Jerry Donahue on three-saddle bridges

[Lobotomy Boy]

Late last fall Voyageur Press published a fantastic book on Fender Telecasters (The Fender Telecaster Handbook: How To Buy, Maintain, Set Up, Troubleshoot, and Modify Your Tele) by Paul Balmer. On page 37 of the book there's an interesting sidebar by Jerry Donahue on setting the intonation of a brass three-saddle bridge. I've received permission from the publisher to reprint it here:

Saddle up your Telecaster, by Jerry Donahue

Attention all current and would-be Tele slingers! You needn’t resort to six individual bridge saddles to improve your intonation. The original Broadcaster design called for three brass saddles: and that’s still the best design today. The larger saddles mean more mass, providing greater output, sustain and tone. Also, with two strings per saddle you have twice the string pressure against the body!

Now, on to intonation. Until fairly recently, I felt that a guitar couldn’t really play in tune unless each string’s 12th fret harmonic and 12th fret note had the exact same reading on the electric tuner. And of course, they never do on a three-saddle bridge. I finally settled on a technique that not only deals with this problem but, to my delight, addresses other inherent problems also. Here it is: adjust the middle saddle’s intonation screw so that the D string’s 12th fret note reads slightly flat of the 12th fret harmonic on your tuner. Then, check out the G string’s 12th fretted note. This note should be only marginally sharp of the harmonic. Are you with me? Now tune your guitar, with the open G string reading somewhere between A440 and A439 (so that the 12th fretted note is at A440). Tune the other strings as one would normally. Final adjustments can be made by ear when you compare first position E major and E minor chords. The E major’s G# note (third string, first fret) should no longer seem sharp in the chord; and the open G string should still be perceptively in tune within the E minor chord.

Here’s another for instance: an A chord barred at the fifth fret sounds fine. But when the nearest E is played (fifth string, seventh fret; fourth string, sixth fret; third string, fourth fret; second string, fight fret), it typically sounds “off.” The major third is the culprit (fourth string, sixth fret): it typically sounds sharp. But with my adjustment (the fourth string’s 12th fretted note being slightly flat) that problem no longer exists. There is a small margin of error here, which actually works to the guitarist’s advantage!

Occasionally, depending on the gauge of your strings and the force of your picking hand, it might also serve you to marginally flatten the low E string. I do this as I use a 42 and like to hit it fairly hard sometimes. Trust your own ears, though, as each instrument tends to be different, too.

A final qualification in adopting all the aforementioned technique: a piano tuner may use an electric tuner as a point of reference. But if he tuned the entire keyboard to be “perfect,” it would sound awful. The bottom keys actually must be tuned sharp and the high ones tuned flat. This is the only way the human brain will perceive the piano to be in tune. It’s essentially the same concept I’ve applied here to the Telecaster. I really like this method. Once I adopted it, my Teles sounded noticeably more in tune than my Strats (across all of the chord shapes)…so I’ve since made the same adjustments to the Strats!

Remember, life is about compromise. Check it out!

Has anyone tried this?

By the way, you can pick up the book

here

here

.

[Strat-Man-Do]

I've been using the 3-saddles Vintage Bridges right along. I grew up playing without Tuners. There was a Tuning Fork and I would tune to the keyboard player in a band situation. So you kind get a good feel of what sounds right this way naturally. In other words you are learning to use your ears from the start instead of trusting a pedal.

But with 6-saddles and a Tuner? I never tune the guitar exactly to what the pedal says is in tune on each string anyway. If you re-read what JD says in the article about the low and high string and the low being tuned sharp and the high being flat? You'll do this naturally if you learn to tune without a tuner.

Try it, use your pedal and set your low E to pitch with the Tuner. Now shut your tuner off and tune your guitar by ear to itself. Whe you think you have it DEAD RIGHT? Turn your tuner on and check the High Strings. I guarentee you they won't be tuned to the green light on the tuner. "depending of what Tuner you use" Or right to the in Tune mark.

[Lobotomy Boy]

Thanks Strat Man. I'll try that. Do you think Mr. Donahue's method would work well with a six-saddle guitar?

[Boris Bubbanov]

Great submissions. Jerry's comments apply to any type of bridge design. I still don't know what all the fuss about e-tuners is, since you must retune to sweeten up the notes vis a vis one another. Just like Merle Travis, Chet Atkins and Les Paul were doing years upon years ago.

You can't read Jerry's submissions enough times. One of the things I feel I have the liberty of doing is actually adjusting my tuning, depending on what portion of the fretboard I'll be spending the most time in in a particular song.

One of the things I do on my Gibson Melody Maker is, tune one way for mostly cowboy chords, and another way for mostly playing plain strings around the 12 th fret. I can get around the limitations of the straight line but angled bridge in this manner.

[Strat-Man-Do]

Ya, I just get that RING in my ear when the two strings I'm tuning become in Perfect tune with each other. I stay there. I notice that the pedal doesn't agree with me and thinks I'm a bit off. But I'm hearing the Harmonics the pedal isn't? Its reading the tune of one string.

Anyone try the new TC Electronics Tuner? Suppose to be state of the art. Tunes 6-strings at a time. Well the Roland VG-99 also does. But its a bit different. Anyway I haven't seen one but in the music mags thus far.

[Lobotomy Boy]

I'm a bit paranoid about relying on my ears instead of the tuner. My first real guitar was a Madeira (Guild's Japanese imports from the 1970s) 12-string that I received as payment instead of cash for some psylocibin mushrooms. (I was perhaps less than responsible in my wayward youth.) It was a beautiful instrument, but I knew nothing about playing guitar and keeping it in tune was such a nightmarish endeavor that I never really learned much about playing guitar while I owned it. Once I got married (and my wife put the kybosh on my irresponsible and illegal activities) the guitar just gathered dust for several years, until I finally gave it back to the poor wretch who I originally got it from. By that time he was a full-fledged junkie and sold it to buy heroin, which taught me an important lesson about trying to help a junkie.

Flash forward 19 years and I once again take a run at learning to play guitar, this time with the help of digital tuning technology. This time around it's going much better, perhaps because of not wasted all the time. (I'll admit I enjoy a beer or two, and maybe a couple of fingers of Scotch every once in a great while, but I'm far too old to be tripping on 'shrooms--I'll leave that to the kiddies.) I've taken lessons on and off for a total of about seven months, and my ear is much better than I ever thought it would be. Still, I find the thought of trying to break my reliance on my electronic tuner daunting. It gives me flashbacks to that old 12 string.