Hi there, I’m sorry for the noob question but this is my first Telecaster and I’ve never had a guitar with the three brass saddles: is it normal that the string spacing is so different and that some strings are misaligned with the pickup magnets? I tried loosening the strings and realigning them, but they tend to slip out of place again.
It’s not uncommon with slanted saddles, although this looks fairly extreme. You could swap them out for something liike these
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@mathsjunky thank you! Since it’s a brand new guitar, I’d like to spend some time with it before making any changes. I was just curious to know if there’s something wrong with it that I didn’t notice when I tried it in the store, whether it’s simply a setup issue, or if it might have been damaged during the long flight home (unfortunately I had to check it in on the plane)
It looks ok to me. you will have a step in the distance when it changes from solid to wound strings. this is to maintain intonation.
If you give it a look without letting your eye be fooled by the one sadddle that is at a different angle, you’ll see the strings step properly.
It’s it’s new, you may find the strings settle in their correct spot after some playing, they will eventually form a tiny groove in the relatively soft brass and settle. With slanted saddles some folk have been known to ‘help’ by filing a (very tiny) notch in the correct spot for the string to sit in.
It’s a bit extreme on strings 1 and 2.
I have a set of the gotoh brass saddles like the ones in the link posted above on my classic vibe tele. They are good quality and have notches for the compensation which also hold the strings in the right position.
However while you might not like how it looks, it may not affect the sound much. I have a Squier Starcaster and the size of the pickups and string spacing at the bridge mean that not all strings are in line with the poles of the pickups. That’s a feature of Starcaster but it plays and sounds fine.
Looking at the photo, I think your problem is caused by how the action is set on the last saddle. If you have the screws that set the action very high on one side of the saddle and very low on the other side it means the saddle is tilted and the strings will slide to one side. I bet if you set the action better, with less extreme differences on each side of the string 1 & 2 saddles you will not have this problem. Who did the set up?
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Good spot! It does look quite extreme. Although if it’s a 7.25 radius fingerboard (just guessing it could be from the set up?) the saddle will need to tilt quite a bit.
I bought it at the Fender store in Tokyo during my last trip. Theoretically, the guitars are set up directly by them (or at least that’s what they told me). Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it’s something I didn’t notice while trying it out, so I’m not really sure if it was already there (most possible) or if something happened during the trip (it was very well packed, but I still had to check it in and I don’t know how much it got knocked around on the way).
Meanwhile, thank you all very much for your replies.
No. String spacing should be equal across all of them. These strings are sitting inaccurately somewhere. The issue looks to be the B string, too far from the G string and too close to the E string.
There are other issues.
The saddles themselves are at extremely crooked angles, more so than normal on a 3-saddle tele bridge. Some unevenness is required for intonation but yours seem odd. There are many online resources to check against.
Also, the B and E string leave the body and angle unnaturally towards the saddle. Check the two arrows showing this and compare with the other four strings.
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@Richard_close2u
I see, thanks! Since I’ve never tinkered with this kind of saddle, I’m not sure if it’s something I can easily fix myself or if I should bring it in for a new setup. I’ll probably do some Googling to figure it out. By the way, I’m posting a couple more photos: @Prof_Thunder , from the perspective of the first one I can see what you mean when you say the last saddle is too tilted. Maybe it could be solved just by (very) slightly lowering the saddle on the side of the second string? (or I’ll just end up screwing it up… lol)
I think I would first address the issue that @Richard_close2u raises because as he said, in the first photos you posted indeed the E and B strings (1 and 2) come out of the body at a strange angle and that’s not good. It could even lead to string breakage as well.
However, I’m now a bit confused about your last post because in the last photo you posted, they look OK and do not look like the earlier photos you posted.
Is that because you physically moved the strings back to the correct place with your finger? Because in that last photo they look OK to me. However, Richard also mentions the angles of the brass saddles as being quite extreme.
Concerning the action, it’s very easy to adjust and you are not going to break anything. Just check out videos online how to do it. If you are really unsure and don’t want to touch it then try going to a luthier, or a guitar shop, and getting them to look at it. They will know for sure whether the saddles are OK or not. It sounds like you don’t have any option to go back to the shop. However, as another person mentioned, it may be that the reason the saddle for the E and B string slopes so much is if it’s a 7.5 inch radius on the fretboard. So perhaps you can find that out? If you don’t know the exact model of tele you have, then you can go to a Fender website and type in the serial number and it will tell you the model and when it was made. From that you can check out what the radius of the fretboard is.
If you look for videos online about adjusting the action then obviously you need to check out the ones with the vintage 3 saddles as modern teles have 6 independent saddles that IMO are easier to set up for both action and intonation.
Yes, I loosened again the strings, moved things around a bit, and tried tuning it again. Maybe it’s a little better now, but I can definitely see some uneven space between the strings 1-2-3. I also think the angle in the photo is exaggerated by the distortion from the smartphone lens, even though I tried to center the camera as much as possible.
The guitar is a Hybrid II, so it should have a 9.5-inch radius.
Anyway, thanks for the tips! I’m going to check out some videos, but as you said I guess the best bet would be to take it to the guitar shop in my town.