OK, settle down. I'm cracking open this can of worms...
Roller bridges, love em or hate em, is there really an alternative for a TOM replacement when using something like a bigsby or les trem?
I've seen replacement saddles (graphtec etc), but these have a bad rep for robbing some tone, while rollers seem to be blamed for loss of sustain. How bad a compromise is a roller bridge, and if you were going for one today which would you get?
For context I've just bought a starcaster which I'm going to put a les trem on, and just deciding the next steps. NGD to follow if you're interested!
Comments
Also, is there nothing to be said for a saddle that has a smooth and rounded profile, like the roller bridge saddles, but fixed? (I suppose that's essentially just what a correctly slotted TOM saddle is.)
A roller bridge will work too but will change change the sound, which will at the very least be objectively different, if not subjectively better or worse.
Beyond that, a properly cut nut is the essential ingredient. Most shop techs get this vastly wrong and then tell people things like “Gibsons just don’t stay in tune”, which is utter bollocks.