Mastery bridges and intonation: Does the staytrem win? TEST!

[mackerelmint]

OK, so quite a while ago, I expressed my sincere skepticism, based on geometric concepts rather than experience, that a mastery bridge could intonate acceptably well for me. Andy_tchp gave me one of these: So I gave him one of these: and for some time I was just one of those people in the staytrem camp and had no real interest in a mastery. Over-engineered, cost a heap of money, two saddles no good for intonation on some guitars (especially mine), people still complain of rattling, etc etc. Why bother, right? So a few months back, Larry Mal, ever the mastery bridge cheerleader, argued with me that it is the leopard's tits and I should try one and that he was willing to bet that it intonated just fine. So, without really knowing me, he trusted me enough to lend me one of his mastery bridges. Sent it in the mail. Larry, you are a stand-up guy and I've said it before but I'm flattered you'd take a chance on me like that.

SO WHAT HAPPENED, THEN??

Well, I stuck that sucker on is what I did. And I set it up. And I intonated it. First the low E. Then the A. Then, the moment of truth, I intonated that D string. What happened to the intonation on the A?

IT FUCKING SHIFTED IS WHAT IT FUCKING DID. VINDICATED! I FUCKING WIN THE ARGUMENT. TRA LA LA, NEENER NEENER, ETC. ETC. VICTORY IS MINE.

How about that, I was right. I didn't need firsthand experience after all, because math has that amazing way of telling you the truth.

Yeah, but so what, though. That gloating was as much contractual obligation to do so as much as it was honest delight. The mastery really didn't compromise the intonation much, and I had to go looking for it by playing complex chords above the 15th fret to notice it. I was convinced that it wouldn't be close enough, but if I'm being honest, it was. So, though technically a victory, it doesn't exactly feel like much of a win, because I really liked the goddamn thing. The sympathetic vibrations I got with it were great. I didn't have any rattling screws or things shifting around like some people do. What did happen, though, was that where I didn't have the "string resting on the trem screw" issue with my staytrem bridge, it magically appeared with the mastery. I also had a weird overtone on the low E that I didn't with the staytrem or stock bridges. Once intonated, this crazy, loud harmonic would just sound out behind the bridge on the low E whenever I played it. So I sorta just fucked around with things and moved shit and then moved it back and eventually I got things to where it just sort of went away but everything else was where it wanted to be and was working fine. So that was strange and probably not something most people will encounter, but there it was. Those are the "negatives" such as they were in my experience. Both are eminently addressable.

So I played with it on there for a couple of months, and it was every bit as good as people say. Would I shell out for one in the future? Maybe. If I ever put a pickup behind the bridge on a jaguar, I'm pretty sure I'll get the mastery to play up those sympathetic vibrations. Yes, it's over-engineered and you pay a premium for that, but it still works really really well and sounds magnificent and you get a noticeable boost in sustain that is just really nice to have on these guitars.

I guess that in general, I prefer the staytrem bridge by a small margin, but I'd gladly buy and use a mastery for effect. The staytrem definitely intonates better from guitar to guitar, not that the mastery is unusably off. There's someone on the board who posted a picture of their guitar and their A string intonated way farther back than mine does. A mastery might not be up to the challenge on a guitar like that, but that's the odd one out. I also think the staytrem is more comfortable under my hand, but that's just a matter of preference. They both have their strengths. I wouldn't say one is objectively better than the other.

Larry, thanks for putting up and letting me satisfy my curiosity, and for introducing me to the strengths of this bridge. You didn't have to do that, and you did.

[cbrown]

That was the longest post that I've enjoyed reading from start to finish for a while.

Good overview of pros and cons, thanks

[Larry Mal]

Good review!

Of course I'm not quite the person I was then either, though, since then I got a StayTrem and have come to know how great those bridges are. Frankly, had I bought a StayTrem, I might never have bought the Mastery. But I'm glad I did buy the Mastery, though (I have two of them).

