Most intonatable Tune-O-Matic style bridge?

[adamrobertt]

My girlfriend has an ES-330. It's a beautiful guitar, but the bridge maxes out on the low E to the point where you can't truly intonate it. Is there a TOM style bridge out there that has a wider range of intonation?

[Ceylon]

I always figured this was what the so called Harmonica bridge was for. You can find it on some vintages of SG's (so it'd not be too off on a ES-330) and I know they make reproductions, but I seem to remember reading that maybe the string spacing by default isn't the same as on a TOM. Could be totally false, but worth looking into if you'd want to get one.

[Larry Mal]

Yeah, the harmonica bridge is great, but it fits on totally different posts than the ABR type bridge that is on an ES-330. There may be some kind of converter, but I doubt it.

Usually, people think that the harmonica bridge is bad (it's very good) and they convert away from the harmonica.

You are correct, though, the harmonica bridge was designed to compensate for not so much the flaw of the ABR-1 bridge, but to compensate for Gibson's slop where they sometimes wouldn't get the bridge posts in place accurately enough for the ABR to be able to intonate.

Which might be the case with this ES-330, I guess. Is it an old one?

[Larry Mal]

My girlfriend has an ES-330. It's a beautiful guitar, but the bridge maxes out on the low E to the point where you can't truly intonate it. Is there a TOM style bridge out there that has a wider range of intonation?

Can you show us a picture of the bridge? The reason I ask is that maybe you can flip the saddle or the bridge around? You know how on a TOM bridge there is the slope side and blade side of the saddle? Sometimes you can position the blade to face in one direction or another and gain just the little bit you need that way for proper installation.

[natthu]

...Sometimes you can position the blade to face in one direction or another and gain just the little bit you need that way for proper installation.

I've had to do this before. It works a treat.

[601210]

You are correct, though, the harmonica bridge was designed to compensate for not so much the flaw of the ABR-1 bridge, but to compensate for Gibson's slop where they sometimes wouldn't get the bridge posts in place accurately enough for the ABR to be able to intonate.

Which might be the case with this ES-330, I guess. Is it an old one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJIXdlOg-o this video was the first thing that came to mind when I read the post.

Boggles the mind that Gibson just straight up sold guitars that were fundamentally broken, and it wasn't even one off blems but fairly known issues.

And now these guitars are worth thousands of dollars for being vintage .

[adamrobertt]

You are correct, though, the harmonica bridge was designed to compensate for not so much the flaw of the ABR-1 bridge, but to compensate for Gibson's slop where they sometimes wouldn't get the bridge posts in place accurately enough for the ABR to be able to intonate.

Which might be the case with this ES-330, I guess. Is it an old one?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYJIXdlOg-o this video was the first thing that came to mind when I read the post.

Boggles the mind that Gibson just straight up sold guitars that were fundamentally broken, and it wasn't even one off blems but fairly known issues.

And now these guitars are worth thousands of dollars for being vintage .

Damn. That's way off. lol

I loved watching that video though... I may be about to go down a YouTube rabbit hole...

Anyway, I ended up getting a TonePros AVR2 bridge. They claim it has a wider range of intonation and they seem highly regarded so hopefully it works...