From Tune-o-matic to traditional floating JM bridge

[alexpigment]

Imagine that you go buy a car, and to make it drive optimally you need to take off a wheel and put some piece of wood that you have to make or purchase behind it, then reinstall the wheel again. Then if your car doesn’t drive 100% perfectly, you need to make or buy a different sized piece of wood and repeat the process. I imagine that both owners and dealers would consider this a failure.

Now imagine there’s a guitar like this. You get the idea. Fender is addressing a problem. I don’t know why offset owners are OK with this whole “shimming as part of a normal setup” idea, especially since you aren’t given the tools (the shim itself) with the guitar.

That’s my take anyway.

[alexpigment]

I understand wanting something truly vintage spec, however, the trem being closer to the bridge is actually a huge plus in my opinion, and I personally feel like there are zero downsides to this. Any particular reason you're averse to it?

If it works for you great. The design issue IMO is the same as tension bar Bigsby bridges. That steep string angle behind the TOM (or roller) saddles tends to prevent the components of the bridge from coming back to neutral position (pitch) properly. I prefer a shallow angle and a floating bridge for that reason (but there has to be a slight angle in the neck so the neck pocket should be nice and tidy with a slight tilt or shim).

Understandable. Having said that, I have 3 JMs with the modern trem spacing and they all come back to pitch perfectly with extreme trem use, so I’m not sure what happened in your experience.

[mschafft]

Understandable. Having said that, I have 3 JMs with the modern trem spacing and they all come back to pitch perfectly with extreme trem use, so I’m not sure what happened in your experience.

Interesting. With floating trem or Adjustomatic?

[Danley]

Imagine that you go buy a car, and to make it drive optimally you need to take off a wheel and put some piece of wood that you have to make or purchase behind it, then reinstall the wheel again. Then if your car doesn’t drive 100% perfectly, you need to make or buy a different sized piece of wood and repeat the process. I imagine that both owners and dealers would consider this a failure.

Now imagine there’s a guitar like this. You get the idea. Fender is addressing a problem. I don’t know why offset owners are OK with this whole “shimming as part of a normal setup” idea, especially since you aren’t given the tools (the shim itself) with the guitar.

That’s my take anyway.

I thought some vintage necks at least came from the factory with a shim? My MIJ Jaguar doesn’t need a shim - though I will fault Fender for giving it a crappy tailpiece that needed replacement from day one. It seems like various examples of the same model even might or might not need a shim. And a shim might be the go-to solution for some, but as I mentioned sometimes it’s just treating a symptom rather than the problem.

I pretty much don’t expect any guitar to arrive optimally set up to my tastes; that would require guess-work by the manufacturer. A race driver won’t expect optimal results from a car with a factory tune. When I was younger I used to wonder why Martins all played like crap at the store, then someone explained the idea was the owner would get it set up and tweaked to their tastes on purchase. “Oh!”

[alexpigment]

Interesting. With floating trem or Adjustomatic?

My trems are floating, but they've been replaced with either AVRI or MIM trems so that I have the trem lock option when I switch to alternate tunings. I replaced all the Adjust-O-Matic bridges with Staytrems, however that was more to get the height of the bridge almost down to the pickguard for a better feel. But I did have the AOM on one of them for a good 6 months with no tuning issues. So yes, there are a number of factors here - but what I'm saying is that the positioning of the tremolo is not at all responsible for tuning issues in my experience.

Audio proof upon request Seriously, I can dive bomb the hell out of the trem, erratically move the arm up and down, and do just about anything that you think *should* make it go out of tune, but it will always come back to normal pitch.

[alexpigment]

I thought some vintage necks at least came from the factory with a shim? My MIJ Jaguar doesn’t need a shim - though I will fault Fender for giving it a crappy tailpiece that needed replacement from day one. It seems like various examples of the same model even might or might not need a shim. And a shim might be the go-to solution for some, but as I mentioned sometimes it’s just treating a symptom rather than the problem.

I pretty much don’t expect any guitar to arrive optimally set up to my tastes; that would require guess-work by the manufacturer. A race driver won’t expect optimal results from a car with a factory tune. When I was younger I used to wonder why Martins all played like crap at the store, then someone explained the idea was the owner would get it set up and tweaked to their tastes on purchase. “Oh!”

Correct. Vintage JMs/Jags often came with shims. The geometry of the vintage trem positioning is so delicate that any manufacturing variance could result in you needing a shim. Fender is all too aware of this, and they've made changes to accommodate for this in the past 10 years (slightly angled neck pockets, moving the trem forward, or both). The majority of MIM/MIA modern production models have at least one of the two changes in place. I prefer the neck to be straight rather than angled back, so moving the trem forward is - to me - the preferable way to deal with this.

[mschafft]

Thanks for your input. I like the neck angle à la American Original. Do you know if the Classic Vibe Jazzmasters have it too?

[alexpigment]

Thanks for your input. I like the neck angle à la American Original. Do you know if the Classic Vibe Jazzmasters have it too?

I don't know for sure, but I believe the VMs did not have an angled neck pocket, so I would assume that carried over to the Classic Vibes.

[Danley]

Thanks for your input. I like the neck angle à la American Original. Do you know if the Classic Vibe Jazzmasters have it too?

I don't know for sure, but I believe the VMs did not have an angled neck pocket, so I would assume that carried over to the Classic Vibes.

Off-hand 15 min ago I would have thought the VMs had the angle, but now I can find no evidence; could be mistaken though. My particular VM Jazzmaster doesn’t need a shim, bridge is a couple mm off the body with low-Ish action so room to move either way exists. There’s def. enough string angle to keep things tight too but as mentioned, these are Squiers so someone else’s may be completely different.

[alexpigment]

Off-hand 15 min ago I would have thought the VMs had the angle, but now I can find no evidence; could be mistaken though. My particular VM Jazzmaster doesn’t need a shim, bridge is a couple mm off the body with low-Ish action so room to move either way exists. There’s def. enough string angle to keep things tight too but as mentioned, these are Squiers so someone else’s may be completely different.

Honestly, I'll take your experience and word regarding the VMs. I've only played them in a store environment - never owned one. I recall reading that it doesn't have an angled neck pocket, but I could be very wrong.

Having said that, I figure the combo of straight neck pocket, vintage trem location, and a fairly entry level price probably has attributed to a huge amount of "My new guitar buzzes - Help!" threads over the years. A finicky guitar and a person who is not used to either working on guitars or paying others to do it is a pretty terrible combo

[timtam]

The design issue IMO is the same as tension bar Bigsby bridges. That steep string angle behind the TOM (or roller) saddles tends to prevent the components of the bridge from coming back to neutral position (pitch) properly. I prefer a shallow angle and a floating bridge for that reason (but there has to be a slight angle in the neck so the neck pocket should be nice and tidy with a slight tilt or shim).

That's a interesting notion that floating bridges on 'modern' (nearer) trem placement would be more subject to the problem of not returning to neutral after trem use. The greater difference in string break angles - front and back - with a nearer trem would indeed create a resultant force tending to push the bridge more forward than centralizing it. On the other hand the greater string downforce on the saddles from the sharper break angle to the trem gives the strings greater grip (more friction) on the saddles, making string slide - which leads to the bridge not returning to neutral - less likely. But all things considered it does seem that a non-floating bridge begins to make more sense when the trem is closer (but a roller TOM/AOM makes most sense, as the strings need to slide on a non-rocking bridge). Fender has tended to pair (non-floating) adjustomatics with the nearer trems (except for example on the Player series JM).