The Guitar Gallery Forums - The Guitar Legacy of Matsumoku

Q&A, discussion, and information for the labels covered by The Guitar Gallery (Specifically and exclusively guitars made by Matsumoku up to 1987)
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PostPosted: Sat 29 Sep 2007 08:47 AM 
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Virtuoso
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Joined: Sun 15 Jan 2006 04:52 PM
Posts: 2209
Location: Absolute Stupidity, Missouri
Hmmm. If it were the music shops that lost the saddles maybe they owe you a little something. A set of offset saddles maybe? :wink:

They take a little finagling but I know it can be tastefully done.


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PostPosted: Fri 09 Jan 2009 07:26 AM 
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Joined: Tue 19 Feb 2008 04:58 AM
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Location: That "cultural nerve center", Mid-Atlantic U.S.
One thing I'd like to point out:

Graph Tech has certainly earned it's place in the component industry, & stainless steel frets are not entirely useless.

Guitarists, fisherman, & golfers all share a tragic flaw; they'll buy just about anything (as long as it's hyped the right way).

Before taking a nice sounding guitar & radically (& arbitrarily) changing one component of it, consider the impact it will have on the guitar's overall tone. I wouldn't think it would be particularly wise to replace nickel [alloy] frets on a guitar you like the sound of with SS frets--unless of course you're going for a brighter sound or you'll be compensating by switching out to darker pickups. The same goes for new nuts, saddles, or the pickup-of-the-month.

As I've come in contact with more Aria guitars, I find that [for my personal taste] the pickups generally have quite bright voicings & would benefit from something to tone them down a bit. GT saddles seem to be an easy, cost-effective fix if you're too lazy to turn down the tone knob a little bit--& I know a lot of you guys like the Aria pickups just fine the way they are (helps make up for amps with weak presence, No?).

Finally, to those of you considering building guitars or using component bodies or necks: Don't buy into the "tone wood" hype. Different pieces of the same species of wood can sound drastically different. Maple caps have been hyped to add "brightness" to "dark" mahogany on certain brands of guitars. Those caps (especially quilted & spalted) are more often soft & dark sounding, & their addition to a guitar is more for cosmetic & premium-pricing reasons than for tone (& I've heard dense mahogany bodies that were every bit as brittle sounding as bright maple).

One of the best-sounding guitars I have has an ugly poplar body with a bolt neck & a Floyd.

Think before you buy.


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