[david henman]

...i swear by these things. i have very acidic perspiration, which quickly
corrodes steel saddles and causes frequent string breakage. but, as it turns
out, the sacrifice in tone wasn't worth it.

i have a sunburst tele deluxe plus, circa 1986. this year i finally got
around to replacing the gold lace sensors with pickups made by john suhr.
however, i was a little underwhelmed with the results.

i was thinking the guitar itself might simply not have any tone. but, it
sounded fine unplugged, and seemed to resonate.

as a last resort, i removed the graph tech saddles and re-installed the
original steel ones.

hello!

suddenly this guitar just oozes tone, with even the gentlest coaxing from my
fingers.

i'll have to get into the habit of maintaining the saddles. my tech
reccomends a gentle rub with 400 and 600 sandpaper after a couple of times a
year.

another valuable learning experience...

-dh

 

[david henman]

This is interesting Dave, I used to have them on a Strat at one time, thought they were pretty good. I have always heard good things about them but you raise a good point here. Perhaps the material itself deadens out the string a bit.

...the common thinking is that they are somewhat darker than traditional steel saddles - you lose a bit of high end. on this particular guitar, however, i think they really did deaden the tone.

i also have a strat plus with graph tech saddles. it has kinman traditiona mk II noiseless pickups and a roller bearing nut. this guitar, compared my other electrics, is tone dead. i have a feeling i will end up re-installing the steel saddles and perhaps even ditching the roller bearing nut.

as a last resort, i will sell the kinmans to finance a suhr silent backplate system and traditional single coils pickups.

and a curse on everyone who has turned me into a tone freak!



-dh

 

[david henman]

I know what you mean about "The Curse". A few years ago I was happy with my Peavey Duece and a Boss GT-5. I shudder to think what I've spent on gear in the last couple of years. But you know what? It makes me happy, and you only go through life once right?....right?..............

...i'll let you know when i get back from the next one.

but, yeah, after spending most of my life unable to afford more than one electric and one acoustic at a time, i'm enjoying owning four of each, with many more (hopefully) on the way!

-dh