I put the StayTrem, with the plastic collars that keep it fixed in the body, very briefly on the Jazzmaster that the Mastery you've sent back will be on. The first time I put a Mastery on there the guitar "woke up", as it were. It always had a Japanese made bridge on it for 20 years so there was a lot of room for improvement. But that old cliche of "like a blanket coming off" actually means something here... there was never any sustain, and now there was, and the sound all got louder and more beautiful. The high end got a lot more clarity. Prior to that I never really switched out hardware on guitars. Now it's the first thing I do, really... I had the Fender Lead 2 for exactly one day before I took the bridge from that.

But the StayTrem is kind of new to me, and so far, it's a wonderful bridge but like you mention, I didn't hear any huge difference in the sound, though. At least nowhere near what I heard with the Mastery. That's not really bad or anything. It's not like the output of the electric guitar is dependent on that. And I could be wrong about it, anyway. But I probably won't know anyway since the StayTrem will be on my Jaguar and I don't know that guitar very well at all. And as I recall, the Mastery on that guitar didn't take any metaphorical blankets off. Still, if I had to say right now, and I'm still kind of ignorant, I'd think that the Mastery adds sonic character to the guitar and the StayTrem gets out of the way of the sound.

The Mastery is a finicky bridge, although once setup it doesn't drift that I've seen. Still, the StayTrem is literally everything I want a bridge to be. Fixed radius, so no pointless moving parts that can shift and suck away sound as they do. Set it and forget it. I didn't know how good the StayTrem was before I got it- and you offered to send me yours and I should have taken you up on that- but the StayTrem is wonderful. I think I will probably be recommending that bridge to most people over the Mastery, just because it's so simple to use and set up and problem free.

And, if your theory is correct and the Mastery makes the strings lay on the screws on the vibrato unit, that is a big strike against it in my book. I know the strings are on there with my AVRI, and I'll get the Japanese Jazzmaster together later this week with the other Mastery and see if it does the same there. I am starting to think that the Mastery has a pretty low profile compared to the StayTrem.

So, great review! A lot to think about.

But I have one question for you, though: did you notice the tuning was any more or less stable with the StayTrem as opposed to the Mastery? I'll check when I have things together, but John at StayTrem expressed doubt that the guitar would return to pitch after vibrato use should the bridge be locked down (and I know you can't lock yours down yet). But I always felt that the Mastery was wonderful about returning to pitch after use. No idea about the StayTrem yet, but I'll talk about it when I know.

I will say, though, that after all these years, the offset guitar user is very well served by either of these bridges. It used to be that you couldn't find shit except maybe a Mustang bridge once in a while, and those were kind of rare and sucked most of the time anyway. And it seems that Fender can't be bothered to make a bridge that's any good. But who cares because the Mastery and the StayTrem are just fantastic.

[egosheep]

Been waiting for this showdown. Glad to hear that Staytrem r00ls and Mastery drools!

[andy_tchp]

Which string brand/gauge were you using?

Always found mine intonated very very well with .012-.054" GHS Nickel Rollerwound sets.

Still, I took my Mastery bridges off and went back to plain old AVRI stock bridges with some judicious application of Loctite (which my Masterys also required to stop the height adjust screws dropping. They produce/cut their own fasteners specifically for these now which probably solves that issue.)

The Mastery changes the characteristic 'offset sound', and this is to the instrument's detriment IME and to my ears. If I wanted 'more sustain' (I don't) I'd get my much neglected G&L ASAT out of its case and play that. If I needed more top end from my Jaguar/Jazzmaster ( ) I'd be booking into an audiologist and probably quitting amplified music altogether shortly after.

[mackerelmint]

I'd think that the Mastery adds sonic character to the guitar and the StayTrem gets out of the way of the sound.

There it is. That's the thing. That's a beautifully succinct way of putting it.

The Mastery is a finicky bridge, although once setup it doesn't drift that I've seen. Still, the StayTrem is literally everything I want a bridge to be. Fixed radius, so no pointless moving parts that can shift and suck away sound as they do. Set it and forget it. I didn't know how good the StayTrem was before I got it- and you offered to send me yours and I should have taken you up on that- but the StayTrem is wonderful. I think I will probably be recommending that bridge to most people over the Mastery, just because it's so simple to use and set up and problem free.

Yeah, the staytrem is pretty dummy-proof. Just a really graceful approach executed well, which was why I was drawn to that over the mastery, besides the obvious intonation thing.

