I was recently searching around online for a replacement ABR bridge for my Gibson Historic R7 Gold Top to replace the 20 year old, collapsed original Gibson bridge with a rattling retaining wire.
I tried a few different bridges to start with, and originally settled on the Graphtech Resomax Tune o Matic, which I have to admit sounded superb - BUT it just didn't look correct on my beat up old guitar with its shiny chrome finish and over sized width. So the search continued and a company I kept hearing great things about online was Pigtail Music, a small company based in the USA who claim to make bridges which rival the finest examples of late 50's manufacturing having measured and inspected many vintage bridges.... Sounds Perfect - email sent! I was excited to hear back from Pam at Pigtail within just a few minutes confirming they would deliver to the UK and in the very short time I had before leaving to start a 5 week tour with Wishbone Ash. I opted for their slightly aged nickel plated lightweight aluminium wireless APR-1 bridge - other options are the same only polished or zinc with either nickel or gold plating.
As promised the bridge arrived just in time for me to take it along to the first show of our tour where I was reunited with my gold top and our tech did an excellent job of installing and intonating the bridge. The first thing I noticed was how weightless this bridge is, it weights literally nothing and also the build quality of these bridges is just amazing, they are built with such precision, all screws and saddles are rock solid.
Tone wise this has been a huge improvement to an already amazing sounding Les Paul. The guitar now sounds more acoustically resonant, open and airy with less boomy bass, sweet mids and a smooth high end with sustain forever... and no wire rattle!
