Abasi Concepts/Larada Megathread

[spudmunkey]

My luck, someone would think it's supposed to be "NEW-mee Bros".

 

[ixlramp]

Anyway =) ... i just don't like this "meh it's good enough, most guitarists are sloppy, no-one cares, no-one notices, sloppy design is ok" attitude. It's sloppy, negative, defeatist, depressing, inverted snobbery, and obstructs progress. Everything we appreciate about our guitars came about from people not having that attitude, there would be no Floyd Rose tremolo for a start.

I think the 3-saddle bridge is like analog tape recording or something.

I don't think that's a good analogy, because tape is essential to it's distinctive and pleasant sound. A 3 part bridge is not necessary for a Telecaster to have it's charm, it's much more due to other factors which is probably what you are appreciating.

there's just nothing like the sound of a single coil guitar running through a tube amp. It's an unmistakable tone that almost shapes the way you play,

That has nothing to do with the 3 saddle bridge though.

Fender has had 65 years to upgrade the Telecaster hardware to 6 saddles and there is no reason why that couldn't be done, but they didn't. This is one of the reasons i dislike Fender and Gibson, the pointless clinging to tradition.
Leo Fender was an innovator so it seems the company has since been run in a way that disrespects his innovative spirit.

Long ago someone lent me a Telecaster. It is one of the ugliest guitars i have ever seen. I'm still trying to work out why someone screwed a metal ashtray to the front. Certainly the ugliest bridge of any mainstream guitar, again never changed.

Anyway, i would respect the Abasi company more if their attitude to those with old-fashioned tastes was: "this place isn't for you, go away". I can imagine the Space-T was 'popular' at NAMM, but of course only because mainstream taste in guitars is so bad and so old fashioned.

Now Strandberg has unfortunately released an ugly 'Teleberg' which also looks wrong. Their 'classic' looks ok because it keeps the same shape.

 

[Noisy Humbucker]

My luck, someone would think it's supposed to be "NEW-mee Bros".

Perfect - ready-made pronunciation snobbery for the elite fans!

 

[diagrammatiks]

Anyway =) ... i just don't like this "meh it's good enough, most guitarists are sloppy, no-one cares, no-one notices, sloppy design is ok" attitude. It's sloppy, negative, defeatist, depressing, inverted snobbery, and obstructs progress. Everything we appreciate about our guitars came about from people not having that attitude, there would be no Floyd Rose tremolo for a start.

I don't think that's a good analogy, because tape is essential to it's distinctive and pleasant sound. A 3 part bridge is not necessary for a Telecaster to have it's charm, it's much more due to other factors which is probably what you are appreciating.

That has nothing to do with the 3 saddle bridge though.

Fender has had 65 years to upgrade the Telecaster hardware to 6 saddles and there is no reason why that couldn't be done, but they didn't. This is one of the reasons i dislike Fender and Gibson, the pointless clinging to tradition.
Leo Fender was an innovator so it seems the company has since been run in a way that disrespects his innovative spirit.

Long ago someone lent me a Telecaster. It is one of the ugliest guitars i have ever seen. I'm still trying to work out why someone screwed a metal ashtray to the front. Certainly the ugliest bridge of any mainstream guitar, again never changed.

Anyway, i would respect the Abasi company more if their attitude to those with old-fashioned tastes was: "this place isn't for you, go away". I can imagine the Space-T was 'popular' at NAMM, but of course only because mainstream taste in guitars is so bad and so old fashioned.

Now Strandberg has unfortunately released an ugly 'Teleberg' which also looks wrong. Their 'classic' looks ok because it keeps the same shape.

You shut your mouth. The Salen looks great. Some questionable control decisions but the shape is much better then the classic.

 

[narad]

Anyway =) ... i just don't like this "meh it's good enough, most guitarists are sloppy, no-one cares, no-one notices, sloppy design is ok" attitude. It's sloppy, negative, defeatist, depressing, inverted snobbery, and obstructs progress. Everything we appreciate about our guitars came about from people not having that attitude, there would be no Floyd Rose tremolo for a start.

I don't think that's a good analogy, because tape is essential to it's distinctive and pleasant sound. A 3 part bridge is not necessary for a Telecaster to have it's charm, it's much more due to other factors which is probably what you are appreciating.

