Completely removing the spring on the low B saddle?

#21
Floppystrings said:
Ok, so you have removed the spring entirely. The string tension will usually keep the saddle in place, but if there is some play in the spacing left, a small rubber ring, or tube can act as a spring to push the saddle where it belongs so there is no play.

It's very very picky but easy way to solve a springless saddle setup. The spring keeps the saddle in place, a small tubing that fits over the saddle screw does the same thing. In telecaster guitars a silicone tube often used in the place of a spring for the pickup height.

If I had intonation issues due to the saddle not being able to go back more, I would file extra, and use a the plastic tubing method so there is even more space for adjustment, you don't have to do it this way but it will be the best solution.

Basically the idea is this, you can move the saddle back as far as you want, no spring, but what if you need to move even farther back? The easy solution is to file the saddle so it can move back even more, and saddles are often threaded deeply, why not file more and add a cheap piece of rubber so there is more room and solve the play issue?
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Do you mean he should use a washer? The use of the term tube is what's confusing. Should he file off the back side of the saddle? The part of the saddle where the screw and spring meet the saddle?
 
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#23
TLBass said:
Why? If you're talking about setting the witness points, I don't think anyone said it matters if it's rounds or flats.
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I’m not referencing what anyone said about setting witness points.

A taper wound B string will not have as thick of a winding passing over the saddle. I’m not sure how far your bass is off, but that small increment might just do it. Specifically if you cannot move the saddle back any further.

I wasn’t referencing rounds vs flats either. For gods sakes use whatever string you like the sound of. I was merely suggesting trying a taper wound B string and I don’t believe that any Flats are manufactured that way. The old Elixrs had a taper wound B...

Just trying to help.
 
#24
Sid the Kid said:
I’m not referencing what anyone said about setting witness points.

A taper wound B string will not have as thick of a winding passing over the saddle. I’m not sure how far your bass is off, but that small increment might just do it. Specifically if you cannot move the saddle back any further.

I wasn’t referencing rounds vs flats either. For gods sakes use whatever string you like the sound of. I was merely suggesting trying a taper wound B string and I don’t believe that any Flats are manufactured that way. The old Elixrs had a taper wound B...

Just trying to help.
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Chill, you wrote "tapewound" rather than "taperwound".
 
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#25
TLBass said:
Hello. I have a 34" 5 string RockBass I recently fitted with D'Addario chrome flatwounds, and the low B intonates too sharp. I don't remember how was it like with the previous set of Elixirs I've used, but it's possibly been even worse as this low B is .132 while the Elixir was .135.

Anyway, there are springs that are supposed to keep screw holding the saddle sitting onto the bridge, and with as much scale extension as was allowed with the spring the low B was still ~25 cent sharp at the 12th fret. I cut a little over half of it and now while the saddle is 1.5-2mm away from furthest back, the 12th fret is sharp at about 10-15 cents (it's a bit hard to tell as the tuner somewhat wobbles at these frequencies).

Anyway, is there any reason not to remove the spring completely and take the saddle all the way to the end of the bridge? I doubt even then it would be enough but I guess it would be slightly closer.
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it is either modify the bridge, or move the bridge, or replace the bridge
 
#26
TLBass said:
I'm not sure you've followed what I have on my guitar. This is the low B saddle:
IMG-20190425-131329.jpg

As you can see, the spring is supposed to pull the screw onto the bridge so the saddle stays in the intonation position you meant for it and doesn't accidently move further back. Now, this is after I cut part of the spring as it didn't allow me to move back enough, and it seems I need to get it all the way back if I want the intonation on the low B to be at least partly reasonable. That's why it seems I need to remove the spring completely, though I don't know if it's not recommended for some reason. Maybe putting the saddle that close to the tailpiece makes for a too sharp break angle?
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I’d say everything looks fine, the break angle isn’t an issue unless your string starts coming apart.
Looking at the picture and with what you are saying about your tuner. My thought is maybe you are missing one part of setting your strings. I like to push down on both sides of the string around the saddle, nut, and the breaking angle of the tuner. You should see your tuning stabilize and you’ll get a better read as far as intonation.

So ya, set your witness point. Don’t worry about extra bends in the string. I’ve sometimes set witness points as much as 3-5 times.
 
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#27
  1. I can’t quite tell from the photo, but is the string perhaps resting on the carrier (the shiny thing on either side of the black saddle in the center)? How is your action?
  2. Personally, I would not spend a second thought on being ten cents sharp on the twelfth fret of the B string. Are you some sort of freaky perfectionist? :roflmao:
 
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#28
WardEarth said:
I’d say everything looks fine, the break angle isn’t an issue unless your string starts coming apart.
Looking at the picture and with what you are saying about your tuner. My thought is maybe you are missing one part of setting your strings. I like to push down on both sides of the string around the saddle, nut, and the breaking angle of the tuner. You should see your tuning stabilize and you’ll get a better read as far as intonation.

