Adjustable intonation

[Dave Hepworth]

Hi All,
On a regular 6 string guitar the bridge saddles are adjustable to accommodate strings intonation going sharp or flat as you fret .
This makes me wonder if the industry standard of a fixed axle and finger / roller system is flawed.
Would a system using an actuating lever on the string which would then allow the string to go over a rolling bridge saddle which in turn could be adjustable forwards and backwards.
If this system was deployed would it negate the use of sweetened tuning charts as you could do sweetened intonation at the " bridge roller ".Are any steels made using this ?.If so how effective are they.One advantage would be increased string to body contact and therefore possible increase in resonance and tone.
Any comments guys ?

[Ross Shafer]

Intonation adjustment at the saddles assumes a fixed amount of deflection in the string as the string contacts the fret. Using a slide, this fixed point does not exist, therefore any intonation adjustments at the bridge would not assist in fine tuning a string's intonation unless you're able to somehow use precisely the same pressure with your bar at each fret....pretty much impossible.

Furthering the difficulty of maintaining the exact bar pressure from which to set your intonation is the fact that each fret would require its own exact bar pressure to achieve the deflection needed to match intonation set at the saddle.

I feel that bar pressure has much more to do with intonation than is generally thought of or discussed.

[Ian Rae]

Dave - I'll stop you right at the first paragraph. A steel guitar doesn't fret, so it doesn't need adjustable string anchors. On a 6-string guitar, the strings go sharp by varying amounts as you fret (never flat!) but the strings on a steel are all the same length all the time. Just imagine for a moment what would happen if they weren't!

[Ha - Ross beat me to it, as usual...]

[Doug Earnest]

You have to be able to actually play the thing before worrying about any of this. I never did watch Hal Rugg play and wonder how he got along without bridge adjustments.

[Tommy Mc]

If this system was deployed would it negate the use of sweetened tuning charts as you could do sweetened intonation at the " bridge roller "

Dave, I'm pretty sure the reasoning behind sweetened tunings has little or nothing to do with compensated bridges.

[Ian Rae]

Agreed. And while Georg's angled bridge is convincing, it's surely less trouble to angle the bar if your ears tell you to, and the effects of uneven bar pressure are greater than any of this.