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November 2002
Posts: 3604
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Must be my day for conundrums and curiosities-
I was visiting a few Seattle guitar shops on Thursday, and noticed a lot of guitars, of recent manufacture, with saddles that had different break points on them. Actually, Takamine has a two-piece saddle arrangement. Anyway, I ordered a couple of these new type of saddles to determine if they made a significant difference in my instruments' tonality ("pearls before swine", notwithstanding). Anybody out there seen these critters, or better yet, used them? I kinda thought it might be the better mousetrap. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | A ready-made generic compensated saddle may help, it depends on how "out" the guitar is. Usually it's just the 2nd string that needs some extra compensation, as it has a tendency to intonate slightly sharp. Many luthiers compensate standard width saddles and it does help. The split saddle is another option but makes fitting an undersaddle pickup a pain. |
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November 2002
Posts: 3604
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Thanks, Paul. The gizmoes I saw are exactly as you describe; pretty straight across, except for the B string. I'll keep you posted on my impressions (I think I'd rather have yours, though- is there no limit on your wisdom & expertise?!)
Cheers & Applause (are the 12-strings really any good?),
Chris |
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July 2002
Posts: 280
Location: Waterloo, IL | Cheers & Applause (are the 12-strings really any good?),
Chris
Having spent the money for a very good Pacemaker, I have to say that the good 12-strings REALLY are THAT GOOD. :) |
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November 2002
Posts: 3604
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Thanks, Chuck. I was messing around with double entendre'; the question had to do with whether "Applause" brand 12-strings were any good. In another discussion thread, a couple of our members were bandying about, in regard to trading these guitars for a slothead Adamas, the proverbial holy grail in Ovationdom. |
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July 2002
Posts: 280
Location: Waterloo, IL | Ah yes, the humor went right past me once again. :) I may not always get the humor right here, but I still earn a lot of good stuff to keep me going. I did look at my Pacemaker last this morning while I was strumming some before heading out to church, and noticed that it has a compensated saddle. Now if I can just find someone willing to even swap an Adamas for my Balladeer. :) |
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May 2002
Posts: 3005
Location: Las Cruces, NM | I think that compensated saddles,as used on almost all electrics, are a much better idea than compensated frets that I have seen advertised recently. You can adjust a saddle but the frets are near permanent, so if intonation goes, do you have to refret? Every "good" idea has it's pitfalls. ("Pitfall" was a song by the Louvin Brothers.)
Bailey |
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July 2003
Posts: 181
Location: North Carolina | Paul T,
You mention a generic comp. saddle. Awhile back you posted a cool link to a comp. nut thats available. Do you know of any comp. saddles that would fit in an Ovation bridge and not screw up the piezo?
Franklin |
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November 2002
Posts: 3604
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | I'm hoping the ones I ordered will simply slip into the existing slots on the bridge, after adjustment for height, of course. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Franklin & Seesquare, On the Ovation Hi-output pickup the saddles are compensated as is the tru-balance (discontinued now, I think) The current thinline pickup on the imports has 2nd string compensation. Regardless of the pickup model, the Ovation pickups are not undersaddle-types, the piezo & saddle are integral, so you can't just replace the saddle like you can with an under-saddle pick-up. |
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November 2002
Posts: 3604
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | DRAT!!! Again, Mr. Templeman, you're right (don't you EVER get tired of that?!). I guess one of the O's won't lend itself to this embellishment then; it does have the integral pickup/saddle combo. Hold the presses!! What if I used a strip piezo with the compensated saddle. I'm making the major assumption a non-original pickup will be compatible with an existing DJ-4 preamp. Would that, then, there, function? All them commas- must have the hiccups, or indigestion. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | "Drat!!!"? Surely you mean "Dang!!!!" You could pull out the Ovation pickup & put in an under-saddle type, though I can't really see the point. Is the intonation really that much out? Do you really want to spend $60+ fixing something that ain't broke?
Undersaddle pickups work fine when they're installed correctly, but if they're not they are the most frustrating, biggest pain in the ass ever. Unless the installation is perfect string to string balance can be way off. Some undersaddles get pissy if you change string gauge or go to a low tuning. The thing that has always attracted me to Ovation pickups is that they are vibraton sensitive rather than pressure sensitive. The upshot is that no matter what string gauge or tuning you use the balance & output is always absolutely consistent. That's a difficult thing to get accross simply in marketing, but if you're serious about your amplified sound & onstage reliability, it's pretty important. Piezo pickup technology has advanced a lot since the late sixties but JR got a whole lot right when he designed that pickup 30-odd years ago |
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February 2003
Posts: 299
Location: Netherlands | Hmmm, I have a question which seems to relate to this topic.
On my smt I have a narrow saddle and the optima preamp.
However, on the website the current model has the OP-50 and a wider saddle. I know the preamp changed, but what's the difference between the saddles? And why were they changed?
I noticed it because the shims i just got have to be cut down to the right size.
Martin |
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July 2003
Posts: 181
Location: North Carolina | Doh! I mean Duh!
I should have remembered that since when I took the saddle out to place an extra shim I noticed the wiring was coming from the saddle itself. I tune low (low E down to C, etc.) and have some pretty bad intonation problems, mainly on the "B" and "low E" strings. I e-mailed Kim Keller about it and he said about all I can do is have a new bridge installed with the saddle slot further back. My frustration with it may get to the point that I do that. For now I tune those strings to the low side of normal to help compensate.
Franklin |
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Joined:
November 2002
Posts: 3604
Location: Pacific Northwest Inland Empire | Thanks again for the guidance, Paul. It's just that I happen to have an extra strip piezo laying around, so it isn't going to cost me much more than time and careful installation. And, no, the guitars aren't badly "out" anyway. And, you're probably right (AGAIN!); I may be fixin' a roof that don' leak. Always the equipment, never the player.......right. |
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February 2002
Posts: 5750
Location: Scotland | Martin, the SMT was originally issued with the thinline pickup, then they went to the slightly wider Tru-balance for a while. Now it looks like all but the entry-level USA guitars, including the SMT & CVT are back to the original Hi-output pickup, which apparently has had a slight re-design recently. |
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September 2003
Posts: 4
Location: west palm beach, fl | hi people, just found the forum...woohoo. i have a cs257 and the piezo went out in it about a year ago. i called up ovation and they sent me a new one with a compensated saddle. hope that helps. btw, its was only compensated on the 2nd (B) string |
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Acoustic "compensated" saddles
