I've been trying to do a few 1 or 2 fret bends on my guitar and the strings seem 'stiffer' than on my previous guitars, even though the strings have always been 10's on every guitar. My present guitar also goes out of tune after a few bends, which wasn't the case with my previous guitars. I know of the old 'rubbing a pencil on the string grooves' and the 'nut sauce' solutions, but I can't be arsed doing any of that. This has made me think about getting a graphite nut. From what I understand, the tuning stability will improve a little, but the sound of the open strings will also change a little, eg. going a little less bright with a little less sustain. I don't mind those, as brightness and sustain can be added. But I also understand that the open sound would now differ from the fretted sound.
For the sake of argument let's give a non graphite-equipped guitar a sound value of ' 0 ' and a graphite nut-equipped guitar a sound value of ' -1 ' to show the less bright sound caused by the graphite:
Normal Guitar : Open strings ' 0 ' and fretted notes ' 0 '.
Graphite nut Guitar : Open strings ' -1 ' and fretted notes ' 0 '.
Is that right so far?
What would happen if graphite string saddles were installed?
Would we get :
Normal nut/ graphite saddles Guitar: open strings ' -1 ' and fretted notes ' -1 '.
Graphite nut/ graphite saddles Guitar: open strings ' -2 ' and fretted notes ' -1 '.
Am I anywhere near right? Also, would graphite saddles affect the sustain? What about the metal saddles with graphite inserts?
Any help would be much appreciated.
Comments
Graphite saddles are more to prevent string breakage than for tuning stability, and in my opinion they do affect the tone a bit.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I've only done bending on my 2 Sheratons (a Korean one.Yay. and a Chinese one. Boo.) and my present guitar is a Rally Neosound, which is an Ibanez AS73-a-like, which has the same scale length as the Sheratons, but it has better upper fret access and doesn't neck-dive.
As I suspected before I made the original post, every opinion I've read anywhere on the interwebnet since conceiving the idea has been different eg. I've not read anywhere else of ICBM's view that graphite nuts can 'grab' the string. I was going to have the tech fiddle with the nut while looking at the 21st and 22nd frets on the high E string and bunging in some new PUPs, but to stop me going mental thinking about this stuff I'll prolly just get a penny whistle.
Now, what sort of amp/cable/pedals do I need for a penny whistle?
Bone doesn't make that much difference, and only in open strings. tbh I seriously doubt whether anyone can really tell whether a bone or synthetic nut is installed in a guitar, by listening to it. I make bone nuts, it's fiddly and bone f*ing stinks when cut/filed etc, but they last and take a polish, which improves as they see some use. Tiny dab of graphite grease at string change time keeps 'em slippy.