Floyd Rose

kcirick · #1 April 20th, 2007

I'm trying to decide if I want to have a Floyd Rose System on my next purchase or not. I've never used it before, and I heard re-stringing guitar with Floyd Rose is just pain.

I don't know if I will ever need to have one, which brings me to this question: When and where do they use it? What are examples where this is useful?

The guitar I'm thinking about now is Schecter Damien series, and I don't know if I should get one with or without Floyd Rose.

P.S. I posted here before about getting a new guitar, where I initially wanted an ESP MH-50. I told myself that if I'm getting a new guitar, it might as well be worth it, so I'm going for a step higher.

allthumbs · #2 April 20th, 2007

Floyds are the shredder and wheedlie guitarists choice of whammy bar. They let you do extreme dives. Floyds can be a pain to change strings on. There is a vid in the tech forum on how to do it. They can also be difficult to keep in tune. All floyds are not created equal. Do research to make sure your getting a good quality one. You need to know when, where and how to use a floyd so I would consider it a high intermediate players choice. You can always block it til you have learned enough to take advantage of it though.

Stratrat · #3 April 20th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by kcirick

...I don't know if I will ever need to have one, which brings me to this question: When and where do they use it? What are examples where this is useful?

What kind of music do you play, or what kind are you planning to learn? AT hit the classic example of whammy users - the wheedlydeedly shredder stuff. If you're into that kind of music and are considering learning it, the trem bar will come in handy. If that's not your cup of tea, you'll probably find the Floyd Rose to be more of a drawback than a benefit. As far as examples - about the only shred-type stuff I ever listen to is Satriani, and he uses the trem in some of his stuff. Other than that, listen to Van Halen - Eddie was a huge whammy user, you can find divebombs, reverse divebombs and trem stuff in a lot of his songs. It was also used in surf music, along with a lot of vibrato.

eddiez152 · #4 April 21st, 2007

Hold off on the Floyd Rose for now. There is a new modified Floyd Rose coming, but its in testing stage and confidential.
Its what users always wanted, a locking system with float.
eddiez

Dewy · #5 April 21st, 2007

I never had any complaints about changing guitar strings on my floyd... it was a "little" more difficult, but that wasn't its major drawback.

My biggest issues were the tendency to go outta tune when a string broke, and tremendous difficulty in getting the intonations set correctly. Most are easy to make slight adjustments to, but Floyd's your constantly removing the string, adjusting, replacing the string, the testing...

also I like to lay my hand on the bridge for a muting technique, and stock floyd's will "pitch up" with pressure on the bridge... so that was an additional mod I had to make on it... gluing pencil erasers on the bottom of it to keep it in place with pressure on the bridge.

If I made a suggestion to a beginner about a floyd it would be not to have one on their beginning or primary guitar. String Thru the body is much stabler and better for sustain. Get a floyd for tricks later when you "have" to have one.

Stratrat · #6 April 21st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dewy

....also I like to lay my hand on the bridge for a muting technique, and stock floyd's will "pitch up" with pressure on the bridge... so that was an additional mod I had to make on it... gluing pencil erasers on the bottom of it to keep it in place with pressure on the bridge...

I have a similar problem with the trem on my Strat - have to be real careful when palm muting at the bridge because pressure will push the pitch flat, and it's very noticeable. The only time I ever actually use it is when I'm noodling with some VH-type licks, which is very seldom. If I had it to do over again I would have bought a hardtail model, especially if it was going to be my only and/or main guitar. The only reason I haven't blocked it yet is that I don't play the Strat that much, so it's not a huge issue. If I ever go back to it as my main guitar, the trem will definitely be getting blocked.

kcirick · #7 April 21st, 2007

Thank you all for your input.

I think all of the comments posted here tells me that Floyd is only for people who know what it is for and how to use it, so it wouldn't apply to me.

eddiez152 · #8 April 21st, 2007

Dewy,

The new setup actually will keep every string in tune even when one is broken.
This is a major innovation.

JessThrasher · #9 April 21st, 2007

My Ibanez Edge III bridge is alrready a pain in the rear to change strings on. Thats why you see all the floyd rose "abusers" like Herman Li, Joe Satrian, STeve Vai, Dimebag Darrel, Synyster Gates etc like to keep several guitars at hand. If they snap a string "divebombing" or "whammysquealing", they grab another axe like nothing happened!

Am i correct?

coldethyl · #10 April 21st, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermanli_ibanezshredder

My Ibanez Edge III bridge is alrready a pain in the rear to change strings on. Thats why you see all the floyd rose "abusers" like Herman Li, Joe Satrian, STeve Vai, Dimebag Darrel, Synyster Gates etc like to keep several guitars at hand. If they snap a string "divebombing" or "whammysquealing", they grab another axe like nothing happened!

Am i correct?

Guitarists such as the one's you mentioned Jessica often have back ups not only in case of accidents, but also for other reasons such as having other guitars that are tuned differently or for a song that requires the use of another guitar for tone, etc. One guitar may be set up for slide, so that particular guitar would have a higher action etc than perhaps another guitar that would be normally used. Some guitars may also have different gauge strings on for a variety of reasons etc.

PurplePeopleEaters · #11 April 22nd, 2007

Almost all guitar players play with a backup and the ones that don't are putting their gig at risk. It doesn't have to do with the Floyd rose. As Coldethyl mentioned they use different guitars for different tunings and getting different sounds on songs.

Stratrat · #12 April 22nd, 2007

One example would be Keith Richards - he plays "Brown Sugar" in an open tuning (Open E?), while other songs are standard tuning. It would be a real pain to have to tune to open E onstage between songs - much easier to grab another guitar that's already in that tuning, then switch back as needed.

agent0064life · #13 April 27th, 2007

There's this Ibanez with a maple top for like 450 and it has a floyd rose. Im in the same boat.... not sure whether to go out and get it because I've never ownd a floyd before Saw a video of it on youtue and LOVED the tone and the looks are unbeatable

allthumbs · #14 April 27th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by agent0064life

There's this Ibanez with a maple top for like 450 and it has a floyd rose. Im in the same boat.... not sure whether to go out and get it because I've never ownd a floyd before Saw a video of it on youtue and LOVED the tone and the looks are unbeatable

Don't forget that you can choose to block the floyd to take it out of the equation.

JessThrasher · #15 April 28th, 2007

Ibanez never puts floyd rose bridges on their axes. The closest you can get is either their own ZR (only on S series) or Edge pro II (on most prestige series).