Franken-Tone non rocking Mustang brdige?

[WonderCouncil]

I did a few quick searches and couldn't find any discussion of this, so hopefully I didn't miss it. Has anyone tried one of these? Would be nice if they sold the thimbles separately. Ultimately it's probably not any cheaper then the Kluson tuner bushing trick though, but perhaps it's of interest to someone around here.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Non-Rocking-Chr ... Sw5cNYRNAi

[honeyiscool]

I've tried them. They're a lot like regular Squier and MIM Fender bridges. They might be the same. The cool part is the undersized cups of course. The outside diameter is bigger though IIRC so it's not exactly a reversible mod.

[Mike S]

Isn't the floating/rocking action of the bridge largely what keeps the guitar in tune when you float the trem? I've heard that the bad reputation that Fender Dynamic Vibratos and Floating Tremolos have is largely from people thinking something was wrong with their guitars and locking the bridges down.

[Mad-Mike]

Isn't the floating/rocking action of the bridge largely what keeps the guitar in tune when you float the trem? I've heard that the bad reputation that Fender Dynamic Vibratos and Floating Tremolos have is largely from people thinking something was wrong with their guitars and locking the bridges down.

Yes, it is.

Some people argue about "what about a Bigsby/Vibrola/place-other-pre-bridge-Gibson-esque-tailpiece-here" those work because they don't have the bar travel or pitch change levels a Fender Mustang does. A Fender Mustang, in it's stock form with stock setup, falls just a hair shy of a regular six screw Stratocaster tremolo for dynamic range (and to my ears sounds better). Setup like I do and it has Floyd Rose type characteristics, and maybe, depending on the guitar, a little bit of a Steinberger TransTrem thing going on with some of the strings due to the rocking bridge (ie, I can bend power chords up and down on the E and A string well enough in tune). If you lock that bridge down, unless those saddles are polished so smooth you can see your reflection in the string slot, there will be friction - friction = won't return to pitch = people think it's a shitty vibrato because it won't stay in tune due to the "official solutions".

I think the biggest part of the mythical demons behind these vibrato/bridge setups though is Kurt Cobain - ever since that 1992 Guitar World article where he talked about the Mustang being "cheap, small, inefficient" and called Leo Fender a Dork because of the bridge, 12 year old kids everywhere consider him the foremost authority on the Fender Mustang - even I did for a time, toying with putting Kahlers, Floyd Roses, and other stuff on Mustangs, only to find the Man's own design myself was perfectly capable as a metal instrument. It kind of shows how the cult of personality can really veer a large collective point of view. I still like the guy and his music but I'm not afraid to say he's wrong about the Mustang. Of course he may have just been trying to keep the prices on those from going up, seems a lot of the grunge guys talked shit about their gear and that seems like a logical reason for it. Creating problems where there are none unintentionally.

[honeyiscool]

Isn't the floating/rocking action of the bridge largely what keeps the guitar in tune when you float the trem? I've heard that the bad reputation that Fender Dynamic Vibratos and Floating Tremolos have is largely from people thinking something was wrong with their guitars and locking the bridges down.

You can easily lock the tailpiece using washers and bolts, too, if you don't use the vibrato.

[Danley]

The bridge needs to rock, IMO (or roll... With rollers.) Simple enough to observe how much they rock under trem use to understand why they need to. Even original Tune-O-Matics on Gibson's w/ trems rocked on domed-wheel posts, as opposed to flat/non-rocking on standard bridge guitars.

In my opinion, the bad reputation of the trem systems is attributable to wear (similar to other susceptible setups,) misunderstanding of the setup, and shoddy copies, such as the poor Japanese/Squier trems vs. the in-general sound US-made units.