What is a floating tremolo?

ragser · #1 December 3rd, 2007

I came by this comment on justinguitar:

"DON'T BUY AN ELECTRIC WITH A FLOATING TREMELO WHEN YOU START OUT.

They are a total pain in the butt, very hard to tune and a real pain to change strings. The cheaper ones go out of tune a lot too. If you spend more, and know why you want one, then fine, but locking tremelos on budget instruments are usually rubbish."

My question is. What is a floating tremolo? I never heard it.

starsailor · #2 December 3rd, 2007

Here you go Ragser everything you need to know about Tremolos etc., quite interesting as well, Floating Tremolo is halfway down the page, hope this helps.

Tremolo arm - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Cheers

Chris

allthumbs · #3 December 3rd, 2007

The most common are Floyd Rose. You can find a lot of info on google about them.

ragser · #4 December 4th, 2007

I think I understand. So by judging by the position of the tremolo arm you can see whether it's a floating tremolo or not? If it's far behind the pickups it's a floating tremolo and if it's near the pickups it's not? My guitar for example, does NOT have a floating tremolo then?

allthumbs · #5 December 4th, 2007

A floating trem lets you lower or raise the pitch of the note by tightening or loosening the strings with the floating trem. A fixed trem only lowers the pitch or loosen the strings.

JessThrasher · #6 December 4th, 2007

That is not really a floating trem at all, its a strat style trem. Most floating trems I know are lisenced under teh "floyd rose" patent. That is definately not a Floyd because it doesn't have the top part of it. Which is essencial for stopping stubborn detuning!

solidwalnut · #7 December 5th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by ragser

I came by this comment on justinguitar:

"DON'T BUY AN ELECTRIC WITH A FLOATING TREMELO WHEN YOU START OUT.

They are a total pain in the butt, very hard to tune and a real pain to change strings. The cheaper ones go out of tune a lot too. If you spend more, and know why you want one, then fine, but locking tremelos on budget instruments are usually rubbish."

My question is. What is a floating tremolo? I never heard it.

The wikipedia entry will tell you what you need to know. But just in case, here's some other input.

First of all, a generic tremelo bridge is one where you have a 'whammy bar' attached to it so you can detune the strings, up or down in pitch. A noticeable trick you've heard is called a 'divebomb' from Eddie Van Halen, who generally made the Floyd Rose popular in the beginning.

You probably already have enough info now to get the difference between a floating trem and a fixed trem.

But let me tell you about the PRS trem, a floating trem. It's similar to other fulcrum/knife edge trems like the Rose. Maybe they're similar.

Imagine the bridge assemblies of the axe sitting and attached on a thin blade of metal called a knife edge so the bridge can rock back and forth. On the tailpiece side of the bridge, four strong springs are attached. The other ends of them are anchored in a hollowed out cavity in the back of the body of the axe. The springs are pulling on the bridge down and in the direction of the neck.

So, tension is needed to pull the bridge so it sits level. When a PRS guitar is strung to tune, the strings provide the balanced tension. The idea is to have a balanced bridge. There's a complete set-up procedure for this, naturally.

So you can take the 'whammy bar' and do divebombs or raise the pitch of each string.

Get the idea?

The deal is that the quality of tremelos are generally bad unless it's a half-way pricey one. And if a person's just starting out, it's not very good for ear training for a guitar to be going out of tune all the time.

Steve

JessThrasher · #8 December 5th, 2007

The detuning is also caused by string friction/binding up.

solidwalnut · #9 December 5th, 2007

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermanli_ibanezshredder

The detuning is also caused by string friction/binding up.

Yeah, top E binds up in the nut. I use top heavy (10's) bottom lite strings and the nut is put on at the factory for 9's. The guy told me I'd have to have the nut openings filed just a little bit more.

JessThrasher · #10 January 25th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by solidwalnut

Yeah, top E binds up in the nut. I use top heavy (10's) bottom lite strings and the nut is put on at the factory for 9's. The guy told me I'd have to have the nut openings filed just a little bit more.

Shouldn't bind if you havethe lock. Do you?

Teddy Madison · #11 January 25th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by ragser

I came by this comment on justinguitar:

"DON'T BUY AN ELECTRIC WITH A FLOATING TREMELO WHEN YOU START OUT.

They are a total pain in the butt, very hard to tune and a real pain to change strings. The cheaper ones go out of tune a lot too. If you spend more, and know why you want one, then fine, but locking tremelos on budget instruments are usually rubbish."

My question is. What is a floating tremolo? I never heard it.

Just to address the original comments:
I have a Jackson DK2 which has a licensed Floyd Rose. Changing strings is not an issue, you just need to do them one at a time and not all at once or the bridge will drop inside the body (not a good situation but recoverable).
I don't have any more tuning issues than on my Ibanez which has a normal trem (sorry, can't think of the term).
I do chase the high E but not a big deal, when I run out of trem screw I unlock the top and get back to zero.
Now to the nasty bits:
Alternate tuning is a PIA, go drop D and the other strings go out of tune. I'm getting a Tremo-no to turn it into a hard tail specifically for this reason.
Sustain suffers because the trem counter acts the string vibration.

So, in a nut shell, if you feel you want to do a lot of whammy stuff you may want a floater but it really comes down to preference.

Off to practice (Metallica - Sanitarium)

Wayne

Skrik · #12 January 25th, 2008

I am growing interested in the TremKing system, where the bridge doesn't move at all. The strings are moved across the saddles to detune -- up and down. Because the bridge doesn't move, a broken string or dropping the D won't throw the other strings out of tune, either. Apparently. It all sounds too good to be true.

Anyone have any experience with them? Do they hold their promises?

solidwalnut · #13 January 25th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermanli_ibanezshredder

Shouldn't bind if you havethe lock. Do you?

String lock in the machine head? Yea, I have that, but where it's binding because of the width of the nut slot. Maybe you mean a different kind of lock, but I don't have any others.

JessThrasher · #14 January 25th, 2008

Floyd Rose lock. No filing required when you change string gauges. Its installed basically as a "zero fret". Keeps strings evenly spaced and in tune. But just because no filing is required doesn't mean that "no trouble" is needed. You have to adjust the tension of the springs to your new string gauge (which i messed up doing several times).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Rose

solidwalnut · #15 January 25th, 2008

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermanli_ibanezshredder

Floyd Rose lock. No filing required when you change string gauges. Its installed basically as a "zero fret". Keeps strings evenly spaced and in tune. But just because no filing is required doesn't mean that "no trouble" is needed. You have to adjust the tension of the springs to your new string gauge (which i messed up doing several times).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floyd_Rose

Ahh..thanks for the info. Nut A.K.A "KALWA". No, mine is a PRS-type as they make their own. And that type doesn't use the 'zero fret' type of system. PRS uses a standard nut.