Intonation Help

[lancer]

Hi

I fitted a Babicz bridge to my p bass today.

The neck relief is correct, so is the action.

The intonation is spot on, apart from the E string.

12 harmonic is perfect but 12 th fretted is sharp.

There is no more adjustment on the bridge.

Any ideas?

 

[MoonBassAlpha]

Fit it a bit  further  back on the body? 

[mybass]

2 hours ago, lancer said:

Hi

I fitted a Babicz bridge to my p bass today.

The neck relief is correct, so is the action.

The intonation is spot on, apart from the E string.

12 harmonic is perfect but 12 th fretted is sharp.

There is no more adjustment on the bridge.

Any ideas?

 

Strings.....are they in good order or old? Try a new E string as an old one can be ‘out of tune’.

Bridge....take the old one and try and line it on top of the Babitz to see where the saddles line up or not. I think the same the same screw holes are used?

[lancer]

The strings are brand new, I’ll check see if the saddles line up with the fender bridge.

What I don’t understand though is, that there is very little adjustment left in all the saddles on all strings?

They are all pretty close to the back of the bridge to get them intonated

[hooky_lowdown]

3 hours ago, MoonBassAlpha said:

Fit it a bit  further  back on the body? 

This. Without a picture it's hard to tell, but if the saddles are as far back as they go, and you still can't obtain intonation, then the bridge needs to go back further. Saddles should be 34inch from nut, that is if it's 34 scale?

[lancer]

But I don’t understand it’s an American fender with 5 holes, had a regular fender bridge on it which intonated fine.

This bridge is supposed to be a drop in replacement.

I was only after a bit more sustain which this bridge gives but I can’t intonate the e string.

Strange

[PlungerModerno]

29 minutes ago, lancer said:

But I don’t understand it’s an American fender with 5 holes, had a regular fender bridge on it which intonated fine.

This bridge is supposed to be a drop in replacement.

I was only after a bit more sustain which this bridge gives but I can’t intonate the e string.

Strange

That is strange. Babicz have a good rep, I'd be shocked if it was well out of spec. I'd be curious to see the regular bridge vs. the Babicz.

[mybass]

6 hours ago, lancer said:

Hi

I fitted a Babicz bridge to my p bass today.

The neck relief is correct, so is the action.

The intonation is spot on, apart from the E string.

12 harmonic is perfect but 12 th fretted is sharp.

There is no more adjustment on the bridge.

Any ideas?

 

Strings.....are they in good order or old? Try a new E string as an old one can be ‘out of tune’.

Bridge....take the old one and try and line it on top of the Babitz to see where the saddles line up or not. I think the same the same screw holes are used?

 

 

6 hours ago, lancer said:

Hi

I fitted a Babicz bridge to my p bass today.

The neck relief is correct, so is the action.

The intonation is spot on, apart from the E string.

12 harmonic is perfect but 12 th fretted is sharp.

There is no more adjustment on the bridge.

Any ideas?

 

Have a look at this website....https://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator

and it should be showing you where frets for a 34 inch scale bass should be set and at the bottom of the page is their measurement from the nut (where the fret side of the nut) to where a Fender bridge SCREW line should be set....there is a small plus/ minor degree measurement. Good luck....

[Bigguy2017]

If it's only a wee bit out then chop the spring in half - that'll get you an extra wee bit of range.

[Andyjr1515]

54 minutes ago, Bigguy2017 said:

If it's only a wee bit out then chop the spring in half - that'll get you an extra wee bit of range.

^ This

If you are a bit nervous, then just assemble and adjust that saddle without the spring at all (the spring is only there to keep the adjuster screw tight against the body while the lock screw is loose and you are adjusting the position - once the lock screw is tight, then the spring doesn't do anything). 

The Babicz has an immense amount of adjustment with the three tapped holes for the locking screw and so it is unlikely that it can't get far enough back.  However, the spring has to be long enough for the furthest forward position.  As such, long springs can have a tendency to fully compress before the full range of rear adjustment can be reached...hence, sometimes, you need to snip the spring. 

[mybass]

32 minutes ago, Andyjr1515 said:

^ This

If you are a bit nervous, then just assemble and adjust that saddle without the spring at all (the spring is only there to keep the adjuster screw tight against the body while the lock screw is loose and you are adjusting the position - once the lock screw is tight, then the spring doesn't do anything). 

