Possible loss of sound and sustain on a guitar bridge with block saddles

With this blog post I just want to make you aware of a possible sound loss due to a wrong setup. This affects  all Strat or Tele bridges with the  ‘block’ saddles instead of the bent steel pieces of the vintage Fender design, like the American Standard bridge, or vintage Schecter bridges and consequently also the Dream Machine Tremolo and Tele bridges. I found that you need to make sure […]

Bridge on the Dire Straits Stratocaster: Japanese or Original?

You probably know the discussion started by John Suhr about the originality of Mark Knopfler red Dire Straits Stratocaster (the one with the maple neck, not the 1961 Strat with the rosewood fingerboard). John Suhr worked on Mark’s guitars in the early 80ies and stated that this guitar was not an original vintage Fender but a ‘fake’, probably a Japanese copy. I always used to be a bit uncertain what […]