Metal Bridge Pins for Acoustic Guitar?!? Snake oil?

[DC-Choppah]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUg1KmnblNE

https://www.martinguitar.com/gear-acces ... P0004.html

Your thoughts on this is appreciated.

Can replacing the bridge pins with metal make any difference in the sound of the acoustic guitar?

What about the sustain?

If so, wouldn't any heavier metal work? Why do we need such expensive materials as 'liquid metal'?

I ask since I like the sound of a guitar that really vibrates the body and has sustain. I like heavy, high tension strings since they seem to wake up the vibrations in the body. So if changing to metal bridge pins adds a little more then I would like to try.

[resistorman]

This is "pinning" my Skeptometer

[adrian_k]

You could do your own experiment for a tenner or so with brass bridge pins. A lot cheaper than those Martin ones.

[Wonks]

I've swapped cheap plastic bridge pins and old wooden pins for decent bone ones and haven't noticed any difference apart from looking nicer and fitting better.

The bridge pin is just there to push the ball-end forward so that it pulls against the underside of the saddle block and then to keep it in place.

I suppose a metal bridge pin may add a bit more mass to the bridge area and affect the way the top vibrates slightly but I'm more inclined to think they'll do nothing special.

[DC-Choppah]

This is "pinning" my Skeptometer

Thank you for your reaction.

[DC-Choppah]

You could do your own experiment for a tenner or so with brass bridge pins. A lot cheaper than those Martin ones.

I have tried other heavier pins, but never found any change to the sound.

[DC-Choppah]

I've swapped cheap plastic bridge pins and old wooden pins for decent bone ones and haven't noticed any difference apart from looking nicer and fitting better.

The bridge pin is just there to push the ball-end forward so that it pulls against the underside of the saddle block and then to keep it in place.

I suppose a metal bridge pin may add a bit more mass to the bridge area and affect the way the top vibrates slightly but I'm more inclined to think they'll do nothing special.

Thanks Wonks.

[DC-Choppah]

I'm gonna pass on this one.

[Drew Stephenson]

Personally I think this line from the description tells you everything you need to know:
"These high-tech pins are made from Liquidmetal®, a Zirconium alloy, that reflects energy instead of absorbing it."

[DC-Choppah]

Good catch Drew. The pins are on the other side of the bridge too. Isn't all the reflection happening at the bridge anyway?

[Kwackman]

ZirCONium
Cryptic clue?

[Wonks]

‘Liquidmetal’ is a trade name that’s covered a small range of non-crystalline metal alloys. It’s cooled very fast so it doesn’t have time to form a crystal lattice.

Technically it’s a glass, and like glass, gets softer as it’s warmed up, hence the ‘liquid metal’ tag. It’s very strong, but there’s nothing in any description I’ve read of it that mentions it ‘reflecting energy’ or anything definite along those lines.

If stretched, it snaps back to its original shape a lot faster than normal metals but I can’t see how that could be of any benefit in the bridge pin scenario.

[zenguitar]

Definitely NOT snake oil.

But it's complicated, and at best subtle.

The purpose of bridge pins, as Wonks described earlier in the topic, is to fix the ball end in place. The bridge and/or the bridge pin are grooved to provide a path for the string itself.

All that is required is that the bridge pin stops the ball end from passing.

Where it gets complicated is in how tightly the bridge pins are fitted. At one extreme people misunderstand how they function and incorrectly assume that the bridge pins have to be tight enough the wedge the body of the string in place. At the other extreme, and to prove a point, I have fitted bridge pins so loose that once the guitar has been tuned to pitch it was possible to remove the bridge pins completely and still play the guitar with no problems.

All that is required is a gentle friction fit.

An acoustic guitar is a complex system with lots of interacting parts. Different materials will make a tonal difference. But it will be a subtle difference. How subtle the difference is will depend on how tight they are fitted.

The problems usually arise from marketing departments being given free rein to spout gibberish.

Andy

[Wonks]

However, the effects are claimed to be less than very subtle, so partial snake oil at least IMO.

[Wonks]

Looking at pictures of the Martin pins, the tips aren’t angled, which isn’t very good. If the metal is as tough as it’s supposed to be, you’d have a hard time filing an angle on the ends yourself.

I know it does’t affect the ultimate operation of the pins, but it does stop the ball end from resting on the end of the pin when the pin is inserted, so that the ball end then gets pulled off with a jerk (oooh errr missus!) when you tension the string and you suddenly find you’ve got another cm or so of string to wrap around the post. An angled end (angled down towards the string slot in the pin) ensures that the ball end can’t catch on the end of the pin and always slides along the pin so it rests on the underside of the bridge. No more jerky string winding!

For £100+ bridge pins, I’d expect something like that to be standard.

I’ve just ordered some cheap brass bridge pins to see if I can notice any difference between brass and bone or plastic.

[shufflebeat]

Definitely NOT snake oil.

Really?

...£100+ bridge pins,

I think ^^this is why it constitutes metaphorical snake oil.