The Babicz has an immense amount of adjustment with the three tapped holes for the locking screw and so it is unlikely that it can't get far enough back.  However, the spring has to be long enough for the furthest forward position.  As such, long springs can have a tendency to fully compress before the full range of rear adjustment can be reached...hence, sometimes, you need to snip the spring. 

I have filed the screw shorter itself to gain a little extra backward movement but the filed end has to be smothed off to allow it to screw easily back into the saddle.

May I add that pictures may help us out here to see better....?

[Manton Customs]

 

It’s a reasonably common issue with the design of the Babicz. As you raise the saddle/cam it also moves the witness point backward and lowering it will have the opposite effect. So when you’re adjusting the action, you’re also altering the intonation to a fairly substantial degree also. If you were to raise the action on the E it would move the witness point backwards and increase your range of intonation adjustment.

Give that a go (raise action on the E) and see if it does the trick.

If it does, you can then shim the shim the neck to the point where your action is how you like it and your saddle is higher than it is currently.
 

Edited March 8, 2021 by Manton Customs

[rmorris]

1 hour ago, mybass said:

I have filed the screw shorter itself to gain a little extra backward movement but the filed end has to be smothed off to allow it to screw easily back into the saddle.

May I add that pictures may help us out here to see better....?

Not understanding how that makes difference to the 'backward movement' range ?

[mybass]

2 hours ago, rmorris said:

Not understanding how that makes difference to the 'backward movement' range ?

There is a certain amount of space within the saddle for the screw to alter where the saddle will sit...ie, it either 'unscrews' / forwards the saddle until and saddle falls off the screw or it screws backwards and the screw will reach the limit it can turn within the saddle. I found filing the screw down a few mm (on a Hipshot) bridge helped pull the saddle back a little further. 

[NancyJohnson]

Pictures speak a thousand words.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

On 07/03/2021 at 16:48, lancer said:

Any ideas?

Yeah, sell it and put the BBOT back on. Full contact = Emperor's New Clothes.

[hiram.k.hackenbacker]

Ah, you beat me to it....

 

[LITTLEWING]

On 19 March 2021 at 18:34, hiram.k.hackenbacker said:

Yeah, sell it and put the BBOT back on. Full contact = Emperor's New Clothes.

Totally this.

 

[A.G.E.N.T.E.]

First option, remove the spring and test if intonation is sopt on. If so, you can just leave it like that or you can try to cut the spring in half and see if it works. Done it myself a few times and worked fine. 

Repositioning the bridge. That will work l but it's a bit annoying to have to make this kind of adjustments.. And drilling new holes. 

Or the easiest one.. As said already.. Get rid of the babicz

[Grangur]

I've had this issue on other bridges too. It's weird. 

What I did to sort it was go back to basics. The position of the saddles, in relation to each other, should be in a diagonal line going from the G being the shortest string length the the E being the longest; with the saddle closest to the end. Set the line to do exactly this. Don't worry about the intonation at this stage.

Then re-tune the bass to the open strings. Then intonate and "hey presto" it all works. Sometimes I think what happens is we start with tuning the open string with the saddle in a wrong position and then no amount of adjustment will do it. I can't explain the science, except it has worked for me on a few basses.

[Lfalex v1.1]

On 29/03/2021 at 11:54, Grangur said:

I've had this issue on other bridges too. It's weird. 

What I did to sort it was go back to basics. The position of the saddles, in relation to each other, should be in a diagonal line going from the G being the shortest string length the the E being the longest; with the saddle closest to the end. Set the line to do exactly this. Don't worry about the intonation at this stage.

Then re-tune the bass to the open strings. Then intonate and "hey presto" it all works. Sometimes I think what happens is we start with tuning the open string with the saddle in a wrong position and then no amount of adjustment will do it. I can't explain the science, except it has worked for me on a few basses.

I think I have a (slight) grasp of this one.. I think with some combinations of strings/bass/bridge there are TWO points at which the saddle achieves the correct position to deliver accurate intonation. In some cases there's only one, but almost two; the saddle won't quite go back or forward enough. The issue occurs when we start trying to chase the position where it's not quite in range. There are fixes; cutting the springs, heavier B strings.

Maybe a "reset", as detailed above, might help. 

The science? No idea,  but I've a gut feeling that it might be to do with nodes/anti nodes?