Saw my first "Lashbrooked" guitar the other day. This was a fairly new Martin D-18 that had received the full Dan Lashbrook treatment. I don't know all the details of what this involves, but the obvious changes were severely scalloped nut and saddle---this created individual "posts" of about 1/4" or less for the strings to rest on.

The other obvious mod was the fretboard extension had the frets removed from the 15th fret up to the sound hole and had been thinned to almost nothing.

This was one loud guitar. It was hard to draw any conclusions on tone since the environment was an outdoor jam. Still, the changes were radical, at least appearance wise. I'm heard rave reviews on Dan Lashbrook's repair and set-up work.

Any comments on this approach? What's going on physically with this scalloped approach? Aesthetically, it's fairly unattractive and I can't see how you could or need to do this to a Collings----this definitely requires you to view the guitar as a tool with a specific goal in sight.

tb

I scalloped the fossil ivory saddle/nut on my Collngs Clarence White, and I've scalloped several other of my personal guitars (and switched back and forth a few times). I don't hear much difference at all with bone, but with FWI, you get more bass, more definition, and more "whomp". It was fairly noticeable on the CW, enough so that after I did it I spent much of the next jam playing low G and F notes just to hear the previously quiet bass notes thump out. Of note, though, is that I'm now back to a regular bone saddle on that guitar. I get just about the same bass, but with a more "traditional" sound instead of the clear glassy tone of FWI. I go back and forth every 6 months and that's the fun thing about saddles/nuts- easy to play with.

As to "why" it works, who knows? I suspect because vibrations travel straight down to the bridge, rather than sideways thru the saddle. In other words, the bridge receives E A D G B E vibrations instead of EADGBE vibrations. Along with the scalloping itself, you have to consider the weight loss of scalloping out the FWI saddle- I ran my scallops all the way to the bridge and lost about 20% weight from the saddle. IME with bridge pins, this results in a faster attack and "punchier" sound, and indeed, that's consistient with what I heard when scalloping the saddle.

This also works better with a long saddle and not as well with a short saddle.

Bryan Kimsey
http://www.bryankimsey.com

I've been having fun swapping out bridges on my mando for the same reasons---Brekke vs. Dan Smith Loar repro vs. home-made one piece maple---you gain something and generally lose something with each switch.

With a traditional Loar style bridge you would think you would lose every bit of tonal quality when connecting the saddle to the base via two brass posts. But I prefer that tone over all others.....go figure.

On the other hand, my wife likens the mandolin to "finger nails on a chalkboard" regardless of which bridge I use.