Stop bar vs trapeze on semi hollow 335 alikes.

Rowby1

So my next guitar is going to be a 335 alike with P90s. I might end up buying something with ‘buckers and switching them to a pair of Oil City Mighty 90s or similar. I’m a few months away from having the budget at the mo but I’ve noticed a couple of likely candidates with trapeze tail pieces rather than stop bars.

My question is, what difference does it make? 

Ossyrocks

I have a ‘69 335 with a trapeze. Others will tell you it makes no difference in feel, but in my experience it does. When bending strings on my guitar I need the string to traverse the fretboard by a greater distance to achieve the desired bend/note than I would experience on a guitar with a stoptail. I believe this is due to the greater string length between the anchor points. This makes for a stiffer feeling guitar to play. I debated having a stoptail fitted, but my guitar is in such amazing original condition that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My solution was to drop the string gauge by 0.5. Ie, I normally use D’Addario 10’s, but on this guitar I use 9.5’s. Problem solved.

ICBM

Rowby1 said:

My question is, what difference does it make? 

He used a Rickenbacker 330 on that.

Ossyrocks said:

I have a ‘69 335 with a trapeze. Others will tell you it makes no difference in feel, but in my experience it does. When bending strings on my guitar I need the string to traverse the fretboard by a greater distance to achieve the desired bend/note than I would experience on a guitar with a stoptail. I believe this is due to the greater string length between the anchor points. This makes for a stiffer feeling guitar to play. I debated having a stoptail fitted, but my guitar is in such amazing original condition that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My solution was to drop the string gauge by 0.5. Ie, I normally use D’Addario 10’s, but on this guitar I use 9.5’s. Problem solved.

Being more serious... that’s exactly correct that the longer string length means you have to push the string further for a given bend - but it’s odd how we perceive the result differently, I find that makes the guitar feel *looser*, not stiffer, and I prefer to go up a gauge to give the same feel as one with a stopbar.

It also gives slightly less sustain and a twangier sound, in my opinion - more of an attack spike and a quicker initial drop, followed by a softer and less focused decay.

Lodious

ICBM said:

Rowby1 said:

My question is, what difference does it make? 

He used a Rickenbacker 330 on that.

Ossyrocks said:

I have a ‘69 335 with a trapeze. Others will tell you it makes no difference in feel, but in my experience it does. When bending strings on my guitar I need the string to traverse the fretboard by a greater distance to achieve the desired bend/note than I would experience on a guitar with a stoptail. I believe this is due to the greater string length between the anchor points. This makes for a stiffer feeling guitar to play. I debated having a stoptail fitted, but my guitar is in such amazing original condition that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My solution was to drop the string gauge by 0.5. Ie, I normally use D’Addario 10’s, but on this guitar I use 9.5’s. Problem solved.

Being more serious... that’s exactly correct that the longer string length means you have to push the string further for a given bend - but it’s odd how we perceive the result differently, I find that makes the guitar feel *looser*, not stiffer, and I prefer to go up a gauge to give the same feel as one with a stopbar.

It also gives slightly less sustain and a twangier sound, in my opinion - more of an attack spike and a quicker initial drop, followed by a softer and less focused decay.

That would be my perception too, trapeze would make it feel looser, not stiffer. 

ICBM

Lodious said:

That would be my perception too, trapeze would make it feel looser, not stiffer. 

I’ve come across the same difference in perception with other similar things too - eg the difference between a floating vibrato bridge and one that’s locked down - I don’t think one is right or wrong, it’s just a different way of feeling it. To me a guitar is ‘stiff’ if a small movement produces a fast pitch rise, because the string feels literally stiffer to my fingers, but other people find that makes it feel easier to bend to a note so they think of it as less stiff.

Rowby1

Okay, that’s what I was guessing having never played a trapeze tail. 

Thanks folks!

Stratavarious

P90s and a trapeze... a classic combo. 

 I can’t honestly feel any practical difference tension wise with a stop tail gibson but the trapeze seems to add some airiness to the tones of both my ‘63 Casino and similar vintage ES345.  

I’d certainly not base a trying/buying decision on it.

randella

I'm currently looking after an early 70's 335 with a trapeze - I think, going with the flow, that there's more looseness to it.  Nothing to add there.  My modern Ibanez AS-153 feels stiffer, in line with a couple of other modern 335 Dots I've briefly played.

As for sustain and other ways in which the tone is affected, it'd be hard to tell without finding another 335 with 48 year old wood and pickups that had a stop tailpiece.  It has a nice, mellow, woody sound - but is that the old pickups?  Dunno.

Best thing to do would be to find two similar models with the different tailpieces and see what you thought yourself.  For me it's like small differences in neck dimensions; it's nowhere near enough to sway me one way or the other if I really got on with the guitar otherwise.

Also I must admit I like the look of the trapeze.

Rowby1

If you’ve seen my NGD post you’ll know my “few months away from having the budget” has turned into “now having a credit agreement”  

Anyway, said 335 alike with P90s has turned out to be an Eastman T486B with a Bigsby. It’s currently got a set of 11s on it. All my other guitars are on 10s but......although the Eastman feels a tiny bit “tighter” with the 11s it’s not that much different to my other guitars that I’d want to change it to 10s. I suspect the string length is probably not too dissimilar to having a trapeze tail so the effect we’ve discussed is definitely there.