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Ray Ross Bridges

Maybe not in those exact words but you've said it many times.
That's all I need? Frequent round trips to Europe? Any part of Europe in particular? That's sounds like a ridiculous offer designed to never be taken up on. Like Sterling Ball's infamous wide spaced 5 string deal.

Send me one in the mail. I'll try in my 5 string Jazz and then pass it on to the next tester. But we can be pretty sure I won't like it. Hopefully we've learned why in this thread.


I cannot send you one that I have paid for. I can lend you one for you only - I’m not having my bridges going around the forum for everyone to use because I’ve bought them because I need them.

If that offer isn’t good enough for you, here’s another. How about we split the postage?
 
Well all this banter on this subject got me looking at this bridge and said to myself, "aw screw it! lets buy one and try it out!"
Doing a Harley Benton BZ4000 as a fun project bass, should be in a few weeks, got it off of Best Bass Gear with a coupon code for 5% off and free shipping. Well worse case if I don't become a fan of the bridge the bass will look great hung on the wall.... and be out the cost of a bar tab, if bars were open.
So lets keep the banter to lets see how this bridge works out for those that purchase them.
5% discount code ebass
Ray Ross Saddle-Less Bass Bridge - Best Bass Gear
 
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I think you’re getting a bit confused about who you’re talking to here.

I’m not part of Ray Ross, neither getting paid by them, I’m just a fan of the bridge.

It is again insulting to demand in the way you do it that I send you and the whole forum one when I’m really trying to prove a point by levelling the playing field by lending you my own bridge to try.
 
It should really just go to Turnaround. He's the one who will do the serious test.


My goal here is to prove that this bridge has no comfort or playability issues, and it does sound different, and richer, as I have found it to be for me. You doubted those claims so I’m happy to send it to you so you can see for yourself how you feel about it and share your honest opinion on the forum.

If anybody else wants to do a full technical, mechanical, scientific or whatever test, non related to the claims I have personally made, I suggest they contact the manufacturer and arrange something - I personally have zero interest in arguing or proving anything on that front.
 
If anybody else wants to do a full technical, mechanical, scientific or whatever test, non related to the claims I have personally made, I suggest they contact the manufacturer and arrange something - I personally have zero interest in arguing or proving anything on that front.
For my part, it was suggested some time ago that the manufacturer send me a bridge for hands-on evaluation. I'm still open to the suggestion, but I think the maker isn't.
 
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Ok, please help me out here. I’m really trying to understand all the pessimism towards the Ray Ross bridge. I personally have only seen great things from it so I really don’t understand.

Hello. Speaking of my reaction, then assuming that it could be the same for at least any others here, this is why:

Some who experience the maker's hyperbole and at times aggressive behavior find it all to be unpleasant enough to invalidate his product for them.
 
Hello. Speaking of my reaction, then assuming that it could be the same for at least any others here, this is why:

Some who experience the maker's hyperbole and at times aggressive behavior find it all to be unpleasant enough to invalidate his product for them.

Hi and thanks for replying.

I understand if there’s some personal grudge going on - however please I’d appeal to the bridge opposing side not to associate me with that if possible. I have no horse in that race. Just the fact that I happen to like the product, shouldn’t put me on the disliked side - of course if the debate is heated and we throw an offending post at each other every now and again, which happens pretty much always when opinions are that divided, that’s normal, but please don’t add it to any prior accumulated negative feelings.

Again, I’m not “you people”, I’m just a bass player who likes the bridge and wants to try to show its potential benefits to people who haven’t tried it, through healthy debate or in providing one for a test. If I’ve offended someone along the way, I do apologise - just please try to treat me as a forum member and a defender of the actual product.
 
One thing i like about the Ray Ross Bridge is that it is an example of realising what becomes possible when removing the constraints of an acoustic guitar.

The conventional 'saddle, break angle and separate string anchor' design is an ancient acoustic stringed instrument design. Modern electric guitars use it because early electric guitars did, and those early electric guitars copied acoustic guitar bridge design, saddle intonation adjustment was added but they are fundamentally identical.

(In this text i am using 'electric guitar' to also mean electric bass guitar.)

It seems acoustic stringed instrument bridge design is the way it is for these primary reasons:

1. The need to transfer a large amount of vibrational energy from the strings to a parallel soundboard, wedging a piece of material (the saddle) between the two components works well.
2. Soundboards are often not able to support string tension, so the string anchors are often placed at a stronger part of the instrument structure behind the soundboard, doing this also leaves the soundboard less cluttered and so freer to vibrate.
3. A reasonable break angle is needed to stop rattles and improve vibration transfer through the saddle, because the strings freely rest on the saddle top.

Points 1 and 2 are not relevant for an electric guitar, allowing a different type of string termination, which then also makes point 3 irrelevant.

All that is necessary for an electric guitar is harmonic string vibration amplified by pickup. Harmonic string vibration only requires 2 string terminations and a tensioning force.
Some vibrational interaction with the instrument body is still desirable, but this still happens because the string termination is still mounted on the instrument body.

When an acoustic instrument has a soundboard that is more perpendicular to the strings, such as with harps and gopichand ektaras, the strings simply terminate at the soundboard without a saddle.
The 'saddle, break angle and separate string anchor' design is not necessary for all acoustic instruments, it is the result of having a soundboard parallel to the strings.

*******

I am very interested to see more investigation into alternative ways to terminate strings on electric guitars, due to the removal of acoustic guitar constraints. The Atlansia bridge (shown in the image below) and the Ray Ross Bridge are examples of this investigation.

Atlansia-String-Pull-Photo.jpg


I would like to see new designs appear that remove the locking twist from the vibrating length of the string. I think this will be more important for thinner string sets (by this i mean for example .042-.009) because the relative increase in mass and stiffness at the locking twist is larger. I think it will also be more important for shorter scales (for example 25.5") because the locking twist length is a larger proportion of the vibrating length.

This has been suggested, but i think the Ray Ross Bridge design is therefore less suitable for 'electric guitar' (by this i mean Stratocaster etc.) and also less suitable for high electric bass guitar strings such as C and up.

For 4 and 5 string electric bass guitar, the relative increase in mass and stiffness at the locking twist is not so large, so i can understand the design choice of the Ray Ross Bridge that allows it to be simpler and perhaps gain advantage from supporting the string from the ferrule.
The sound samples i have heard suggest to me the advantages of the design outweigh the disadvantage for 4 and 5 string electric bass guitar.

I expect the optimum way to terminate a string on an electric gutar is not the conventional design, as that is so specific to parallel-soundboard acoustic stringed instruments. I expect the freedom created by removing such significant constraints will allow improvement.
 
So just to update everyone - I purchased a bridge and had it shipped straight to @TrustRod

According to the tracking it has been delivered yesterday (not cool of you not replying to my messages to confirm that Trust, since you’ve been online twice since) so I guess if @TrustRod’s word is worth as much as mine, we should be expecting a feedback soon.