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1974 Balladeer

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rabenson
Posted 2010-10-16 10:25 PM (#2715)
Subject: 1974 Balladeer
Joined:
October 2010
Posts: 4

Location: Birmingham, AL		I just bought a 1974 Ovation Balladeer acoustic guitar and when I was looking at the saddle, it appears that someone made an insert and inside of the insert they put what looks like a brass saddle. Does anyone have some info on what kind of saddle these guitars originally came with and where I could possibly order a replacement?
Looking at the guitar it's obvious that at one time someone had set up a pickup under the bridge because there is still a hole on the back of the guitar where they installed the jack and another hole on the body of the guitar above the neck where there would have been a volume nob installed. Is this type of equipment hard to come across/ install?
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Old Man Arthur
Posted 2010-10-16 11:26 PM (#2716 - in reply to #2715)
Subject: Re: 1974 Balladeer



Joined:
September 2006
Posts: 10777

Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR		Okay... If the model number of the Balladeer is 1612, it had a pick-up.
And if you are referring to the shims under the saddle as having brass in them That is the Pickup.
The hole up by the neck would be the preamp volume control.
If you can find the Preamp, the under-saddle piezo and the jack are standard issue.
It would have either came with a wide saddle pickup...

Or a skinny one...


An undersaddle piezo pickup looks about like this...

(these are not Ovation pickups)

Just some food for thought until more qualified people come along. :cool:
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rabenson
Posted 2010-10-17 11:10 AM (#2717 - in reply to #2715)
Subject: Re: 1974 Balladeer
Joined:
October 2010
Posts: 4

Location: Birmingham, AL		Photobucket

Here's a photo of the bridge- it looks to me like it was a wide bridge that was modified for a spacer and a standard size bridge. Do they sell a replacement saddle?
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rabenson
Posted 2010-10-17 11:11 AM (#2718 - in reply to #2715)
Subject: Re: 1974 Balladeer
Joined:
October 2010
Posts: 4

Location: Birmingham, AL		Heres the link if that doesn't work:

http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/n563/rabenson/bridge.jpg
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Gallerinski
Posted 2010-10-17 11:34 AM (#2719 - in reply to #2715)
Subject: Re: 1974 Balladeer
Joined:
May 2008
Posts: 4996

Location: Phoenix AZ		Never seen one like that. Its definitely not original
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Old Man Arthur
Posted 2010-10-17 3:35 PM (#2720 - in reply to #2715)
Subject: Re: 1974 Balladeer



Joined:
September 2006
Posts: 10777

Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR		That's some cool "home re-manufacturing"! Betcha that brass saddle sounds neat!



But you can find an original wide saddle and the preamp and all that if you would like.
But if it sound nice as is, I would leave it alone.
By the time you hunt-down the saddle and the electronics...
You could just buy a whole new/used Balladeer on eBay.
But that is cool the way that they did that.

(Forget what I said in my previous post, I had no idea what I was talking about)

Oh! And your original question... I believe that Ovation will sell you a new wide saddle, cuz they still use something very similar. Also, they might have a single-knob preamp and a battery box.
Or some of the members here might have some of that stuff that they collected.
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rabenson
Posted 2010-10-17 11:07 PM (#2721 - in reply to #2715)
Subject: Re: 1974 Balladeer
Joined:
October 2010
Posts: 4

Location: Birmingham, AL		Yeah overall the brass sounds pretty good but the guy angled it too heavily down on the bass side and shimmed it way up to compensate and avoid fret buzz.. I pulled it apart tonight and adjusted some of his shims and tried to adjust the saddle inside the spacer, it plays ok but I would like it to be lower.
I really want to get it back to original and at this point I only have 100$ in it so I figure it's not a loss if i have to spend 100 or so on getting it all set up. I guess the other option is for me to use this spacer idea and re-design the saddle with better specs so i can take all the shims out and have some better action.
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