New Bridge, Drastic Change

The first tone pros bridge & tail I installed was on my step daughter's Epiphone Les Paul Special ll.
I was doing this for fun, and also out of pure love. She expressed an interest in learning guitar,
and backed that up by signing up for the high school course at her school, and attending the classes.

Her dad bought her the Epiphone. She brought it home and I played it and was surprised at how good
it sounded stock. I'd seen Epiphones that weren't very good, and had to overcome a bit of prejudice
...which is always worth doing.

So I set about to get the best out of the platform. Just because I learned to play on a POS doesn't mean that
every youthful aspirant should. I did some research, and learned about the Tone Pros bridge, which I hadn't
heard of. I bought one and installed it. My research suggested that you get the best tone if you pull the inserts
out of the Les Paul body, and install the Tone pros inserts. Supposedly the machining was much better, and the
threads would couple better inside the body, and tone and sustain would improve.
But I didn't do this. I screwed the tone pros studs into the stock inserts, and the doggone guitar's tone improved.

Devin's Epiphone Les Paul Special ll, with its plywood body and neck made out of whatever, has tone and sustain
to die for. And it responded really well to all the upgrades. I was pleasantly surprised, and pleased. The neck was
decent on this cheap guitar, and I was able to intonate it perfectly and it stayed that way.

I also replaced the pickups with a set of 490s out of my first SG special, and they sounded better in the Epiphone
than they did in the Gibson... go figure. I replaced the wiring with Alpha 500k pots and switchcraft toggle and jack.
I replaced the nut with Tusq, and the tuners with Grover Rotomatics (which caused NO neck dive on this 8lb Lester.)
The Grover tuners were a set I had taken off my Martin 0-17, because they DID cause neck dive on that guitar.

So I'll also recommend the Tone Pros bridge and tail. It was a dramatic improvement for the humble Epi Special ll.
And I ended up installing the same bridge on another Epiphone, my dear departed Wilshire. I've become an
Epiphone fan.

My most recent Epiphone project was my ES-339. That one got a Gotoh bridge and tail, and those also were a
fine upgrade for an inexpensive guitar. The Gotoh bridge locks onto the stud too, and it has more intonation
travel than the stock part. So I recommend that too, and it's a LOT less money.
 
Tone Pros bridges here too. I used on my Gibson's. Just I replaced It because saddel strings spacing. But lately I have the one that I had on my LP standard in my LP classic. I bought used ones to try on my Gibson's as well.
I know, I have a problem. I have a bunch of guitar parts just to try It.
 
Cadorman said:
So I've had this Tone Pros System II bridge sitting around for a couple of years and decided to pull it out and install it on the Blueberry this morning.
View attachment 57243
I didn't think much about it and then I plugged in and holy heck it sounded like a different guitar! I'm not sure how much of the change has to do with locking the bridge down to the studs versus going from aluminum to Zamac. This is the ABR style bridge for Nashville guitars. Super easy to remove the saddles since the screws are held in with an e-clip and I like the nylon washers under the screw heads.

Sound wise I would say the Harmonics are more defined, there is more sustain and the bass and mids are more aggressive. I actually had to pull down the 63hz and 128hz sliders on my equalizer. I may need more of these. Anyone else using them? I sold a set of the locking tail piece studs to @SG John and may have to take another look at those.
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OMG Cador,,,,,,,,,,, your intonation is all off. The saddles are all backwards.
 
The Tone Pros stuff, much like Gotoh, seems very well-made. Can't go wrong there and I think these parts are made better than the average stuff used on the assembly line.

Tone Pros are standard on non Floyd Rose equipped Schecters and ESP's too, IIRC.

On Les Paul style guitars, I stick with aluminum tailpieces, like the original 1959's used, as they seem to sound brighter to my ears.

I've tried a lot of bridges over the years, but the roller bridges from Philadelphia Luthier Tools have given me the best tone and the gentle radii of the roller is very easy on the strings.
 
The biggest difference I have noticed is with the use of steel tailpiece studs. Sometimes aluminum tailpieces sound better, sometimes not, depends on the specific guitar so I always try them. I haven't really noticed too much difference with different bridges but I don't like locking ones so that may be the issue - I like to be able to reach down and tweak the bridge height while I am playing, which obviously I can't do with a locking one. I know doing this sounds crazy to a lot of people but with humidity changes, string wear etc sometimes it needs just the tiniest little turn to make it feel perfect, y'know. I'm not a measurer, everything is set up by feel and sound, so it doesn't phase me to do it.
 