*Maybe* The bottom line is that I prefer playing a lot of older classic rock stuff on traditional spec telecasters. Is it the 3 saddle design? I'm not sure, but I can attest that a hannes there pretty much killed it, as I have played such an abomination. I'm not going to dress up like a storm trooper to go re-enact the civil war, and the role of electric guitar in a lot of genres has not drifted significantly from what it was in the 60s/70s.

I feel like you're viewing yourself as a proponent for the improvement of guitar, but what you're really doing is thinking in absolutes and driving this false sense of conflict. I play a strat some days. Then I played a fanned fret 8-string carbon fiber thing on another day. I buy a fender some years. I buy an Oni some other years. Both brands know theier markets, and there is no reason every guitar company must make every change that can be scientifically argued for, as every change also has other side effects.

Leo was an innovator because he had no real precedent to stand on. But you look at the continued modifications of the instruments throughout the 60s and 70s at G&L, and it's clear he was not this kind of "continually push the limits" kind of innovator you describe.

I mean, you want a 6-saddle tele bridge? I think if you're not going to get a true temperament fretboard with it you must be a poseur. And frankly, if you're not supporting microtonal increments in 2019, you're running Fender into the ground and spitting in the face of Leo Fender's legacy of innovation.

 

[Grand Moff Tim]

Fender has had 65 years to upgrade the Telecaster hardware to 6 saddles and there is no reason why that couldn't be done, but they didn't. This is one of the reasons i dislike Fender and Gibson, the pointless clinging to tradition.

Fender has made plenty of teles with six saddle bridges. My early 2000s American Standard has one, and the current Player and Elite series have them. They still make guitars with 3 saddle bridges because there are still customers who want them.

 

[Grand Moff Tim]

Plus, if we're going to dislike companies that still use bridges with poor intonation adjustment, let's also throw in PRS...

...and practically every acoustic ever made.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Fender has made plenty of teles with six saddle bridges. My early 2000s American Standard has one, and the current Player and Elite series have them. They still make guitars with 3 saddle bridges because there are still customers who want them.

Fender has offered Telecasters with six saddle bridges since 1974.

 

[Randy]

Come on. Guitarists are barely real musicians.

We literally play the most easy mode version invented for our instrument.

Case in point: we even have our own paint-by-numbers "sheet music" (aka "TAB").

Both posts straddling humor and truth, I know, but had to address it since I had a phase a couple years ago where I hated guitar.

After taking a sabbatical, honestly, guitar has a lot of things going for it. I agree the barrier to entry is a lot lower with regard to the effort necessary to sound competent versus, say, a violin or saxophone but that's less of an indictment and more of an asset.

Also, the guitar itself is a comparatively VERY versatile instruments. A six string guitar covers 4 octaves and is capable of playing chords, which combined are two traits that are hard to find across the range of most Western instruments, and made even more unique by HOW complex those voicings can be (~4 fingers, 6-strings that can all be used at the same time).

Thats before you even consider things like ERGs or two hand techniques. At that point your only competition is a piano, which is considerably less easy to hang on your shoulder or carry on a plane. Also, I mentioned in another thread recently, pianos have the whole 'black keys' thing to contend with, which makes things like transposing unnecessarily complicated whereas you just take your same forms and move them up or down in the same exact shape on guitar.

So I mean, it's a good instrument. There's no shame standing next to a classical musician just because you can learn Smoke On The Water within an hour of picking a guitar up for the first time. If anything, the versatility of the instrument and ease of seeing results early raises the ceiling of what a person can do with one if they wanted to.

 

[Schectersilence]

Couldn’t agree more Randy. Guitar has a low barrier to entry, but it’s a great instrument.

I don’t necessarily think an instrument like saxophone is harder per se anyway, and it shouldn’t count if it were. You just get used to the method of making sound, and then get on with the musicality which is all that counts. In terms of difficult, a set of bag pipes (physically tiring) or didgeridoo (weird, counter intuitive breathing) are “difficult”. But we don’t all spend our time saying “meh, I never listen to guitar music because it’s too easy. I only listen to Scottish bag pipe anthems”. That would be a) ridiculous, and b) elitist.

Guitar has its merits that make it, at least somewhat, unique. We shouldn’t discount it because it’s “easy”. The biggest oddity with guitar is how easy it is to generate super wide chords. Try playing them on a piano and it’s just hard and totally unnatural (and even unplayable in some instances). Similarly, fairly basic chords on a piano have all the notes clusters together which is a nightmare for guitarists.

 

[Opion]

That has nothing to do with the 3 saddle bridge though.

