On Fender Bridges

This has been going on for a while, but I won't go into details, coz others already have.

My jazzmaster has a really weird bridge I don't know if it's on any other Fenders, have a look. It's hardtail, but I've never seen it on another r guitar, and I have no idea what it's advantages are

yours has a duo-sonic fixed bridge

12s will kill your fingers SRV style and make you get otherwise unnescasarry surgeries after 5 years

Challenge double accepted.

good luck... I didn't mean it as a challenge. We don't hand out merit badges for playing on big, fat strands of barbed wire. But we all go through a heavy gauge phase where we try to see how manly we can be.

OK, I am joking, I've only reached 10's, and there's a big chance I'll settle on 11's because I feel as if 10's are almost, but not quite my size.

I played 11s for a while in my 20s.... they are a lot like 10s, LOL

I also eally favored 11 gauge flatwounds won my gretsch when I had it.... I used to sub a regular ernie plain G in though, I hate the 50s wound G

So I was just going about some videos when I came across a Troy Van Leeuwen Jazzmaster review, which was cool, then he said something, and I looked back at the Fender website, and it said this:

As specified by Troy Van Leeuwen himself, the Jazzmaster bridge on his signature model is designed with chrome-plated brass Mustang saddles.

Wouldn't this work out? I actually really like this guitar, has the same pickups but it sounds so much bassier in the demo than the 50's Jazzy. Also, i'm really digging that oxblood finish.

It would work, but the hard part is finding someone willing to do a good hard chrome plating for a good price, least in the UK it is. Brass will also give you more low end response on a guitar but he could also be using the rythem circuit which I think has a treble cut on it

brass versus steel saddles is a surprisingly big deal in tonal terms.... early 50s teles had brass and are decidedly thicker and less twnagy (though the pickups contribute) than the very early steel saddled esquires and later steel saddled teles... gibsons have chrome plated brass, tis their thing... Fender pretty much went with stamped or diecast steel since 54 or 55 on most models... I am currently trying a brass rather than steel sustain block on my strat and a mix of brass and steel saddles... I have brass under the plain strings to fatten em up and tame some treble (its a 50s style strat underneath all my modding, maple board, alder body, BRIGHT unplugged). the effect on the strat has been ahrd to gauge because I made a lot of other mods...

but my buddy had owned a Gibson Studio AAA flame top model and he swapped from the crappy stock bridge that was zinc with the brass saddles to an all steel Callaham ABR1. It vastly improved note definition on overdriven chords, but it also thinned the sound, de-gibsoning her a bit, especially on single note leads played on the plain strings.... with the steel bridge/posts/taipiece but stock brass saddles under the plain strings it had clarity and single-note girth.

Probably why the Troy signature is a lot more bassy. I like it a lot more, last thing I need is twang...

Well, $1300. I'll spend the next few days crying in a corner, then I will return to save up. Speaking of, what's this strat you're talking about? Just curiosity, I like seeing modified guitars.

this one, my longest serving Fender (I think its a '98 I bought 2nd hand while in Boston in about 2002? this guitar has been modded over and over, thrown, abused at thousands of shows)... so here she is in the midst of the most recent round of mods (she was retired for a few years prior to modding while I repaired some vicious heel cracks and yanked rusted hardware off):

http://images.equipboard.com/uploads/gear_photo/image/2529/xl_20150616_112539.jpg

I'm sorry, I am late to this party ... higher ratio tuning gears save me time, because I can dial in the correct pitch on the first try, instead of messing around with a low-ratio tuner and never quite hitting center. However, it's absolutely true that the higher the first number (16, 18, or in the case of my Steinbergers, 40) the more rotations are needed to turn that post. So if you do a lot of alternate tunings or manually drop to that low D every other song (no hip pocket?) then stick with a lower gear ratio.

Wilkinson bridges are amazing. Yes, made by Godin but Godin makes amazing stuff so I don't see that as a negative. All of my guitars have floating trem Wilkinson bridges except my frankenstrat, which has their "vintage" model. Can not say enough good things about these bridges. Love them. Never had any problems with setup, intonation, or playability.

I guess I am just old school and really used to klusons and older grovers... it may not be for everyone.

I played 11s for a while in my 20s.... they are a lot like 10s, LOL

Yeah, about that. I think I got the wrong 11 gauges.

So, I got myself this which is basically 11 gauge D'Addario string. Strapped'em on my tele and did a practise session with my friends. The result?

In retrospect, I think I D'Addario loaded 10's in that bag because they don't feel any heavier.

I think I wa supposed to get 11-52, not 11-49...

D'addario makes a lot of variations of each gauge with differing wound strings. I personally dig the lighter bottom strings and heavy top on some guitars even though the light top and heavy bpttom sets are more popular. Strats and some gibbies can do well with lighter bottom strings. For me anyway... I usually just like 10s on a tele though. Its an inherently stiff design, particularly bending e&b. This especially true of teles with the 50s string tree. YMMV though. I almost always play 10s on a tele unless i want a vintage sound and do flatwounds. Anymore i just do ernie slinkies across the board out of sheer laziness... its a big stable of guitars to be buying a different set for each one!