Best Guitar Nut & Saddle Materials & How To Choose

In this article, I’m going to show you how to select the perfect guitar nut and saddle material for each guitar you build or work on.

At first glance, it might not seem like the nut and saddle would make much of a difference, but they actually play a critical role in connecting the strings to the guitar.

Because of that,

Every tiny detail of the nut and saddle—including the material they’re made from—is vitally important.

The wrong nut and saddle material can leave your guitar with the following:

• Durability issues
• Unbalanced tone
• Aesthetic mismatch
• Uneven amplified sound

But just like choosing woods for a guitar top or back, no “best material” works in all cases.

So, how do you know what nut and saddle material is the best for each guitar?

I’m glad you asked, because that’s exactly what I’ll be showing in in this article today!

Many times, the quantum leap from good to great is not the result of one large change. It’s the sum of many small, seemingly insignificant adjustments that add up to something extraordinary.

The nut and saddle material is one of those small but impactful refinements that we can use to enhance the tone of our guitars.

Each type of guitar nut and saddle material has a built-in tonal “EQ preset.” (It’s kind of like using the EQ on your guitar amp to roll off a little treble.)

You can change the guitar nut material to make a subtle EQ adjustment for a more balanced and beautiful acoustic tone.

It reminds me of my college days when I studied with the legendary audio engineer Bill Porter, who recorded artists such as Roy Orbison, Elvis, Chet Atkins, Louis Armstrong, and many others.

One day in the studio, Bill explained to me that each microphone was like a color on an artist’s palette.

He said that as audio engineers, it was our job to listen closely to the singer’s voice and carefully choose a microphone that would bring out the best of that voice and bring balance to its weaker parts.

This required us to cultivate and develop our listening skills so that we could perfectly match the mic with the voice we were recording.

With the right mic, we could subtly apply a touch of “color,” or EQ, to get the best sound possible on the recording.

As luthiers, we have essentially the same job.

In our case, we’re matching the right materials to the guitar’s voice—to balance, enhance, and bring out its absolute best.

Before discussing how to choose the best material for our guitar nut and saddle, we must build a simple framework to help us understand each material and how it will affect our guitars.

I consider four main criteria when choosing the nut and saddle material for each guitar I build:

1 – Tone

The tone of each component of the guitar system, no matter how small or subtle, adds its unique sonic fingerprint to the final voice of the instrument. Because of this, I choose the material for the nut and saddle based on the tonal qualities it will add to the “recipe” of each specific guitar.

2 – Durability

Some materials might have a great tone and aesthetic, but could be a poor choice simply because they may wear out too fast for a given application. A good example is using Ebony for a guitar nut. On an archtop guitar, this can look nice and have a great warm tone, especially for flat-wound strings and a darker tone.

However, if round-wound strings are used, the Ebony will wear much faster than other materials from the restringing and tuning processes.

3 – Aesthetics

The nut and saddle are one more place where, as luthiers/artists, we can add subtle touches to enhance our creative vision for the guitar’s look. Stark, clean white of bleached bone or subdued black water buffalo horn can steer the guitar’s look in different directions and harmonize with or clash with the other elements of the guitar design and materials.

4 – Consistency

I’m not sure if consistency is the right word for this quality, but it was the best I could think of. What I mean by it is consistency in material density.

For example, an organic material like cow bone can sometimes have variations in material density, being less dense in one spot than another. In a guitar saddle, this can be problematic because it can make the string(s) in a less dense area sound different than the others.

This is why when using an under-saddle pickup, many luthiers prefer to use artificial materials, like Tusq or Micarta, which have a very even, consistent, and predictable density.

That said, we can also look closely and listen to our bone saddles or other organic materials to ensure consistent density before deciding to use them, which I highly recommend.

First, we will examine the natural materials most often used for nuts and saddles. Because the materials in this section are natural, they can vary in look, density, and tone, making it necessary to do a close visual inspection and tonal test before choosing them for your guitar components.
(We will be discussing that process later in this Article)

First, we will examine the natural materials most often used for nuts and saddles. Because the materials in this section are natural, they can vary in look, density, and tone, making it necessary to do a close visual inspection and tonal test before choosing them for your guitar components.
(We will be discussing that process later in this Article)

Bleached cow bone is the most commonly used natural material for higher-end acoustic guitar nuts and saddles. Its clean white look complements many new guitars with white purfling and appointments.

Changing from cheap plastic to a bone nut and saddle will produce a noticeable improvement in tone. I think of this type of bone as a neutral material. It keeps the tone bright and clear, but also has enough warmth to bring out more of the guitar’s woody sound. It’s a classic for a reason.