And, if your theory is correct and the Mastery makes the strings lay on the screws on the vibrato unit, that is a big strike against it in my book. I know the strings are on there with my AVRI, and I'll get the Japanese Jazzmaster together later this week with the other Mastery and see if it does the same there. I am starting to think that the Mastery has a pretty low profile compared to the StayTrem.

I wouldn't say "makes it", but it did where it didn't before with the staytrem, although it was close. I mean, that was just my experience with it. The staytrem gets pretty low profile too, but you can get the mastery lower, because you can lower the saddles themselves if you like. On the other hand, if you like a steep break angle, the back ridge is cut away on the mastery so you have more string clearance back there, but the staytrem doesn't have that feature.

But I have one question for you, though: did you notice the tuning was any more or less stable with the StayTrem as opposed to the Mastery? I'll check when I have things together, but John at StayTrem expressed doubt that the guitar would return to pitch after vibrato use should the bridge be locked down (and I know you can't lock yours down yet). But I always felt that the Mastery was wonderful about returning to pitch after use. No idea about the StayTrem yet, but I'll talk about it when I know.

I didn't notice tuning stability take a hit. I don't dive bomb anything, to be fair, but that nice slick chrome coating on the mastery saddles seems to do the job of getting out the the string's way pretty well.

I will say, though, that after all these years, the offset guitar user is very well served by either of these bridges. It used to be that you couldn't find shit except maybe a Mustang bridge once in a while, and those were kind of rare and sucked most of the time anyway. And it seems that Fender can't be bothered to make a bridge that's any good. But who cares because the Mastery and the StayTrem are just fantastic.

True enough! And maybe something will come of that brass replacement saddle project here on OSG, for yet another option, and one that's more affordable than something that costs north of a hundred bucks.

[Larry Mal]

They produce/cut their own fasteners specifically for these now which probably solves that issue.)

I didn't know that they did that now. That's good, although I guess I have an older version and a newer one, and both seem to work the same. I haven't needed any Loctite, I've actually never used that on anything, although maybe I should have.

The Mastery changes the characteristic 'offset sound', and this is to the instrument's detriment IME and to my ears. If I wanted 'more sustain' (I don't) I'd get my much neglected G&L ASAT out of its case and play that. If I needed more top end from my Jaguar/Jazzmaster ( ) I'd be booking into an audiologist and probably quitting amplified music altogether shortly after.

Hard for me to say what it changed, at least at first. Bear in mind I first put a Mastery on a Japanese made model as part of an overall rebuild, including all the electronics. So I wouldn't say that I had the characteristic offset sound to start with, really.

As far as sustain, I played it for twenty years with it basically having none and in fact because of that my whole style of playing guitar doesn't really involve sustain. I'm no David Gilmour over here. Still, I do play with a lot of open strings and pedal tones on open strings, and the added sustain gives me a lush quality when changing chords in that way. It certainly doesn't hurt the sound of it in any way that it be there.

I must be the only person I know who cares so much about the top end. I want all of it there that I can get. I really want my guitar and pickup to output every part of every note and every harmonic that it can output. I'll take care of any unwanted frequencies later, but I do not want my guitar- the very source of the sound- to be limiting its own dynamic range in any way. I mean it's cool that each guitar has its own inherent way of coloring the sound due to the wood and construction and all that. Still, I want the full range of sound coming through those pickups.

I sure don't want the full range of sound being limited by a bad bridge, or other bad hardware. My thought is that an electric guitar is, first and foremost, an acoustic instrument. And all I want my guitar to do is to let the strings ring out as fully and cleanly as I make them do, and to output the entirety of that string's vibration to the amplifier. I'll treat it from there, but not beforehand. I'd rather adjust the sound with a pedal EQ, or with the tone controls on the amplifier, or with an onboard EQ or really just anywhere else. But if the string is making a sound then I want to have the access to that sound, whether or not I ever use it.

Most bridges that are stock on guitars these days do in fact impede the sound of the guitar. I spend time with each guitar getting the very best acoustic sound I can get. I guess I never really thought about it so much before. But until I hear a lot of stuff that I like with an electric guitar when I play it with no amplification, then I'm not happy. And while there is something to be said for the stock Jazzmaster bridge, which I did use for a couple of decades, once I heard the acoustics of the guitar improve with other bridges there was just no real turning back for me.