So ya, set your witness point. Don’t worry about extra bends in the string. I’ve sometimes set witness points as much as 3-5 times.
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Yeah, I'll try fixing that later. Though the thing is that I bought flatwounds in part because I heard they can last years (or at least are already kind of dark right away so users don't care it mellows some more), and I only play the bass occasionally as it's not my main instrument. I don't know if extensively pressing down these points deteriorates the flat winding, but it's probably not significant.

ctmullins said:
  1. I can’t quite tell from the photo, but is the string perhaps resting on the carrier (the shiny thing on either side of the black saddle in the center)? How is your action?
  2. Personally, I would not spend a second thought on being ten cents sharp on the twelfth fret of the B string. Are you some sort of freaky perfectionist? :roflmao:
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I know it's the low B which is rarely used at the higher frets, but I can definitely tell when it's off by 10 cents.

And it only touches the saddle. It obviously doesn't sit right in between the two sides of it, but I don't think it's expected to as most low B strings would be too thick.
 
#29
Das Jugghead said:
I have run both my four string and my five string with the spring removed on the lowest string for years with no noticeable adverse impact. I did it do the same intonation reasons described by the OP.

View attachment 3396950 View attachment 3396952
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I can see that your screws were longer than the threaded bore of the saddles.
I would have shortened the screws rather than stacking washers on the outside of the bridge.
 
#32
Turnaround said:
If you set the witness point on that string the saddle wouldn't have to be so far back.
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WOW!! Thank you all for that advice! For the longest time, I figured the witness point would "set itself" by the tension on the string...
Now I see that putting a bend in there, on purpose, would make the string speak more clearly, with a well defined string-length...

:thumbsup:
 
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#33
diegom said:
WOW!! Thank you all for that advice! For the longest time, I figured the witness point would "set itself" by the tension on the string...
Now I see that putting a bend in there, on purpose, would make the string speak more clearly, with a well defined string-length...

:thumbsup:
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You were partly right. The witness point will set itself in time as you play the instrument - the added tension applied to the string will, over time (days or weeks), seat the string properly. However, if you manage to intonate without setting the witness point, after a period of playing when the string does become naturally seated, your intonation will be off. And you will have suffered a period of tuning instability that wouldn't have been there had you set the witness points. We all used to assume that it took a while for a new string to break in and during that time we would have to tune more often. If you properly set the witness points you won't run into that behaviour.
 
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#34
TLBass said:
I'm not sure you've followed what I have on my guitar. This is the low B saddle:
IMG-20190425-131329.jpg

As you can see, the spring is supposed to pull the screw onto the bridge so the saddle stays in the intonation position you meant for it and doesn't accidently move further back. Now, this is after I cut part of the spring as it didn't allow me to move back enough, and it seems I need to get it all the way back if I want the intonation on the low B to be at least partly reasonable. That's why it seems I need to remove the spring completely, though I don't know if it's not recommended for some reason. Maybe putting the saddle that close to the tailpiece makes for a too sharp break angle?
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No such thing as too sharp a break angle: definitely remove the spring if the saddle still needs to move further back.
 
#35
TLBass said:
Well, I'll throw it out then. Were you able to achieve accurate intonation, though? At least on this 34" it doesn't seem physically attainable even if I'll max the length, the .132 is probably still too heavy but I won't get a thinner string as the tension would be too low in my opinion.
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I did achieve accurate intonation using this method. I also filed one of the saddles.

IMG_2130.JPG
IMG_2131.JPG


Caca de Kick said:
I can see that your screws were longer than the threaded bore of the saddles.
I would have shortened the screws rather than stacking washers on the outside of the bridge.
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I had considered that route but had the washers on hand. I may do that at some point if I can match the screws. I did not cut the screws shorter as I did not want to fool around with fixing the threads after cutting the screws.
 
#36
TLBass said:
I'm not sure you've followed what I have on my guitar. This is the low B saddle:
IMG-20190425-131329.jpg

As you can see, the spring is supposed to pull the screw onto the bridge so the saddle stays in the intonation position you meant for it and doesn't accidently move further back. Now, this is after I cut part of the spring as it didn't allow me to move back enough, and it seems I need to get it all the way back if I want the intonation on the low B to be at least partly reasonable. That's why it seems I need to remove the spring completely, though I don't know if it's not recommended for some reason. Maybe putting the saddle that close to the tailpiece makes for a too sharp break angle?
Click to expand...

Wow, my Corvette has at least a 3/4” of adjustment left on all of the string and the intonation is spot on.
 
#38
Yes you can definitely dump the spring but I don’t think that’s going to give you as much as you need. You’d actually be better off moving the bridge into the correct position so you can intonate the base correctly.
 
#39
TLBass said:
Though the thing is that I bought flatwounds in part because I heard they can last years (or at least are already kind of dark right away so users don't care it mellows some more), and I only play the bass occasionally as it's not my main instrument.
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Round-wound bass strings can last years too, especially on an instrument you don't play often. They'll lose the initial brightness but then settle, or so I've found. Unless you need a bright slap tone, but presumably you don't if you're trying flats.
 
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