Bass Vi Problem ...

[ward]

Hi there,

this is a guitar that my brother built for me.

It's a copy of a fender bass VI.

(The original, not the reissue with a fixed bridge they're making for the moment.)

Now, in that bridge lies the problem.

The strings don't stay well on the bridge, especially the lower strings.

I feel that they don't make a sharp enough angle after the bridge to the tailpiece/vibrato unit. (I hope that is a clear explanation, please tell me if not.)

And secondly the stringpart behind the bridge tends to vibrate along. And making a buzzing/high pitched sing-along-noise

The solutions I can think of are:

* file in the bridge, which makes it even lower but will help to keep the strings in place. I don't really like this idea, because the bridge will be 'damaged'.

* moving/another tailpiece, so that the angle the strings make becomes larger.

That doesn't seem posibble to me with this tailpiece.

Maybe I could make it a string-through-body and fill the space the vibrato took with something purely aesthetic ??

* ... ? ?

This guitar is allready a few years old but hasn't been played alot, despite the nice tones you can get from it.

I find it really a shame I don't use it more, but it just isn't very playable like it is right now.

If someone has ideas or advice to make it better ... please tell me.

Thanks.

[jay5]

How deep is the neck pocket? To me it looks like that could be the problem, the neck might be sitting too high which would decrease the downward pressure on the bridge. You might also try to raise the bridge and shim the neck to build up a little neck angle. That would also hep with the pressure on the bridge.

[Gemleggat]

Its those saddles that cause alot of problems, put a proper grove in them so that the strings have proper take off point, it solves all the buzzing problems. See if it possible to fit a tuneomatic type bridge to it. That type of trem will never be very good.

[ward]

How deep is the neck pocket? To me it looks like that could be the problem, the neck might be sitting too high which would decrease the downward pressure on the bridge. You might also try to raise the bridge and shim the neck to build up a little neck angle. That would also hep with the pressure on the bridge.

←

You could be right, I should check the neck angle.

But, ...

It's a glued-in neck, so not easy to redo. If at all possible ???

[Meegs666]

first off most people who have a vi never use the tremelo. it doesnt work properly even with regular strings/scale length. secondly i almost built one last year and i saw one up close. the bridge has bigger grooves in it for the larger strings. also i do agree that the neck pocket may be a problem, but i would try grooving the bridge. just because you carve deeper grooves in a saddle doesnt mean its "damaged" or even "ruined". i installed a leo quan badass on my guitar a while back and had to carve my own grooves, and sometimes during setups they carve deeper grooves to compensate for differing string guages. some bridge saddles come without the grooves and you have to carve the grooves yourself. its just part of installing/maintaining a bridge.

[Mickguard]

You can also consider getting another set of saddles for it--do your work on those and keep these are for sentimental reasons.

Looks like the saddles are tele-style barrels? Hard to see from here. But you could consider getting Graph Tech saddles--they're easy to file and they might make the trem easier to keep in tune too.