New Les Paul Standard '60s, unslotted saddles

[chowderhead]

Hey all,

Recently bought a Standard '60s. Beautiful guitar. Nicely setup out of the box and tuning stable. Just noticed the saddles are unslotted. Seems to be some conflicting info out there whether this is normal or not. Can I leave them like this, or do I absolutely need to take it somewhere to get them slotted? Kinda scared to work on a $2,4999 guitar myself! A bit concerned about string breakage, but again the tuning is very stable. Thanks!

[Mike_L]

Yes, they should be slotted. Get thee to a luthier if you don't know what your doing.

[chowderhead]

Drat! I was afraid that would be the answer. Thanks, Mike!

[pauloqs]

I noticed that on my Standard 50s, the saddles were slotted, but the slots were very shallow. Not to the point that I needed to deepen them, but shallow enough that I had to loosen the strings and put them to the side to see for myself that the saddles were indeed slotted. Not saying the same thing is going on with your Standard 60s, but just sharing my own experience with the new models.  

[chowderhead]

7 minutes ago, pauloqs said:

I noticed that on my Standard 50s, the saddles were slotted, but the slots were very shallow. Not to the point that I needed to deepen them, but shallow enough that I had to loosen the strings and put them to the side to see for myself that the saddles were indeed slotted. Not saying the same thing is going on with your Standard 60s, but just sharing my own experience with the new models.  

A-ha! I just loosened some strings and indeed there is the slightest, shallow indentation just keeping each string in place. You’d never know it otherwise. Thanks for the suggestion! I’ll leave it as is for now, then. 

[Mike_L]

Excellent reference:

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_Resources/Hardware_Installation/Are_you_supposed_to_slot_Tune-o-matic_bridge_saddles.html

Edited May 23, 2019 by Mike_L

[chowderhead]

1 hour ago, Mike_L said:

Excellent reference:

https://www.stewmac.com/How-To/Online_Resources/Hardware_Installation/Are_you_supposed_to_slot_Tune-o-matic_bridge_saddles.html

That IS quite a good article! Will bookmark it for future reference. Only thing I worry about is getting the depth correct.  The slots are so shallow at the moment, I’m not sure if it left the factory with correct depth or not. Will run it by a luthier next string change to have checked. Thanks!

[Leonard McCoy]

It's better if they are a little bit slotted in my opinion for some extreme bending, but the guitars don't have to be. The saddle of your acoustic guitar isn't either, and you can bend just fine without the string slipping on the saddle. There is just a lot of downpressure on the saddle anyway, so it may not even be necessary. If you insist to have it, I'd rather task a luthier with it, since it's irreversible, and you don't want it to be done badly.

[pauloqs]

Just want to add that in my Standard 50s, which like OP has the shallow saddle slots, I think it is deep enough that it doesn’t warrant deepening the slots any further. I can bend two whole steps or more and the strings stay in place. The slots were made such that the radius were kept dead on 12”. What I’m most excited about these models is not the specs themselves, for there wasn’t that much of a change if I’m honest. For instance, what used to be the Traditional just became the Standard 50s. What I’m really happy is how these guitars are being built and set up from factory. I usually find, regardless of manufacturer, the need to make some minor adjustments, like widen and/or deepen the nut slots, round/dull the nut edges, adjust the action, truss rod, pickup height etc. My Standard 50s didn’t warrant one single adjustment. Even my 2017 R0 need less that 5 minutes worth of widening the nut slots on the treble side. Even though my R0 is a objectively a smoother guitar to play than my Standard 50s, I believe the gap between a Gibson Custom and a Gibson USA has been reduced. I also really like the pickup choices on the Standard 50s and 60s specs.