OffsetGuitars.com

Hi everybody,

has anybody used a Staytrem bridge in combination with a Swope Guitars "The Descendant" vibrato yet?

I am in the process of building a Jazzmaster and thinking of buying "The Descendant" from Swope Guitars.

I know Chris Swope has used "The Descendant" with Staytrem bridges, but since the neck pocket of the body I got from Guitarbuild.co.uk is not so deep, the break angle will already be increased.

I am a bit worried I would not benefit from the steeper break angle "The Descendant" provides when using it with a Staytrem bridge, because I think there is a chance of the strings touching the lip of the Staytrem bridge due to the steeper break angle.

Of course this wouldn't be a problem with a Mastery bridge, but I would really prefer to use the Staytrem I already got.

I hope you guys can help.

Cheers
Peter

Why would there be a difference Staytrem vs. Mastery with respect to break angle?

If the bridge is going to sit high though I think Mastery is the safer bet. My lipstick JM has an shallow and angled neck pocket that forces the bridge high. Can’t see this particular setup working that well with a rocking bridge.

As far as the Descendant goes, I want one and will eventually get one.

If your body is already built such that the break angle will be generous, why not save a whole bunch of money and put an AVRI vibrato on there? Buying a $175 Mastery to solve the issue of the overly-steep break angle caused by your $175 break-angle-increasing bridge seems silly compared to using your staytrem with a regular vibrato.

The Descendant was designed to solve an issue of break angle being too shallow. If your guitar doesn't have that issue, and in fact could suffer from too great a break angle with it, it sounds like it's not the right piece of equipment for your guitar.

mbene085 wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 06, 2020 6:34 pm

If your body is already built such that the break angle will be generous, why not save a whole bunch of money and put an AVRI vibrato on there? Buying a $175 Mastery to solve the issue of the overly-steep break angle caused by your $175 break-angle-increasing bridge seems silly compared to using your staytrem with a regular vibrato.

The Descendant was designed to solve an issue of break angle being too shallow. If your guitar doesn't have that issue, and in fact could suffer from too great a break angle with it, it sounds like it's not the right piece of equipment for your guitar.

Thanks, that's exactly what I thought.

pretty sure there’s a guitar w/ staytrem+descendant on the swope IG account? that looks like a staytrem bridge to me

Yeah he uses Staytrem

The descendent really does look like a sweet piece of hardware. It is definitely meant to remedy issues with low break angle at the bridge, but I have a feeling it would still work well even on an angled pocket guitar.

I think the descendent vibrato includes different size "shims" to achieve different levels of break angle over the bridge, so it's definitely possible that you could set it up with the lowest shim and have and acceptable break angle even with your angled pocket.

Note that these shims go in the vibrato to bring the ball end of the string lower into the cavity - not to be confused with neck shims!

You can choose one or two trem shims (not none) to set how deep the string fixation point is ...
https://youtu.be/vrVmVtSPdPo?t=332

FYI the other vids ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCQzwCn6SzM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55G5VC59EOs