Fly Saddles through the years

[vjmanzo]

Ahhh--I've had that issue. Bummer, but not a hopeless case--you can deburr the saddles if you're able to determine where they're catching...or just swap 'em

[Noodler]

Although the Graph Tech saddles worked physically better than the USM saddles, they didn't pair well with anything but the newer Graph Tech preamp. I think they may have had some kind of mismatch with the Fishman preamp (learned that the hard way).

The USM saddles require some "clean-up" over time as the strings will create a rough deeper groove over the saddle which can cause binding (tuning issues) and intonation problems (especially the saddles with the chrome plating).

I've had tuning issues with my USM saddles (thought it was the nut for quite a while) so I got some Graph Techs. I don't use the piezo often, so tuning stability is the priority, but it would be nice to have piezo ability just in case. I'd rather not replace the pre, so did you find any tricks that improved the Graph Tech / Fishman pairing at all? Is it an EQ thing I could partially compensate for?

Thanks!

If I remember correctly it was a levels mismatch. The Fishman preamp expects a stronger piezo signal to be generated (or maybe it was the other way around, can't exactly recall many years later). I just remember dealing with weird distortion being created and tried so many things before I realized that mixing and matching between the old and the new was the cause for my misery.

[jester700]

If I remember correctly it was a levels mismatch. The Fishman preamp expects a stronger piezo signal to be generated (or maybe it was the other way around, can't exactly recall many years later). I just remember dealing with weird distortion being created and tried so many things before I realized that mixing and matching between the old and the new was the cause for my misery.

Thanks!