Unbleached bone is similar to bleached bone but has an ever-so-slightly warmer tone. As Fossil Ivory has gotten more challenging to find, unbleached bone has become my most used material.

It has a very organic look and coloring that fits the aesthetic of my guitars, and the tone is very close to fossil ivory, kind of in between bleached bone and ivory. It also has good durability and is very affordable.

Fossil walrus or woolly mammoth ivory is my favorite material for guitar nuts and saddles, but with a couple caveats: 1. It must be ethically sourced and adequately documented, and 2. I don’t use the marrow because its softer and less dense. The look of fossil ivory, especially fossil walrus, is unmatched by its creamy white and brown color variations. Because of the way ivory grows, it is much more consistent in density than cow bone.

The tone is almost always a perfect match for my guitars, bringing the perfect amount of brilliance with a smooth and natural warmth and woodiness to the notes.

I love the look of a water buffalo horn guitar nut or saddle. It’s perfect for guitars that need black color to complete the understated aesthetic design. The tone is very dark and rolls off the trebles and even mids quite a bit. If a guitar is overly bright or harsh, this might be the perfect way to bring it back into balance.

I don’t use Ebony much for my flat-top steel string guitars because of its lack of durability, but it is fantastic for an archtop guitar, especially those with flat wound strings, and for a customer who wants that round woody “ping” to the string attack. It fits perfectly with the archtop guitar’s other ebony components and keeps everything aesthetically unified. It even calls to mind a traditional violin-like aesthetic, which I love.

These artificial materials are more consistent in density and offer a predictable tone and look. They are also an excellent choice when using under-saddle pickups or when extreme durability is needed.

Plastic one of the worst materials for nuts and saddles. It lacks strength and density and can easily bend, crack, or break. Unfortunately, it’s the most commonly used material because it is cheap and easy to produce for factory-made guitars.

Tusq nut and saddle material is the brightest sounding of any on this list. It comes in black or white and is highly durable. But don’t think of its brilliant tone as a downfall; some guitars need some brightness and clarity, and this is the way to go if that is what you are dealing with. It’s also super consistent in density and takes an excellent polish.

 I only have a little personal experience with Micarta at the time of this writing. I’ve always preferred natural materials, but one thing that got me very interested in this material is that it is made in layers similar to natural ivory.

Taylor Guitars has a great little video about this and the importance of the nut and saddle materials here. (If I use this or do more tests, I’ll update this to reflect that and share my results with you on my blog.)

Above, I listed the most common materials and the materials I consider when choosing materials for my guitars. Still, many other materials, such as MOP, brass, aluminum, etc., are often used for guitar nuts and saddles.

Any material can be assessed using the same criteria we used above and by using the steps below to test and see if they are a good match for the guitar you are working on or building.

Just having the criteria and general material properties that we already discussed in mind will make choosing the best nut material for your guitar much easier.

Still, I like to go a step further and closely inspect and listen to each material candidate using the steps below to ensure a perfect match.

1 – Listen To The Guitar

If you have built the guitar yourself, even without adding strings, by this point, you should have a very intimate understanding of how it sounds from tapping and tuning it during the building process.

You’ll probably already know which tonal direction you want it to go or what “EQ” modifications might be beneficial or detrimental.

If it is a guitar that has already been completed and strung, it’s a great advantage to play it and listen to its qualities.

As you listen, search for imbalances in the tone.

Identify the parts of the tone you want to bring out (or up) and the parts you want to bring down in the mix.

I find it helpful to think in terms of an EQ with three bands,

1. Treble
2. Mid
3. Bass

That helps me organize and analyze what I am hearing more clearly.

2 – Use A Drop test to listen to and select your nut and saddle material

Once you’ve identified the guitar’s issues and strengths, you can listen to different nut and saddle materials to find the one that will balance and enhance the tone you focused on in the previous step.

To do this, I use what I call a “Drop Test.”

Here’s how I do a Drop Test:

1. Find a hard surface, such as a metal table, a metal plate, or a robust workbench.
2. Drop or tap the nut and saddle blanks on the surface and listen closely to the tone of each. Having the blanks all be approximately the same size is more accurate.
3. Consider the EQ analogy we discussed and select the material that will subtly adjust the guitar’s tone to bring out its best possible voice.

Now, you should have a clear winner for which material is perfect for each guitar you build or work on.

NOTE: Luthier’s EDGE Members can watch the replay of our recent Q&A Live Stream where I discussed and demonstrated this process and technique.

With this simple method, you are not just guessing and trusting the latest internet guru or internet trend to find the right nut and saddle material; you are trusting your own ears and, at the same time, building and strengthening your lutherie skills of listening and thinking like a luthier and an artist.