Even on a brick that is a Les Paul it's important to me, and on a Jazzmaster, those overtones that make the guitar so unique and wonderful are something I'd hate to jeopardize with the bad bridges that I've had to endure. Your mileage varying and all that... I'm not saying you are wrong, and I respect you for finding the sound you are looking for. I'm just talking about my experience.

[Larry Mal]

I wouldn't say "makes it", but it did where it didn't before with the staytrem, although it was close. I mean, that was just my experience with it. The staytrem gets pretty low profile too, but you can get the mastery lower, because you can lower the saddles themselves if you like. On the other hand, if you like a steep break angle, the back ridge is cut away on the mastery so you have more string clearance back there, but the staytrem doesn't have that feature.

I may when I get the guitars and bridge back- my AVRI Jazzmaster with a Mastery is on loan- try and set the Masterys up where the saddle is higher and I can thus lower the bridge. See if I can get some string clearance that way.

But that's what I'm saying... I don't want to be fucking with some bridge in order to clear a freaking screw. I'd actually rather just play the guitar. Like I say, set it and forget it. That's the goal.

And what do you mean, you weren't dive bombing with your guitar? Weren't you just bragging the other day about your "Hard and Heavy" series of shredding videos that you have on VHS? You said you have them all, the one with the guy from Dokken and all that- George Lynch, I think you said his name was. You even said you had the one with Stu Hamm for your bass needs.

[mackerelmint]

I wouldn't say "makes it", but it did where it didn't before with the staytrem, although it was close. I mean, that was just my experience with it. The staytrem gets pretty low profile too, but you can get the mastery lower, because you can lower the saddles themselves if you like. On the other hand, if you like a steep break angle, the back ridge is cut away on the mastery so you have more string clearance back there, but the staytrem doesn't have that feature.

I may when I get the guitars and bridge back- my AVRI Jazzmaster with a Mastery is on loan- try and set the Masterys up where the saddle is higher and I can thus lower the bridge. See if I can get some string clearance that way.

But that's what I'm saying... I don't want to be fucking with some bridge in order to clear a freaking screw. I'd actually rather just play the guitar. Like I say, set it and forget it. That's the goal.

And what do you mean, you weren't dive bombing with your guitar? Weren't you just bragging the other day about your "Hard and Heavy" series of shredding videos that you have on VHS? You said you have them all, the one with the guy from Dokken and all that- George Lynch, I think you said his name was. You even said you had the one with Stu Hamm for your bass needs.

Nope nope nope. Those were "video magazines" about shitty buttrock in general (and they are magnificent), not about guitars or instruments at all. And I said nothing about Stu Hamm videos. I did watch the Louis Johnson bass video on youtube, though, but I mean come on it's Louis Johnson.

What would be nice, though, is if I did have a cheezy metal guitar with a floyd on it so I could actually do some divebombing for fun. It's hard to do the "only way is dowwwn" part of "last in line" without the dive bomb effect. It just comes up lacking something.

[mackerelmint]

Which string brand/gauge were you using?

Ernie ball or SIT 10-46 sets. My EAD intonate in a shallow V shape, so I have a hard time imagining that another gauge would make much difference. And, of course, I'm of the mind that you should make your guitar work with the strings your hand likes, not that you should make your hands accept the string your guitar likes.

[Larry Mal]

What would be nice, though, is if I did have a cheezy metal guitar with a floyd on it so I could actually do some divebombing for fun. It's hard to do the "only way is dowwwn" part of "last in line" without the dive bomb effect. It just comes up lacking something.

I'd like one too. For a while, I had a Randy Rhodes model something or other that my buddy had stripped thinking he'd refinish it. He never did, and he gave it to me. I thought it would be cool to have for that sound, you know?

And I did want that sound one day! I did a radio promo for a friend of mine and it was a joke, I basically did some kind of Motorhead sounding thing and then I soloed badly all over it. I'm only so good of a soloist as it is, I skipped a lot of them "Harder and Hotter" videos you were recommending, and all I had was my old Japanese made Jazzmaster with the stock bridge. No sustain! No real ability to do any rawk cliches on that even if I wanted to.

