bigtim Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 I have always set mine down on the body. I was wondering how some of you set yours up? I think it is really a matter of taste as I have had mine higher and lower. I really do not think it adds any to sustain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfpup Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 All the way down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbluesplayer Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 All the way up. Not all the way but pretty high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 All the way down Pip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bassetman Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 All the way down then wrapped. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
merciful-evans Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 Never touched it. Looks pretty low on all of 'em. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NHTom Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 All the way down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkesman Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 All the way down then wrapped. Yeah - this probably achieves the same as my method. To me, the height itself is irrelevant. I always have the tailpiece at whatever height it needs to be such that it creates a break-angle of around 10-15 degrees. From an engineering perspective it makes sense to me because… Obviously the angle should never be so little as to allow the strings to slip off or jump off the saddle notches. The least possible practible angle means less pressure on the saddles, allowing the string to slide more easily when tuning. This means it’ll stay in tune better when played as well, particularly when bending – this short section of string does move when you bend, so keeping that movement to a minimum just seems like a good idea. Also, the greater the angle, the longer the string length between the tailpiece and the bridge. It just seems to make sense to me to keep that length as short as possible so that any stretching of that string section is kept to a minimum. Also, a bit of graphite lube on the saddles will help too. Less angle equals less strain and fatigue on the string at the saddle, meaning reduced likelihood of a string breaking. I know that there are those who think that keeping the tailpiece screwed down as tight as it’ll go (without the strings fouling the edge of the bridge) means that more of the resonance is captured, and perhaps they are right (although I have tried it and noticed no difference). But to me, keeping in tune and avoiding breakages are far more important. Just my two penneth! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 ...keeping in tune and avoiding breakages are far more important...Just my two penneth!... Interesting thoughts, if you don't mind my saying so, Hawkesman. With all due respect and, I assure you, not wishing to start a bunfight I have never yet, in well over 30 years of playing Les Pauls, found that having a tailpiece screwed down has ever once been the cause of either tuning instability or of string breakage. In fact tuning stability and complete lack of string-breakage has been profoundly notable for its excellence. Has your experience been so very much different?........................................... Pip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawkesman Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Interesting thoughts, if you don't mind my saying so, Hawkesman. With all due respect and, I assure you, not wishing to start a bunfight I have never yet, in well over 30 years of playing Les Pauls, found that having a tailpiece screwed down has ever once been the cause of either tuning instability or of string breakage. In fact tuning stability and complete lack of string-breakage has been profoundly notable for its excellence. Has your experience been so very much different?........................................... Pip. Hi pip, Perhaps that's more to do with the quality of guitars you've been using over that time? In my very early years I had a run of "cheap 'n' nasty" guitars (a Kay, for example!), and I found that my method did make a significant difference to tuning stability and string longevity. Maybe it isn't so necessary with higher-end guitars, but old habits die hard! Also, metals don't generally like being continually bent, and that's what's happening at the bridge (albeit in very small increments) every time a string is tuned or bent. This induces classic metal fatigue. Maybe not a big factor if one changes one's strings regularly, but it still makes sense to me to try and reduce this effect, if by doing so it has no deleterious affect on the tone one likes. H. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Retired Posted March 13, 2017 Share Posted March 13, 2017 All the way down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinch Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Never touched one, so had to go look. It appears to be pretty much all the way down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MichaelT Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 I looked at mine last night and they're all the way down as well. I'm not having any intonation, tuning or string breakage issues. I'm fairly certain they've not been moved since I bought them though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Hi pip...Perhaps that's more to do with the quality of guitars you've been using over that time? In my very early years I had a run of "cheap 'n' nasty" guitars (a Kay, for example!), and I found that my method did make a significant difference to tuning stability and string longevity. Maybe it isn't so necessary with higher-end guitars... Hi Hawkesman. Sorry I missed this post until now. It could be that Gibson saddles are less prone to cutting