12stringer
Senior Member
Just got back from the Guitar Shop and they are closed because they are all at NAMM....Good excuse! :wink: Fortunately LA Music is just up the street and they had the strap pin. 8)
12 String Compensated Saddle
- Thread starter 12stringer
- Start date
Looking good, Randy!!!
12stringer
Senior Member
Thanks Chaz and EK
The lessons I've learned from this project is as follows :
When filing a saddle, it needs some play and rest time to let you know how it will affect the sound of the strings.
Same goes for truss rod adjustments.
Great action can be had at the loss of tone.
Backing off the truss rod a tad can increase volume.
Do the obvious tweaks (saddle shaping and Truss rod adjustments) and then let the guitar sit overnight to adjust itself and you may find the minor little tweaks (some strings not sounding as clear) you were about to do are unneccessary. I woke up this morning to a guitar that plays and sounds beautiful even though I was not 100% happy last night and had some tweak plans for today.
That's all for now....it's play time!
The lessons I've learned from this project is as follows :
When filing a saddle, it needs some play and rest time to let you know how it will affect the sound of the strings.
Same goes for truss rod adjustments.
Great action can be had at the loss of tone.
Backing off the truss rod a tad can increase volume.
Do the obvious tweaks (saddle shaping and Truss rod adjustments) and then let the guitar sit overnight to adjust itself and you may find the minor little tweaks (some strings not sounding as clear) you were about to do are unneccessary. I woke up this morning to a guitar that plays and sounds beautiful even though I was not 100% happy last night and had some tweak plans for today.
That's all for now....it's play time!
Bingo on the lessons learned. Take it slow and easy, give the guitar a bit of time to settle in. I'm very much of the opinion that super low action can have a negative impact on tone and volume on an acoustic guitar. Same thing with neck relief. A perfectly straight neck may, emphasis on may, not be the ideal. Strings need a bit of room to breathe and vibrate to sound their best.
12stringer
Senior Member
It seems so EK. Now that I have the truss rod set for low to medium action and deep tone and the saddle at a height that seems to agree with how the neck relief is set, there was a need for compensation of the B and the low E strings...this was easy to do and now the guitar sounds loud and deep, is fairly easy to fret and is in tune up and down the neck. Nut slots are low but not too low making cowboy chords easy to fret and in tune without going sharp. This guitar is a joy to playevenkeel said:
Ross
Senior Member
Good points, Randy. And a fine-looking instrument!12stringer said:The lessons I've learned from this project is as follows :
When filing a saddle, it needs some play and rest time to let you know how it will affect the sound of the strings.
Same goes for truss rod adjustments.
Great action can be had at the loss of tone.
Backing off the truss rod a tad can increase volume.
Do the obvious tweaks (saddle shaping and Truss rod adjustments) and then let the guitar sit overnight to adjust itself and you may find the minor little tweaks (some strings not sounding as clear) you were about to do are unneccessary. I woke up this morning to a guitar that plays and sounds beautiful even though I was not 100% happy last night and had some tweak plans for today.
That's all for now....it's play time!
john_kidder
Senior Member
This is the standard saddle supplied with the Starfire XII:
The guitar plays wonderfully, and sounds great, but if one plays about with individual notes high up the fretboard, everything goes off in a handcart. Intonation is just not possible with this. It astonishes me that Guild, then arguably the big boss of acoustic 12-strings, would offer an electric 12 with such a POS for a bridge.
Rickenbacker had a bridge which allowed precise intonation for each of the 12 strings:
I see in Hans' book that the SF XII presented to John Lennon had an adjust-a-matic of some sort, an available option on the SF IV that the XII was based on. In the book, the picture of the guitar show a regular tailpiece with the tune-o-matic bridge. But this SF IV was listed on eBay this morning, with a stop tailplece and a tune-o-matic. Could this have been original?
Does anyone know of a mod that would allow a Rickenbacker-style device to be mounted on the Starfire, or what sort of tune-o-matic was offered with the SF IV?
The guitar plays wonderfully, and sounds great, but if one plays about with individual notes high up the fretboard, everything goes off in a handcart. Intonation is just not possible with this. It astonishes me that Guild, then arguably the big boss of acoustic 12-strings, would offer an electric 12 with such a POS for a bridge.
Rickenbacker had a bridge which allowed precise intonation for each of the 12 strings:
I see in Hans' book that the SF XII presented to John Lennon had an adjust-a-matic of some sort, an available option on the SF IV that the XII was based on. In the book, the picture of the guitar show a regular tailpiece with the tune-o-matic bridge. But this SF IV was listed on eBay this morning, with a stop tailplece and a tune-o-matic. Could this have been original?
Does anyone know of a mod that would allow a Rickenbacker-style device to be mounted on the Starfire, or what sort of tune-o-matic was offered with the SF IV?
Darryl Hattenhauer
Venerated Member
JK,
Not sure if I blunderstand your last question. From about 1980 on, all starfoursfivesandsixes had a stop bar. Don'r know about the bridge. Would the Beesley book be any help?
hf
Not sure if I blunderstand your last question. From about 1980 on, all starfoursfivesandsixes had a stop bar. Don'r know about the bridge. Would the Beesley book be any help?
hf