Intonation step

LMinnie

Can anyone tell me what the intonation step on an acoustic bridge does or what its for. ???

Had a friend asked me recently and I pulled a moerse blank!

Indicated by red circle

AlanRatcliffe

Ummm... fixes the intonation... The B string is slightly sharp in the upper registers without it.

Bob-Dubery

Alan Ratcliffe wrote Ummm... fixes the intonation... The B string is slightly sharp in the upper registers without it.

How come the b string is a different case. Look at a properly setup guitar with a 6 piece bridge and the saddle for the b string is always out of line with the others.

Is it something to do with the interval from 3rd to 2nd being a 3rd instead of the 4th that is the interval between all other adjacent strings?

AlanRatcliffe

Yeah - electric third strings too. AFAIK it's down to the fact that it's the thickest unwound string, so it's stiffer than the other strings.

Keira-WitherKay

yet strangely you guys are talking about the B string........ on nylons the G is one that is usually got an adjustment

yet some of the better nylons come out with dead straight bridges why would thay be??? so thats my question on this....... and i have this in my own collection my yamaha CGX wich is the best production nylon before the handmade series has a dead straight bridge while both my other 2 yamaha's have the bridge with the adjusted G ......... if the intonation is a prob i woulda expected it the other way around with the expensive guitar making the adjustment not the cheaper/ lower end model ones.......

???????????

peace and light
Keira

AlanRatcliffe

It's not as important with a nylon and traditionally nylons are straight saddle. Yamaha was the first manufacturer to start compensating the saddle at the G string, but many luthiers still believe it's not necessary in a properly made instrument.

Acoustic electrics are often fitted with straight saddles purely because it makes them easier to set up. With a compensated saddle you have to file the bottom of the saddle to lower the action, and this is a lot trickier if you have a pressure sensitive pickup, which relies on a perfectly flat saddle bottom for even pressure along the length of the saddle. It's not unusual to spend two minutes filing the saddle to the correct height and then another half hour tweaking it to get the string-to-string balance right.

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote yet strangely you guys are talking about the B string........ on nylons the G is one that is usually got an adjustment

yet some of the better nylons come out with dead straight bridges why would thay be???

Must be the lesser tension in the strings.

Gearhead

Keira WitherKay wrote some of the better nylons come out with dead straight bridges why would thay be???

Nylon strings you have to bend way more to get the tone up. The slanted saddle compensates for the bend you put into the string by fretting it. So (assuming the action is not all that much more) on a classical the compensation can be less. Also, bending the string down to the fret causes less stretch in the middle of the string where the action is supposed to be highest. In other words, if the manufacturer succeeds in getting the fretboard to follow the line of 'just-no-buzz' it will roughly also follow the contour of equal stretch. If the nut to first fret length then compensates for the fret stretch, you have no need for additional compensation on the saddle. I guess :-\