bridge saddles and intonation

[daz]

I noticed the other day that the E bridge saddle on one of my bases is apart from the other three by 1mm or so. The rest touch each other. This got me to thinking. I have never seen this mentioned in any re stringing a bass articles i have read. Should these touch each other or not? They do seem to be important: ie. the strings pass right over them. Surely this is something that needs explaining, but not mentioned. Should the posistion be checked beforehand and re instituted or not. The odds are if you are doing a full string off refit or job that they must move around a little? I know some have little guide grooves that the height adjusting pin go into like a little shallow track, but just as many dont...?

I know to many the answer might be obvious. But if you are one of those trying to learn, something like this can drive you mad till its explained.

[Ou7shined]

It won't affect intonation but it may impede your ability to play it if the spacings are uneven.

[Nostromo]

Not sure what type of bass/bridge you are referring to - there is quite a lot of variation in the exact design of saddle arrangements between different bridges ?

Generally though, when the string tension is reduced or off . . . for example when you are changing strings . . . then the bridge saddles can obviously move around a little. Some bridge assemblies dont have much within their engineering to allign the individual saddles, whilst other bridges are engineered to provide a certain degree of allignment.

Obviously at the end of the day the string tension is (usually) sufficient to keep the saddles in position, so, if there is movement when the tension is off, then its a case of carefully positioning each saddle where you want it when you do your re-stringing.

At the end of the day you just need to make sure you've positioned the saddles as you want them.

If you play very agressively, and are getting saddle movement through playing . . and I know someone who had this problem with a Squier Pbass . . . then thats a different issue again. In that case, we solved that problem by removing the bridge from the bass, slightly certre punching the Bridge plate to create some slight depressions for the saddle adjusters to recess into . . . and that solved that problem. . . but as I say that was a slightly different problem.

All in all some guitars use component design thats has been around 50 years or so . . . and some things are really quite primative . . . . but still much loved and preferred by lots of players !

Cheers,