I'm pretty confident actual snake oil would have it's used, even if it's just to oil your snake. The metaphor, if I understand correctly, refers to overblown and imagined claims of efficacy, which is definitely the case with £100 bloody bridge pins.

Now, diamond bridge pins, on the other hand...

[zenguitar]

Definitely NOT snake oil.

Really?

Yes really, if you quote me in full...

Definitely NOT snake oil.

But it's complicated, and at best subtle.

Andy

[Wonks]

It’s semantics, but I do think that ‘not all snake oil’ would have been a better choice of words given the less than subtle claims made for them.

[shufflebeat]

Definitely NOT snake oil.

Really?

Yes really, if you quote me in full...

Definitely NOT snake oil.

But it's complicated, and at best subtle.

Andy

I hadn't missed that, just impressed by the definitive nature of your use of upper case. I think "at best subtle" falls comfortably under the bar for evidence to support the claims made, ergo - cobra juice.

But I do take your point and acknowledge there isn't really an agreed standard for provenance, particularly for dentists buying guitars (I'm still slightly traumatised by finding my own dentist on a HiFi forum defending paying £stupid for "interconnects". I let this imbecile poke around in my mouth!).

[DC-Choppah]

Definitely NOT snake oil.

But it's complicated, and at best subtle.

The purpose of bridge pins, as Wonks described earlier in the topic, is to fix the ball end in place. The bridge and/or the bridge pin are grooved to provide a path for the string itself.

All that is required is that the bridge pin stops the ball end from passing.

Where it gets complicated is in how tightly the bridge pins are fitted. At one extreme people misunderstand how they function and incorrectly assume that the bridge pins have to be tight enough the wedge the body of the string in place. At the other extreme, and to prove a point, I have fitted bridge pins so loose that once the guitar has been tuned to pitch it was possible to remove the bridge pins completely and still play the guitar with no problems.

All that is required is a gentle friction fit.

An acoustic guitar is a complex system with lots of interacting parts. Different materials will make a tonal difference. But it will be a subtle difference. How subtle the difference is will depend on how tight they are fitted.

The problems usually arise from marketing departments being given free rein to spout gibberish.

Andy

Thank you for that insight Andy.

I never thought about bridge pins before, and then I cam across these.

I have noticed that the guitar sounds better when the regular pins are put in just loose enough as you describe. When pressed in, the guitar seems to be a bit less energetic. I never really confirmed that, so it is interesting to hear you say the same thing. It is also easier to get the pins out!

[shufflebeat]

[potential "plot loss" alert]

I'm reading through this and am struggling to follow the logical line.

Andy, did you actually say that there is a tonal difference between bridge pins fitted loosely/tightly? I can see where you refer to the operation of bridge pins and that there's no need to wedge them in (which I get although if a string stays in without a pin present that looks to me like unwelcome wear on the hole) but what I don't see is any reference to a difference in response.

If I'm missing it, can you describe it and maybe speculate as to what's going on? This sounds a bit unintuitive to me.

[Wonks]

The wear on the hole should be the same regardless of whether it’s a loose or tight fit.

If you look at the design of a bridge pin, there should be between no and almost no contact between the string itself and the bridge pin as the string should run up the channel in the pin. There will be some contact with the ball-end, but once the pin has done its job of pushing that forwards, then that contact area is minimal.

There is no mechanism that I can see for extra wear to occur if the bridge pins are fitted loosely. Tight just means that you won’t loose them if the guitar gets turned over.

[zenguitar]

Andy, did you actually say that there is a tonal difference between bridge pins fitted loosely/tightly? I can see where you refer to the operation of bridge pins and that there's no need to wedge them in (which I get although if a string stays in without a pin present that looks to me like unwelcome wear on the hole) but what I don't see is any reference to a difference in response.

Tightness of fit of itself isn't a source of tonal difference. However, it can change how much the bridge pin material contributes to the tone. My reasoning is that the tightness of fit dictates how effectively vibrations are transferred between the bridge and pin. I see it as comparable to how the tightness of fit on a bolt on neck can change the sound of the guitar.

Andy

[shufflebeat]

The wear on the hole should be the same regardless of whether it’s a loose or tight fit.

If you look at the design of a bridge pin, there should be between no and almost no contact between the string itself and the bridge pin as the string should run up the channel in the pin. There will be some contact with the ball-end, but once the pin has done its job of pushing that forwards, then that contact area is minimal

All good. However, I'm not suggesting that loose/tight fit will affect wear rate, just that if your string stays in without a pin then it (or a predecessor) has worn a channel in the wood deep enough for the string to fit in and trap the ball end.

[Wonks]

But do you really want energy to be transferred to the bridge pins? If it’s going into the pins, then that energy’s not going to the guitar.

Ideally you don’t want any energy being absorbed by the pins, which is where I think the concept behind the Martin metal pins comes from. But I have no idea what sort of general absorbed energy levels we are talking about as a percentage of the total string energy. I can’t see even the most basic soft plastic pins absorbing much of the total energy. The bridge itself is pretty solid, so itself doesn’t vibrate (as in twisting its shape) anything like as much as the top does.