You would or would not buy a Floyd Rose or other floating / locking nut tremolo equipped guitar ?

Telejester

ToneControl said:

never liked floyds
was happy with olde strat style, but now leaning towards fixed bridge

with a strat, go hardtail

Exorcist

I like having at least one guitar with a locking trem, I prefer a kahler, but a proper setup floyd is fine. I gigged one for years without a backup guitar, but did get caught out once or twice when a string broke, got handed a telecaster once (with the shortest strap in existence) halfway through a hardcore metal show when I snapped a string, that was fun.

crunchman

FelineGuitars said:

On your one Peter I changed the sustain block to a custom one we get made by an engineer from cold rolled steel

It doubles the mass of the block and pretty much makes the guitar sound less floyded (restoring many of the frequencies that some miss with the regular floyd block)

It's the guitar sounding "floyded" that puts me off more than anything else.  It probably doesn't matter so much with really heavy gain, but for the kind of stuff I play, it seems to affect the tone of the guitar too much.

Add in all the hassle of changing strings, and I wouldn't go near one with a bargepole.

Nunogilberto

I can appreciate the crazy sounds you can make with them, but whenever I play a guitar with a Floyd/floating trem on, it becomes a distraction and it all ends in tears when a string breaks...

Exorcist

To be fair, as long as your replacing a string with the same gauge, its really not a big deal on a floyd, I used to wedge a 9V battery under it to keep it stable while I changed strings, didn't take much longer than on any other guitar really to change a single string. If you change the lot its a bit more of a pain, and if you change gauge its a pain in the neck to readjust everything.

DLM

I like hardtails too, but mainly play fully floating double-locking guitars. So yes, would, and have, three times so far.

As John Suhr says, if you need to be in tune, you need to use a double-locking system. As Jon @FelineGuitars rightly says, it has to be a good one. No point otherwise.

However, I fully understand Scott Henderson, who says he needs to sound good more than he needs to be in tune.

As for me, I need to be able to make elephant noises and pterodactyl screams.

clarkefan

Alnico said:

clarkefan said:

Would and just have First Floyd-equipped guitar for me and I'm enjoying it.  Still at the dive bombing stage but I like working on little expressive stuff.  More to come and that's exciting and fun

The whole "stays in tune no matter what" thing is almost shocking to me, I've never experienced this before.  

I haven't changed strings yet which apparently is a bit of an ordeal, but I'll work it out.  I've already had the floyd in pieces twice and reinstalling it has been fine (though I still can't figure out how to get it fully flush resting on the guitar!).

So yeah, big thumbs up from me

I've just had 2 of these things fitted into my Ibanez Universe 7 string...

Goldo Back Box

https://i.imgur.com/FA85z7D.jpg

It's taken an already great tremolo system (Low Pro 7) into a realm of frankly piss-taking proportions.
When you pull up on the arm you are solely reliant on string tension to pull you back to zero point, the springs are out of the equation here until you approach zero point and they tension back up again.
The strings themselves aren't always enough to do this 100% so you find you're slightly sharp and need to go down on the tremolo arm and back up again to "Find" the ZP.
These Backboxes push back against the block and as you come back down from an up-bend, they physically reset the block to precisely the same position it started in so you have springs working both ways.

It's an investment and these will now be fitted to every tremolo guitar I have, they're that good.

I'm going to demo what I can get away with on the UV 7 string at the next few upcoming Jam sessions.
The UV plays so well due to lots of work carried out be @FelineGuitars recently but the backboxes really do finish off the tremolo vs tuning thing perfectly.

 @clarkefan
I work on expressive use of the tremolo all the time.
I've worked out some great exercises if you're interested?
PM me if you are.......same for anyone really.
If it's really popular then I'll try to do something more accessible and public.

Cheers @Alnico , very generous!   I'm still feeling my way and will be back when I'm more comfortable with the thing

My new guitar is a Wolfgang, you can't pull up so thank you for the recommendations but not an issue for me, and that's fine, I suppose I could set it like I would a Strat trem and have a little upward movement if I wanted but coming from a Gibson-type place I'm in no rush, I'd prefer to maximise the flush connection (as much as possible anyway, it's not possible with these Wolfgangs without surgery) for a while

Somebody mentioned the sound of a floyded guitar.  I suggest disconnecting any tone controls, it made a big difference when I did.

Gizmo

clarkefan said:

My new guitar is a Wolfgang, you can't pull up so thank you for the recommendations but not an issue for me, and that's fine, I suppose I could set it like I would a Strat trem and have a little upward movement if I wanted but coming from a Gibson-type place I'm in no rush, I'd prefer to maximise the flush connection (as much as possible anyway, it's not possible with these Wolfgangs without surgery) for a while

Somebody mentioned the sound of a floyded guitar.  I suggest disconnecting any tone controls, it made a big difference when I did.

Is that a peavey wolfgang with the Ping made gotoh floyd copy on it that looks like this ?



If so id love to hear your feedback on it as a unit as guitar-fetish have some listed as "Heavy duty" floyd roses that i read are made for them by ping and there going for about £80 inc shipping

ewal

No. They tend to be fitted to guitars which have no appeal to me. I use quite a lot of different tunings and need to be able to re-tune quickly so need something simple. I can't think of an influential guitarist (speaking personally) that uses one. I don't have a problem with tuning stability on any of my guitars including those that have other types of vibrato.