I'm sure this has been asked before.

[erochelle77]

I looked though, and couldn't find it exactly.

When measuring on where to place your bridge, where exactly do you measure too. I know that, for example, a 34 scale is 34" from nut to saddle. Now, I read somewhere once that when measuring this, you want the saddles as far forward on the bridge as they can go. This just doesn't seem right to me. I would think you would want the adjustment on them centered, as to allow maximum travel between forward and backward.

So, where should the saddles be?

[PaleMelanesian]

I looked, too. Couldn't find it. What I remember is that nobody had ever needed to adjust shorter than the scale length. The highest string (G) was the shortest, but never less than the scale length. Therefore, you can put it all the way forward and leave more adjustment room in the other direction.

I seem to remember all the usual suspects and experts were there, so it was pretty much unanimous.

[erochelle77]

That makes sense.

[PaleMelanesian]

I believe it's because the intonation adjust is compensating for the stretch when you fret a note - which will always make the note sharp. Therefore, you always need to lengthen the string, never shorten it.

[eleonn]

The reason is that you don't need to adjust the saddle forward cause in that way your scale wouldn't be 34" (or 35" or whatever). In perfect conditions all the string should be fixed at 34" exactly but nothing is perfect in this world so you have to move some saddles back in the bridge to compensate for strings thinkness and tension. Thats why the scale must be measure from the nut (the fret-looking side) to the saddle all the way forward.

The guy I used to take my bass for setup work told me once that he got some basses that couldn't had a good intonation work because the E saddle was touching the brigde already. That may happen if you measure the scale at the mid point of the saddles way.