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Tusq Nut, Saddle and Plastic Pins


RHANK

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Plastic: an excellent reference point for other materials - where it all begins.

 

Tusq: mutes volume, decreases sustain, dulls brightness

 

Brass: brightens, increases sustain, can increase volume, good therapy for slightly worn bridge plate

 

Bone and Other Bone-derived Substances: can increase volume, may add brightness, good sustain, can enhance tone; results vary.

 

Ebony: esp. for hog/spruce - no real changes, but 'more' of everything that should be inherently there to start

 

Disclaimer: reflective only of my 'experimenting' and not intended to be definitive, complete, or technically justified😛

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Anyone has any info on what how bridge pin changing has effected the guitars , and anyone who has the supposed sound difference in each of the options please share the knowledge with the likes of me who might want to experiment and hopefully head the correct direction I'd like to change the guitar

The choice of bridge pins doesn't affect the sound of the guitar whatsoever; some of the rarer materials sure add to the bling though.

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The choice of bridge pins doesn't affect the sound of the guitar whatsoever; some of the rarer materials sure add to the bling though.

You're likely more right than I (many are😄), but what guitars have you tried w/varied pins? I own a couple for which what you say is completely true and have owned some from the Martin 15 series that no pins could possibly influence.

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Brass - strong, mellow, clear

Bone - strong, mellow, clear

Wood - strong, mellow, clear

Fossilized Mastodon Ivory - strong, mellow clear

Plastic - tastes like chicken.

This last one was from my dog who wanted a reward for giving me his input on the five bridge pin materials.

(I was glad he ate the least expensive of the test materials).

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Brass - strong, mellow, clear

Bone - strong, mellow, clear

Wood - strong, mellow, clear

Fossilized Mastodon Ivory - strong, mellow clear

Plastic - tastes like chicken.

This last one was from my dog who wanted a reward for giving me his input on the five bridge pin materials.

(I was glad he ate the least expensive of the test materials).

Bless his canine heart!

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BBG, The only thing I'm sure of is - if you're feeding your dog jewelry - you need a small backyard.

As far as pins - to my ears, there's no difference between bone and plastic.

I've suggested on most of these threads that someone buy 6 sets of the same strings, take out the same G string from each and put it on one guitar with 6 different pins and see if if their ears can hear a difference.

We've had scientific explorations regarding the angle of the bridge pin hole, its distance from the saddle, etc using fancy sonar equipment on loan from NASA... But nothing on this burning issue.

So, as your revised, more politically correct question suggests - it's all subjective.

I think the pick you use has more of an impact on sound than the bridge pin material.

(Did your wife's engagement ring still have that Cracker Jack smell dogs love so well?)

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Picks make more of a difference than anything I've found

 

I've changed pins in and out of pretty much every guitar I've owned and heard no discernible difference .

I'm also of the ilk that if you need to change things dramatically then you've got the wrong guitar !

 

I can understand though that a bit of plastic doesn't belong amongst the gubbins of a beautiful acoustic

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Bottom line, probably, comes down to the whole thing being subjective. Why anybody would want to impose their views on someone else escapes me, but it's kind of fun to hear differing perspectives. Floating the boat, so to speak, is important - what floats it is secondary😛

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I want to thank everyone for their opinions on this subject. I learned a few things which is not unusual, and I will probably buy a set of pins and a bone saddle just to try on my J45 Custom.

 

Mine is a 2015 model and everything that I read says that the nut is Tusq, but someone said no it is Bone already. I am wondering if that has been changed like so many of the other things on the Custom?

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After some more digging I found out that the 2015 J 45 custom does have the bone nut and tusq saddle. In 2016 they went to Tusq for both, and in 2017 they also traded out the Rosewood bridge and finger board to Richlite. They also dropped the MOP headstock inlay of flower and vine and went to the crown logo, but they did start to bind the headstock of which mine is not.

 

FWI

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I'm among those who believe pin material plays a role.

Even fine-adjust the 6 strings with the difference - typically bone for the lower register and the softer wood, plast or horn for the e B and G.

 

No, let's not forget horn.

 

Here's what world capacity, mister Colosi has to say - not a bad road-map if you are a believer too (have the ears to receive).

http://www.guitarsad...om/products.asp

 

 

 

. . . . . . . "Horn goes beep beep"

 

. . . . . . . . . . . Woody Guthrie said that (well, Donovan's version)

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I'm among those who believe pin material plays a role.

Even fine-adjust the 6 strings with the difference - typically bone for the lower register and the softer wood, plast or horn for the e B and G.

 

No, let's not forget horn.

 

Here's what world capacity, mister Colosi has to say - not a bad road-map if you are a believer too (have the ears to receive).

http://www.guitarsad...om/products.asp

 

 

 

. . . . . . . "Horn goes beep beep"

 

. . . . . . . . . . . Woody Guthrie said that (well, Donovan's version)

😄😂😅👍

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Am I the only one around here with rosewood bridge pins (or wood in general)? My 94 J-45VS has them. I'm not sure they were original equipment because I bought it used, but I always assumed they were just because I didn't find anything else on the guitar that I thought was altered. I have been thinking about changing them out for some bone pins, but I like the sound of it now so I haven't bothered to. I only add this here because the OP was asking about options, I guess wood would be one.

 

I only use wood pins on my guitars. They sound good and it seems to me to make sense that since the guitar top is wood, the pins should also be. And, if pins do make a subtle contribution to a guitar's sound, it makes sense to me that that subtle contribution should be wood pins filling the wood that the manufacturer drilled out on the guitar's wooden top and wooden bridge for the strings to go through.

 

Just my perspective...

 

QM aka Jazzman Jeff

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....the guess here would be that your mod might end up taking your guitar even further away from it's J-45 DNA, and more toward sounding like either a Bourgeois, . . . or a Taylor. Not that there's anything wrong with that.....

msp_lol.gif

 

One guitar I acquired came with fossilized walrus ivory pins and saddle. It sounds good. It's very sonic. msp_cool.gif

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I have a couple of bridge pin stories for ya.....

 

 

Usually I like bone nut, saddle and pins, nice and earthy....but a few years ago when I got my 59 LG3, I was happily playing away and liking the tone of the guitar very much. I had some spare bone pins, so installed them when I changed strings, instead of the fairly bent old plastic ones. Once the new string thing died down I suppose, I noticed the tone was a bit 'twoiky' when I played a bit harder. This raspy edge to the sound put me off playing the guitar and I didn't know why. A couple of years later I was reading on UMGF how people were putting their original plastic pins back and liking it and I thought that sounded a bit odd and against the general consensus these days. Good for them, I thought. And then one day when I was changing the strings on the LG3, I thought....why not, and put the old plastic pins back..instant improvement, back in love again.

 

 

The other pin story is a Martin Authentic one - they were shipping with way too soft unslotted plastic bridge pins so everyone was looking for replacements and the name Antique Acoustics kept coming up, and how they improved the sound and....so I ordered some and changed them at string change. The old ones looked fine, but the new ones are Galilith or something special like old Bakelite, and guess what, I can't hear one skinny little difference!

 

 

And my 2 recent Lowdens acquisitions don't have any of the pesky things at all - pinless bridges, yeah! [thumbup]

 

 

 

 

BluesKing777.

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