think it’s a worthwhile test to see if a lock screw does anything. In a worst case scenario, I can simply remove the grub screw. If I place the hole facing the controls it’s essentially invisible under almost all situations.