This is my Ibanez AK95 Artcore series Electric Guitar
Yes it has a home made saddle, a piece of hard, Western Australian Jarrah, and no I don't think it changes the sound, not that i can tell anyway, I just wanted a different radius, although I now have the original one back on. I had put heavier gauge strings on and was getting some fret buzz, a slightly tighter radius fixed this. I'm now back to lighter strings, so back with the original saddle.
I've added a piezoelectric pickup that gets mixed with the sound of the magnetic pickups through a modified distortion pedal, in fact it no longer distorts at all. I'm able to get some really nice sounds, it adds a nice sharp attack to it, not quite like a straight acoustic, but very nice.
I've just started using my guitar strap, which is a good idea even if you play seated as I do.
The strap holds the guitar neck in a good position, so you don't have to hold as well finger the chords. This has meant relocating my little clip to the scratch guard screw, I run the cable under the scratch plate, so far so good. will put up a picture soon.
I have a plastic clip made from a milk bottle on the strap button to hold the inline RCA plug. I use low capacitance cable for both types of pickup which is important if you want to keep your high frequencies in tact.
This is the modified pedal, quite a few mods really, better frequency responce no clipping diodes in fact I can't remember all of the changes. Basically you have tone, level and on and off for the piezo via the foot switch.
Being a Linux user and a bit of a "Muso" means hunting out the best tools to get some recording done.
Some time ago I found a great program called Ardour. http://ardour.org/
If your Linux based and want to do some multi-track work check it out. By using a program called "Festige" and "Wine" you can even run some Windows VST plugins, which is really handy. I find though that the plugins available in Linux are all that I need, a good re-verb and good Eq is all I really need. I just record guitar and vocal live.
Latest update:
If your a windows user try out "Podium Free" available at http://www.zynewave.com
Most of the windows "DAWS" seem to work quite well under "WINE" and Linux which could be another option.
John