Fender has had 65 years to upgrade the Telecaster hardware to 6 saddles and there is no reason why that couldn't be done, but they didn't. This is one of the reasons i dislike Fender and Gibson, the pointless clinging to tradition.
Leo Fender was an innovator so it seems the company has since been run in a way that disrespects his innovative spirit.

Long ago someone lent me a Telecaster. It is one of the ugliest guitars i have ever seen. I'm still trying to work out why someone screwed a metal ashtray to the front. Certainly the ugliest bridge of any mainstream guitar, again never changed.

Anyway, i would respect the Abasi company more if their attitude to those with old-fashioned tastes was: "this place isn't for you, go away". I can imagine the Space-T was 'popular' at NAMM, but of course only because mainstream taste in guitars is so bad and so old fashioned.

I never said it had anything to do with the 3 saddle bridge- notice I said “Singlecoils running through a tube amp”, not “3 saddle bridge guitar running through a tube amp”. If you’re going to split hairs as much as you’ve done throughout this entire thread with your anecdotal experience you might want to not misquote me- but I won’t disagree with you on that entirely, it is more than just the bridge that gives it the sound.

I do have to say though, what is the point in bashing a “pointless tradition”? You do realize that this “pointless tradition” has made some of the greatest music of the 20th century and has stood the test of time for over 60 years? I think you’re honestly wasting time and energy pining for modernity in guitar design. Nobody is telling you you have to play a guitar with “wrong” intonation, although judging by your posts in the Music Theory section, seems like this is something that is very important to you. To each his own. My advice: let the guitar builders decide for themselves what they think the market wants and let the customers vote with their wallet.

TLDR: opinions gonna opinion

 

[G_3_3_k_]

You have builders like John Suhr, who hate poor design that will still use a 3 saddle bridge on a Tele. They do contribute to a specific sound. They are sometimes a PITA to get settled right, but it can be done. I have a guitar that has a basically old design with some modern appointments, like quiet single coil settings, and I've got an Oni on the way. I like Lotus and Tesla. That doesn't mean that I hate Chevelles and GTOs. There is a time and a place for everything.

 

[diagrammatiks]

Saddle debates will start wars in certain telecaster groups and forums.

I don’t get all the hooplah. I love teles and Tele pickups. I don’t think I’ve ever owned a three saddle Tele.

My first Tele was an Anderson. My second is a baritone. My newest one is a Strandberg.

Builders will eventually just give people what they want though. Anderson finally released a three saddle Tele in 2018.

 

[Jason B]

They do contribute to a specific sound.

No.

 

[narad]

No.

Bridges don't affect sound?

 

[iamaom]

Bridges don't affect sound?

I'd argue they affect sound in the same way a fly landing on the headstock would, technically yes but not in any perceivable way. Have you ever thought to yourself "man my guitar sounds like shit, I should change the bridge"?

 

[narad]

I'd argue they affect sound in the same way a fly landing on the headstock would, technically yes but not in any perceivable way. Have you ever thought to yourself "man my guitar sounds like shit, I should change the bridge"?

I think bridges make a pretty significant difference. Not pickup difference, but a difference you can't EQ for as much for. If I change the block on a floyd I get a noticeable difference, so why would the rest of the design and the saddle design and material be any different?

 

[Jason B]

I'd argue they affect sound in the same way a fly landing on the headstock would

That other extreme is also wrong. My response pertains to the guy claiming that the people buying 3-saddle teles for the sake of retro aesthetics are actually just all about that “specific” 3-saddle tone that no one will ever produce an example of. Cue someone posting a YouTube video featuring two totally different teles under the pretense that the 3-saddle bridge is the sole determining factor in why two different guitars would sound like two different guitars.

Dozens of legit physicists on sso have pissed in the wind by explaining, to people with zero interest in adapting their beliefs to new information, the nature of how guitar hardware reflects energy back into the string. Those this information is intended for stick with their horseshoe beliefs based in nothing. At most, they just take their case to a different thread.

 

[BigViolin]

Yes, changing a cheap, light, shitmetal bridge for something with some mass and dense saddle materials makes a pretty big difference.

 

[narad]

Dozens of legit physicists on sso have pissed in the wind by explaining, to people with zero interest in adapting their beliefs to new information, the nature of how guitar hardware reflects energy back into the string. Those this information is intended for stick with their horseshoe beliefs based in nothing.

Frankly, if they don't even understand the physics of piss and wind, I'm not inclined to believe what they say about strings and bridges.