It was all good, the idea was that it was a bad solo anyway and by trying to play that kind of solo on a stock Jazzmaster it was just worse. But I would have used my Randy Rhoades guitar with the Floyd Rose if I would have had it. I have no idea where that went. Could I have sold it? Who would have bought that?

[andy_tchp]

They produce/cut their own fasteners specifically for these now which probably solves that issue.)

I didn't know that they did that now. That's good, although I guess I have an older version and a newer one, and both seem to work the same. I haven't needed any Loctite, I've actually never used that on anything, although maybe I should have.

Think they started doing them in 2013. My first bridge was from 2009, the second probably 2010/2011. As a company they seem to be pretty consistently evolving and improving things where they find them necessary.

I must be the only person I know who cares so much about the top end. I want all of it there that I can get.
[...]
Even on a brick that is a Les Paul it's important to me, and on a Jazzmaster, those overtones that make the guitar so unique and wonderful are something I'd hate to jeopardize with the bad bridges that I've had to endure. Your mileage varying and all that... I'm not saying you are wrong, and I respect you for finding the sound you are looking for. I'm just talking about my experience.

Me too. The thing is none of my guitars are deficient in top end, overtones, 'limited' or anything else; I use a huge Silverface Fender amp and not a huge number of effects which helps.

The funny thing is, my experience is that if anything the Mastery felt like it slightly dulled or smoothed out the attack of the note rather than 'adding' anything to the top end, which is pretty much what I meant by 'characteristic sound'. I want to cut through in an ensemble mix without being 'too loud' - that sharp, spiky attack (especially the Jaguar) with a comparatively rapid decay really helps with this. I don't have any experience with the Staytrem to compare.

To each their own, but 'improvement' is entirely subjective in this case. People used these things to create great music for 49 years before any aftermarket bridge was ever available. It's good to have options though

[Larry Mal]

The funny thing is, my experience is that if anything the Mastery felt like it slightly dulled or smoothed out the attack of the note rather than 'adding' anything to the top end, which is pretty much what I meant by 'characteristic sound'. I want to cut through in an ensemble mix without being 'too loud' - that sharp, spiky attack (especially the Jaguar) with a comparatively rapid decay really helps with this. I don't have any experience with the Staytrem to compare.

To each their own, but 'improvement' is entirely subjective in this case. People used these things to create great music for 49 years before any aftermarket bridge was ever available. It's good to have options though

Right. Well, to be honest, I spent twenty years with the stock Japanese made bridge, and putting the Mastery on (along with everything else) made a huge improvement there. So much so, that when I got an AVRI, I knew I wanted a Mastery on it immediately, but what I ended up with was a Mustang bridge. That bridge sucked horribly, I dicked around with it for a couple of years and hated what it did to my guitar. I told myself that a Mustang bridge was all you needed, but I never could like the guitar compared to the Japanese made one I had with the Mastery.

But I never really gave the AVRI bridge a chance, though. I pretty much went from Mustang to Mastery on that. I'd had it with the Jazzmaster bridge from the earlier years, I really don't even know if the AVRI bridge might have pleased me in some way.

[andy_tchp]

FWIW, I hated my stock (Fender Japan) offset bridge at the time too, and although it sounded good I also didn't get along too well with the non-genuine (gappy) Mustang bridge that replaced it. The string skipping was actually worse, but I didn't realise at the time this was also caused by Japan tremolo causing the strings to run at an angle from the saddle to the tailpiece.

Both of those are part of the reason I bought my first MB in '09.

I actually didn't come round to the stock bridge on my AVRI Jag until I'd replaced it with a genuine (gapless) Fender Mustang bridge, but realised something had been 'lost' in the sound. Also the fixed string spacing was a PITA as the 'E's were too close to the fretboard edge.

[brucer]

That was the longest post that I've enjoyed reading from start to finish for a while.

Good overview of pros and cons, thanks

+1 to this. AND, I'm vindicated in my choice of the StayTrem over the Mastery! (tra la la, I didn't JUST go cheap on the upgrade for my JMJM!) AND, it's DUMMY proof, and I'm a ... wait a minute, I'll stop there.