- Joined
- Jan 29, 2023
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I have two acoustic electric guitars that have this problem, and I think I figured out an easy solution, though it may not work for every guitar. First off, this seems to be a problem with guitars that have an under saddle pickup that looks like copper braiding. The guitars I had in the past that had a thin metal strip did not have the uneven string volume (I think they were both Fishman Thinline pickups). My Guild acoustic electric had low volume from the 1st, 3rd, and 6th strings. What I did to fix it was put a small piece of HVAC foil tape on the underside of the saddle, directly under where the string sits. The first string ended up requiring two pieces of the tape as it was the lowest in volume, but now all 6 strings are pretty much exactly the same volume, just it was with my previous guitars that had the Thinline pickups. I played some fingerstyle stuff with my Guild plugged into a mixing board, and listened through headphones, and could not hear any discernable difference in string volume.
The key thing to do here is to make the strips of HVAC tape only 1/4" wide so they don't affect other strings. The first time I tried this on my Martin it created more imbalances because I made the pieces of tape a little too wide, like maybe 1/2". I also used a knife to cut the tape right at the edge of the saddle so there wasn't any running up the side the saddle.
The key thing to do here is to make the strips of HVAC tape only 1/4" wide so they don't affect other strings. The first time I tried this on my Martin it created more imbalances because I made the pieces of tape a little too wide, like maybe 1/2". I also used a knife to cut the tape right at the edge of the saddle so there wasn't any running up the side the saddle.