break angle

i know how string break angle affects an acoustic stringed instrument (sort of), but not an electric. it seems that since an electric has the vibration of strings picked up by "pickups", string angle would have the opposite effect than would be found on an acoustic.

steeper angle means more vibration into body, less back into strings (right?). this means more sustain for acoustic, less for electric (right?)

anyone know?

Without defining 'vibration' and 'sustain' as you used the terms, lets just say the situation is far more complex than that. Just as the tone woods affect the sound of an instrument, the way the strings are attached at each end also affects the tone in one way or another (not always a significant way necessarily). The topic has far ranging consequences like how high or low to set a stop tailpiece on guitars equipped with tune-o-matic bridges (come on, guys, even some of us here have G&bs%ns too, it's not really a curse word), the changes that you see when shimming a tele neck to get the saddles up higher, whether or not to string a top-loader as opposed to a string-through-the body, and even whether you wind a million turns around the tuning pegs to bring down the angle behind the nut.

And as far as being an electric, if the body affects the way the string vibrates, then that's what the pickup is going to pick up.

While this will be a gross overexaggeration/oversimplification, a steeper break angle will yield more sustain, to a degree, than a shallower break angle. This is because the steeper angle will be a more effective anchor point for the bridge-end of the string. If the angle is shallower, it is more likely for vibrations to "sneak" past the bridge and be lost to the system when the string settles down enough to not leave the bridge.

ok. thanks.

A steeper break angle makes the strings feel a little 'tighter' in my experience.

Gibson say it should always be screwed down tight but I used to have an archtop which refused to inotate until I reduced the break angle a little. In fact just that minor adjustment changed to whole feel of the guitar.