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gball said:
The biggest difference I have noticed is with the use of steel tailpiece studs. Sometimes aluminum tailpieces sound better, sometimes not, depends on the specific guitar so I always try them. I haven't really noticed too much difference with different bridges but I don't like locking ones so that may be the issue - I like to be able to reach down and tweak the bridge height while I am playing, which obviously I can't do with a locking one. I know doing this sounds crazy to a lot of people but with humidity changes, string wear etc sometimes it needs just the tiniest little turn to make it feel perfect, y'know. I'm not a measurer, everything is set up by fell and sound, so it doesn't phase me to do it.
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Gball, Ever get your pants leg stuck in the sprocket while pedaling your bike as a kid? That'll tweak your Studs, Nuts, and of course get pants and fingers greasy. I used to have to tweak my patience and bike parts all the time as I was usually rougher on a bike than my budget models could stand. This was before the advent of high tech BMX or Mountain bikes of course.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
Gball, Ever get your pants leg stuck in the sprocket while pedaling your bike as a kid? That'll tweak your Studs, Nuts, and of course get pants and fingers greasy. I used to have to tweak my patience and bike parts all the time as I was usually rougher on a bike than my budget models could stand. This was before the advent of high tech BMX or Mountain bikes of course.
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Oh yeah. Used to rip a hole in every pair of jeans I had as a kid. Standard daily outfit for me was jeans, some Chucks and a concert T.
 
gball said:
The biggest difference I have noticed is with the use of steel tailpiece studs. Sometimes aluminum tailpieces sound better, sometimes not, depends on the specific guitar so I always try them. I haven't really noticed too much difference with different bridges but I don't like locking ones so that may be the issue - I like to be able to reach down and tweak the bridge height while I am playing, which obviously I can't do with a locking one. I know doing this sounds crazy to a lot of people but with humidity changes, string wear etc sometimes it needs just the tiniest little turn to make it feel perfect, y'know. I'm not a measurer, everything is set up by feel and sound, so it doesn't phase me to do it.
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Yes! Good point! Faber TP-59 aluminum tailpiece with nickel plated steel studs and selective fit washers to lock it in place.
 
gball said:
I usually don't even use the little locking spacers. I get the long studs and they are either decked or just about 1/8" above and I don't notice any real difference.
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Robert Herndon said:
I kinda like the spacers.
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PICS or it did or did not happen. I am clueless on Spacers for Bridge posts or whatever. Shewie my mind is mush at all the directions it has flitted around, today.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
PICS or it did or did not happen. I am clueless on Spacers for Bridge posts or whatever. Shewie my mind is mush at all the directions it has flitted around, today.
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No pics here. I've tried spacers before but don't have them on any of my guitars at the moment.
I do have steel studs on all of them (actually the '79 came with them from the factory) and an aluminum tailpiece on 3 out of 4.
 
chilipeppermaniac said:
Heck, Gball, I get all these ABR, Nashville, American Studs, Metric studs, Metric size to fit Nashville post, Metric to fit ABR post, Abr to fit Metric blah blah blah all confused. NOW we are adding spacers in the mix.

Holy Cow. I never thought gitarz would be so comnplex.
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It's interesting how things have evolved. Replacement parts were relatively rare when we were all just starting out but now the industry making parts for guitars seems to be one of the biggest segments. TBH, for the most part I try to leave most things alone these days, after being a serial modder for years, unless there is a problem that needs resolving. I noticed that steel studs improved the midrange punch on every guitar I tried them on, so that's pretty much an automatic mod I do but otherwise my guitars are basically stock except for putting an aluminum tailpiece on when I think it sounds better - its a cheap easy mod that can be reversed at a string change if there is no improvement. I agree with Rob, it tends to brighten up the tone a bit, and on certain guitars that can mean they get a little shrill so in that case I go back to the Zamac. I've thought about trying a steel tailpiece but just never pulled the trigger for some reason.
 
A friend who has now passed away used to gig and every so often I would get him to try one of my new guitars such as a PRS Santana 3 or my Telecaster. He would usually like them ok but I could tell he struggled to make it through a song before he was ready to pass it back.

On the time he played my Tele, he told me he could not get used to the strings. I was using 10's and he said he used 10.5's
 
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