Ghost in a 12 String?

Gearhead

I know I know... First finish the one build before thinking of another. I'm three planned guits down the line :-[
Anyway, I wonder if one could take this bridge and equip the 'normal' 6 strings with these (modded) saddles?? Or are those shoulders necessary?

AlanRatcliffe

A few years ago I spoke at length to Dave Dunwoodie (Graph Tech inventor and head honcho) about 12-string Ghost saddles (I'm still getting around to Ghosting my electric 12) and the upshot was the best solution is still the standard TOM-style bridge and saddles - they will supply them without grooves on request so you can groove them yourself for a 12.

GT can make saddles for any bridge if you send it to them (extra charges apply, but they are geared up to do some custom work). However, according to Dave, in the case of the individually intonatable 12-string bridges, the crosstalk between saddles is quite bad, which causes problems with comb filtering that affects the tone (and causes major tracking errors and mistriggering in MIDI systems).

Anyway, the general consensus among 12-string players is that the single shared saddle per course sounds better, precisely because of the intonation variance between strings which gives it a natural chorus effect.

Gearhead

??? I would think the octave string, especially when not intonated properly, is going to upset a midi system more than some silly crosstalk?? It also occurred to me you might put 2 saddles on one screw and groove the front so it misses the normal string and the back so it misses the octave string...
Anyway, it may be smarter to Ghost the 6 string side (had a double neck in mind). Thanks for the info ?

AlanRatcliffe

Gearhead wrote: ??? I would think the octave string, especially when not intonated properly, is going to upset a midi system more than some silly crosstalk??

It does, but to try and get around it they experimented with individual saddles, two Hexpanders and two 13-pin outputs (like on a Stick or other multistring instrument) and it was still too unstable.

Gearhead

Alan Ratcliffe wrote: Anyway, the general consensus among 12-string players is that the single shared saddle per course sounds better, precisely because of the intonation variance between strings which gives it a natural chorus effect.

So what does a Ric 360/12 have? And the Gibbo SG doubleneck on the 12 side?

AlanRatcliffe

Gearhead wrote: So what does a Ric 360/12 have? And the Gibbo SG doubleneck on the 12 side?

Both use the same standard bridge as their six string counterparts. ?