Acoustic guitar bridge pins

[Phil O'Keefe]

Do you think that different materials make a difference in the way an acoustic sounds? If so, can you describe some of the differences?

 

What are you using for pins on your acoustic guitar(s)?

 

 

[Grant Harding]

This should be interesting.

[gardo]

I tried Tusq bridge pins ,They gave the guitar a bit of a "ping " sound so they came right back out. .I'm using cheap plastic pins now and prefer the sound,

[Grant Harding]

 

[Grant Harding]

I like plastic or rosewood myself.

[Freeman Keller]

A long time ago, long before your appearance on the forum Phil, I pondered this question. I did the best thing I could think of - I recorded several of my guitars, but one in particular, an old generic D-18, with a whole bunch of different pins. Same strings, same mic, same recorder settings, same pick - you get the picture. Plastic, bone, several kinds of wood, some metal pins - all 5 degree taper in a slotted bridge (pins with slots were turned so the string wasn't in the slot). I even recorded the old girl with no pins (you can do that with a slotted bridge as long a you are really careful). None of the pins were any kind of ivory - I don't care how long its been dead or how "legal" it is, ivory has no place in my guitars.

 

I posted the clips without identifying the pins and let people talk about what they heard. Different people had different opinions - thats the way it should be. And of course you know what they say about opinions

 

 

 

 

Yesterday I fitted a nice set of cow bone pins in my newest guitar. They have little shiny pearl dots. I think they are very nice

 

[garthman]

I just use whatever pins were in the guitar when I bought it.

[FretFiend.]

A bridge pin thread??? On HCAG??? Started by the administrator???

 

What's next? A Zager thread?

[MurkyWaters]

Bridge pins are the first thing I swap out! I favor wood! I have used rosewood, straight Ebony and Ebony with brass inserts. I have used Boxwood and I believe the pins on my Taylor are Boxwood as well. The Taylor came stock with wood so no need to change. I did have brass pins on a Larrivee L-03 that sounded nice. All in all I have only used Brass, wood and plastic. I look at the acoustic guitar as somewhat of an organic entity so I am reluctant to add non organic materials (if possible) such as plastic. It is interesting that some people prefer plastic.

[t_e_l_e]

i use the ones with what the guitars came with, on all my 3 accoustics, even on my 25+ year old washburn, haven't lost one over time so never the need to replace anything

[Grant Harding]

[Grant Harding]

Plastic sounds better than ebony in my experience. Not as organic, pretty, or $$, but there's a reason other than cost that Martin uses them.

 

The differences are subtle, so I'd never actively seek out new ones unless I was trying to tame an overly bright or warm guitar that different strings or bridge saddle material couldn't sort out.

[DeepEnd]

I just use whatever pins were in the guitar when I bought it.

^ This. All my guitars have stock bridge pins. Plus, the Ibanez has oversize "Advantage" pins that might be hard to replace. In all my years of playing guitar I've replaced a total of one bridge pin when a college friend managed to break one of the pins on my Alvarez 5020.

[MurkyWaters]

https://www.maurysmusic.com/bridge_pins_effect_on_tone

 

Here's an article that claims you can add bass and warmth to your Martin with Ebony bridge pins. I don't know but bass and warmth sound good to me! What about pinless wood bridges? Going pinless might be the same as wood pins? BTW my Taylor has grained ivoroid binding (a fancy name for plastic) so all organic goes out the window when good tone is at stake. I chose mine over a wood bound model!

[Grant Harding]

Yes - I use ebony on an overly bright guitar to warm up the sound. They can make a dred too warm and less sparkly than I like.

 

Completely personal and based on the guitar, style, strings, etc. Subtle too - I'm not going to run around in a panic before a gig trying to find an open store that sells bridge pins.

[Grant Harding]

I've swapped out bridge pins on guitars about 40 times. I can always hear a difference and it's most noticeable with better guitars and playing that drives the guitar top.

 

Some will probably argue that if you can have a guitar with no bridge pins then how can they be important. I think that's nonsense.

[MurkyWaters]

I had a Breedlove Black Magic concert with a pinless bridge. It sounded fine! I guess I would have had to swap the bridge for one with pins to see if it made a difference. Although I have decided that I like the pins better than pinless.

[Freeman Keller]

I'm not going to get in a big pissin' match about bridge pins - use whatever you like. But I find it kind of interesting that Martin chooses to install their plastic pins in all of their guitars, Taylor their ebony pins with the little pearl dot. A typical set of pins lists for somewhere between five and twenty bucks. You would think that if a company really felt that X pins were better in their 2K or 3K guitar they would spend the little bit of extra money. Or maybe, since we all know that there is a "Martin sound" and a "Taylor sound" the pins must be an important part of it.

 

I'll contend that the fit of the pin - 3 degrees or 5 degrees, how well the hole is reamed (most Martins aren't reamed very well), whether or not the bridge is slotted, string ramp angle - all are at least as important than what they are made out of.

 

Pinless bridges are fine but seem to have a slightly higher failure rate than pinned ones. In theory they should have slightly less mass (which is good unless you like brass pins which add a lot of mass). Most classical guitar have pinless (tied) bridges. Here is an early Taylor with a pinless bridge, yep, popped right off

 

[img2=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","src":"http:\/\/i51.photobucket.com\/albums\/f387\/Freeman_Keller\/Repairs\/IMG_1463_zps41a71602.jpg"}[/img2]

 

 

I'm going to add one more thing that I think is really important (I ran into it yesterday setting up an acoustic bass). Often the slots in pins are too small for the wrap on the low E (and A) strings. When you push the pins into the holes you end up pushing the balls down away from the bridge plate, tightening the string doesn't pull it back up. I frequently will relieve the slots (make them bigger) with a small rasp. I'll mark those pins for the holes that they are used in. Another reason to slot the bridge.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I have had a few Ovations - they all had pin-less bridges. And they all sounded like... Ovations.

 

Hmmmmm.....

[Phil O'Keefe]

Was that a Taylor 410 Freeman? IIRC, they had pinless bridges, but I don't really recall any other Taylors offhand that did...

 

I wonder if Taylor uses the same pins on their less expensive guitars... I really have never paid attention or checked. I'll have to take a look and see what they used on my GS Mini and 150e - I know the ones on my 510 are ebony.

 

 

[Phil O'Keefe]

A bridge pin thread??? On HCAG??? Started by the administrator???

 

What's next? A Zager thread?

 

Would you like a(nother) Zager thread? I was scheduled to start one in the year 2525, but I can do it earlier if the demand is there - after all, we're here to please!

[DeepEnd]

AFAIK you're correct about the Taylor 410. Mid 90's if memory serves.

[Freeman Keller]

Don't remember the model, I could look it up but I think you are probably correct. I know my old 314 had wood pins - assumed they were ebony. I've had a couple of GS Minis in lately, seems like they had wood pins.

 

I don't know the story about Taylor's pinless bridge, just that I got to fix one.

[Freeman Keller]

FWIW I keep getting Zager ads as part of my HC surround spam. Only $1695 and I can own an EZ-Play custom guitar. Wonder what kind of pins Denny uses

[FretFiend.]

Back on topic.

 

Question: Does any acoustic guitar maker try to make the bridge or the area around the bridge (including the bridge pins) any heavier than it has to be?

 

Let me guess. No.

Could there be a reason for that beyond the fact that plastic is cheap. Hint: It is also very light.