Starfire Bass saddle question

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I recently bought my first Guild, a Starfire II. I absolutely love everything about it except for one little issue. I tend to play a bit aggressively at times and I find the G string will pop out of the saddle, especially if I give it a "pluck" for the funk effect. Anybody else had this experience? I'm thinking I'll file the slot a little but, since I've never had a bridge with wood saddles, I figured I'd throw the question out there to make sure that's not a big mistake.
 

fronobulax

Bassist, GAD and the Hot Mess Mods
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Welcome.

I've never had that problem but there are two things I would check or try. The first is that the saddles can slide from left to right when looking at the bass from the front. Because the saddles are "interchangable" and the slot is in the middle, the A and D strings will generally run "straight" from the nut but the E goes slightly to the left and the G slightly to the right. So I would just check that alignment. I have had things slip and the E string appeared straight from the nut and the others were fanned and the G string would pop out. I realized this is a case where a picture would be clearer than any words but...

If the alignment were good the next stup would be to make the slot deeper. There are folks who find that changing string gauges requires tweaking the slot (although that can only go so far) and before Guild made saddles again, the folks who were making and selling them offered them without slots so folks could cut their own to the desired depth.
 

Happy Face

Justified Ancient of MuMu
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Greetings Handsome One,

Frono makes some good points. Try that first!

Some years back, a bonehead ex-bandmate guitar player (redundant?) wanted to use my bass to play a "funk" song during a break in a reunion show. He did his slap & pop stuff and pretty soon he had pulled up the G string enough that the bridge saddle popped out and skittered across the stage. Luckily I found it. (But of course I had a backup bass with me - that cooling looking Yammie headless bass.)

But, I think the problem is not how deep the cut in the bridge saddle is. I think it was because the wooden bridge saddle just sits on that metal tab on the metal bridge plate. Maybe you could jam some aluminum foil in to tighten it in? Or use rubber cement to secure it?

The alternative is to use one of the replacement bridges used on the 1990 reissue basses or something like that.

Good luck!
 
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I filed the slot just a teeny tiny bit right after the last comment on here and have not had the issue since, thank yous guys!
 
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