Nice architecture but not the sort of hardware I had in mind....
Traditional ones....
Fancy ones......
So many to choose from.......
Which are the ones most likely in need of an upgrade or replacement?
Sometimes we need to ponder the form over function concept as not all bridges have good mechanical design elements yet they may look super cool or become a must have thing to achieve that mock-up or retro look.
Together with Nut & Tuners the Bridge is next most vital piece of hardware that can make playing and tuning your guitar a pleasure or a source of frustration due to poor design or adjustment limitations.
The humble G style Tune-O-Matic has been around forever and I have never swapped one out or upgraded on any kit or store bought guitar. Usually there is just enough fore & aft travel to do string intonation but sometimes flipping the direction a saddle faces can provide a few extra mm's to play with. Biggest limitation is everything being held rigid in one plane where the only vertical adjustment is from outer posts at either side.
Tremolo equipped bridges come in many shapes and sizes. Last time I used a tremolo was on my Japanese Strat copy back in the late 70's so not even going to try and offer any meaningful dialogue on these detuning devices.
A lot of kit builders start out on a very simple kit such as Telecaster where there are only a couple of wires to solder up and it all looks fairly easy to complete. That is until you begin to locate proper bridge position and eventually start on the intonation. My 3rd build was a Tele and proved to be the most challenging to properly setup and intonate and shall do a separate review on the 3rd bridge used that solved all my problems.
Shouldn't forget Bass bridges as there are some good ones plus some rather dreadful ones too and will also do a couple of specific aftermarket parts reviews. Surprisingly the standard kit MM Style as found on MMB4 and RC4 is quite good but the F style plus standard kit 5 string F styles are not too good. Biggest issues I found were rather large diameter barrel shaped saddles that tended to sit too high making a low action difficult to achieve. On standard 4 string F style they are quite short on fore & aft travel due to small base plate foot print which makes placement extremely important in order to achieve good intonation. Plenty of expensive upgrades available and Badass still has a very good reputation for something that has been around for so long.
The price of some upgrade bridges is staggering and can easily set you back more than kit price alone. Best to do lots of homework before shelling out coin on something that may not do the intended job.
Hoping some other builders and forum members add to what has been started here.
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Originally Posted by Andyxlh
