New bridge made a huge difference

[Michael Lewis]

To eliminate another 'variable' make sure the contact area of the bridge fits very well to the top of the guitar. If one bridge fits better than the next it may well sound different because of that difference in contact area. When making comparisons it is best to keep as many aspects of the bridge the same and change only one aspect at a time.

[Paco Jimenez]

Hey, Dennis. Have you put a bone saddle on top or is it just bare wood contacting the strings? I'm wondering.... Isn't spruce too soft for that use?

[Paco Jimenez]

Dennis,

I have a similar solution for the bridge of my archtop; bone saddle over hardwood bridge. It is only a hypothesis, but after observation of both the saddle and nut in refining the action setup, I noticed indentations at both the bridge and saddle that seem to indicate the windings of the string had remained stationary, while the core was stretching to tune. It seems that when the wound strings are unable to slide at their contact points they keep the string length stable. I have observed that though the wound strings are much more stable, the plain B and E are relatively variable. I will also say that the setup process with this bridge/saddle combo required a sort of 'settling in' period, but once adjusted, remains in tune far longer than any other guitar I have played. I have dropped in down stairs, in a case, and it still played in tune. I also believe that this type of assembly also allows the bridge to rotate slightly on a perpendicular axis to body. This seems to be due to the imperfections inherent in my design for a floating saddle at the bridge. Where an ABR bridge's resistance to moment deflection forces a string length change, and therefore produces tuning instability, this inadvertent flexibility produces not only a livelier instrument, but better a better playing one. I believe either of these hypotheses may be supported by the innovative Evertune bridge, and in the use of locking nuts and bridges on instruments designed for more 'aggressive' musical expression. Musical may also need to be in quotes.

I don't know if physics actually support this, but in my experience I fully agree your observations. I also found that the windings get somewhat locked in place once the guitar is tuned and don't move when retuned unless you turn the gears in a significant way specially on wooden and bone saddles and nuts. It seems that it's the string core the only part who actually strectches over a certain range, when the strings have settled down and are tuned to pitch or slightly off the correct pitch. But this doesn't happen for the plain strings, specially the 2nd has the bigger tendency to get out of tune (and it gets much worse for plain 3rds. We are all using wound 3rds, aren't we?) The plains seem to slide on the nut easier and keeping in tune worse.

Evertune bridge? Huh, I've spent my life removing springs from my guitars and blocking the vibratos. I don't want a spring holding my strings, I want something solid locking them. It actually affects tone. I don't think I will ever use one of those devices even if they give that perfect pitch stability.

[Dennis Duross]

Paco: Sorry if I wasn't clear. I replaced the bridge FOOT with spruce. Other than that it's the same as the one pictured in the first post, including the bone saddle.

[Paco Jimenez]

Ah, Ok. Now I got it. Thanks for clarifying.

Never tried a spruce bridge. I guess it deserves at least a go. Spruce has relatively low density so in certain way I guess what to expect from it, but it has a wonderful ringing or resonance. Seems like something to try.

[Art Davila]

That IS a pretty lame descriptor I guess, but I don't know as any other term I might use would be any better. I sort of lack the proper vocabulary (and experience), and that doesn't help.

By comparison, the sound was a bit more muted before---almost like the tone control on an electric had been dialed down somewhat before, and now it's been dialed up a click or so. And louder, seems to ring a little longer too.

That's no better, is it?

I'm not trying to achieve some particular sound here---I'm just swapping out components to try and see what changes occur. I've made two guitars that have the same specs, and have been changing bridge bases and necks, and comparing the sound. Not scientifically, obviously.

Right now, the only difference between the two is that one has a maple neck and the other has a narra neck.

Anyway.

First I am a Novice to archtops, so please excuse my ignorance,
Is there any quality bolt on neck system?
If there is you could use the one body as your test bed constant,
and the change your neck shape, dimensions, woods and also experiment with bridges too.
so that you can record your findings of how each change altered your sound.