strings than the saddles seen on lesser brands. For the first 4 or 5 years all I had was a really cheap 'Grant' branded copy of a LP Gold Top. When I bought it the bridge had nylon saddles but I swapped these out for steel saddles because "everyone knows steel saddles give More Tone". Cue a year of high-E strings breaking at the saddle until I had the sharp edge dressed-down. After that the issue hardly ever reappeared and when it did it was usually because I was bending the string like a rampaging lunatic. After that there was a 24-year period of almost 100% Stratmanship which, due to the nature of things, never caused a single string problem in all that time. I did have a LP Custom for a brief period in the early '80s (with no issues) but, again, that period was so brief as to be hardly worth mentioning. Then we get to 2008-on with my current guitars. No issues again but I'm now using '011s whereas previously I had been using '009s (and, further back, '008s) so the thicker strings possibly help reduce the likelihood of breakage. Pip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinch Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Pip: or quality strings are less prone to breaking? I dunno... I've never had a string break at the bridge. 0.1k or 2i TOM, no diff... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinch Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 -0.1K or 2K Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 Pip: or quality strings are less prone to breaking?... It's possible, I suppose, Pinch. When I was having the issues mentioned earlier I was using 'Picato' brand strings - which were the cheapest strings I could find (funds were constrained!) - which might have been constructed with a less elastic / more brittle type of steel?....Certainly the D'Addario Pure Nickel strings I use nowadays seem more elastic than the Rotosound Pure Nickels which I used on my LPs previously. After making the leap to using Strats in 1980 I started buying Fender strings so I don't have a constant against which things could be gauged. FWIW as far as the Picato strings go; For a while - not long after I first started to play guitar - I was convinced (by my fingertips) that "Lighter Gauge = Better Gauge". I discovered that Picato made a high E in .006 gauge so simply had to use those! Big mistake. Not only did they redefine the adjective 'weedy' in terms of tone they were so fine that sometimes they snapped as I was removing them from their packet... I must have gone through more than half-a-dozen of them inside a fortnight and that was Lesson Learned. Pip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pinch Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 D'Addario man myself. I have a couple Rotostrings left in my "You effed up restringing again, didn't you?" bag. They're alright. I honestly can't tell the difference. I get D'Addario strings because I always thought Mustaine (D'Addario) grabbed better Kerrang! headlines than Hammett (Ernie Ball). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pippy Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 D'Addario man myself. I have a couple Rotostrings left in my "You effed up restringing again, didn't you?" bag. They're alright. I honestly can't tell the difference. I get D'Addario strings because I always thought Mustaine (D'Addario) grabbed better Kerrang! headlines than Hammett (Ernie Ball). Without wishing to too far off-topic; I always used Rotosound Pure Nickels with the Les Pauls for no better reasons than they sounded really good (IMO) and they're made quite locally. I mentioned in a thread in this forum on the subject of 'Preferred Strings' that I had never tried D'Addario and whad'd'ya'know but a few days later I received an e-mail from a very nice, friendly and helpful chap from said company asking if I would like him to send me a set of my choice for appraisal? Well; Do Bears Poo in the Woods? They duly arrived and I was surprised to notice that I preferred them and have been using them ever since. It just goes to show You Never Know Who Reads These Fora! Pip. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twang Gang Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 According to Gibson's set up instructions you do not want the strings to touch the back of the bridge on their way down to the stop bar tailpiece (debatable by many players, but just going with the what the people who make the guitars say). So if you have an original ABR-1 Tune-o-matic bridge where the intonation screws face the headstock of the guitar you screw the stop bar all the way down to the body (and the strings still won't touch the back of the bridge). However if you have a Nashville bridge, which is slightly wider, allowing for more intonation adjustment of the saddles, then you need to raise the stop bar just enough so the strings don't touch the back of the bridge. Not going into which way provides better "tone" or "sustain" as that is all subjective to each individual players ear. But to answer your question - on my 336 which has the original ABR-1 bridge the stop bar is all the way down to the body. On my newest 2017 LP Standard T, with Nashville bridge, on the treble side the stop bar is 3/16 above the body and on the bass side it is 5/16. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 he's completely wasted. I've tried talking to him but he won't listen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
surfpup Posted March 17, 2017 Share Posted March 17, 2017 he's completely wasted. I've tried talking to him but he won't listen. Yours must be wired to the pot or something. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karloff Posted March 18, 2017 Share Posted March 18, 2017 Yours must be wired to the pot or something. Lol. I think he's on the pot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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