Floyd Rose Decline

not_the_dj

OilCityPickups said:

not_the_dj said:

I use an EVH Wolfgang as my main gigging guitar and love having the stability of a Floyd Rose.

We're a rock covers band so it gets used a lot on "Rebel Yell" and we do a version of "Hungry Like the Wolf" with a load of dive bombs in the middle breakdown section. 

I love ‘em. 

Of course they are essential for doing covers of 80s stuff ... nothing else will cut it.

I may not have fully read the OP!

TINMAN82

As per my whammy thread in the FX section, I have a Boss PS-6 incoming and when hooked to an expression pedal I’m hoping it’ll allow me to blag a few songs reliant on extreme bends. If it doesn’t I may just concede that it’s not my style.

Danny1969

Oddly enough EVH who basically invented the dive bomb and most of the wammy tricks used a basic Strat trem at first and even when he went the locking route the trem went down only so a lot of of the problems with floating trem's weren't an iss

Like most people in the late eighties hair metal scene I had a Floyd and over used it. These days I like a good Strat type trem and a roller nut. After watching Jeff Beck abuse the shit out his trem and hear it returning perfectly in tune I couldn't see the point of a Floyd 

Tenebrous

p90fool said:

Because without huge levels of gain the guitar sounds like a broken banjo.

Is it bad that I think pos 2/4 on an RG sound better than normal strats a lot of the time?

Winny_Pooh

Guthrie IIRC uses a modern 510 gotoh with no locking nut.... if it's good enough for him. 

p90fool

Tenebrous said:

p90fool said:

Because without huge levels of gain the guitar sounds like a broken banjo.

Is it bad that I think pos 2/4 on an RG sound better than normal strats a lot of the time?

Not at all, my Strat has a 3-way switch anyway, to avoid accidentally hitting the cheesiness. 

Grangousier

Floyd Rose DeCline is one of the most undersung guitarists to come out of the boondocks of Louisiana. His pappy, Gomer DeCline, was a fine banjo player before he died of something moist. 

jeztone2

Back in 89-93 I was in a band that was totally 80’s and totally unfashionable. We had a keyboard player who looked like Nick Rhodes. Our sound was a mash up of Duran Duran, INXS, Billy Idol & Bowie.

I gigged a pair of Ibanez RG560’s back then & to be frank they are still the most reliable instrument I’ve ever played live. As long as you set them up properly. I ended up not using a tuner onstage, because they were so consistent. 

Rocker

stickyfiddle said:

It's because there are about 4 great songs that need a Floyd to do properly and they already got written. 

Four?  I'm surprised that there are as many as that.  Please school me on this by listing those songs.  Thanks.

poopot

It’s because most guitarist worth their salt sware by the mantra D.N.N.I when buying new or used gear these days!...

Wonky

I really love a Floyd.  Nothing else does what it does so well.  Cheap versions aren't worth bothering with as tuning stability and tone suffer and this is often why people think bad of them after trying one of these cheapies without realising there are different makes and qualities.  But get yourself a quality Schaller or Gotoh version and set it up properly and it's no bother at all.

carlos

I set mine to dive only so they're a breeze to change strings. I love to tune using my right hand. Don't do many divebombs at all but I appreciate having a big chunk of metal to rest my hand on. Also the double locking means a cheap nut is as good as an expensive nut. With a non-locking or single-locking trem you need a well cut nut and that's another point of failure. Dive only FR's are super simple to use IMO. 

prlgmnr

I've spent all day trying to work out a decline only vs fully floating kind of a joke and I've got nothing.

stickyfiddle

Rocker said:

stickyfiddle said:

It's because there are about 4 great songs that need a Floyd to do properly and they already got written. 

Four?  I'm surprised that there are as many as that.  Please school me on this by listing those songs.  Thanks.

I had the following in my head:

Beat It (guitar solo)
Walk this Way (Aerosmith & Run DMC)
You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
and there's probably one by RATM though I'm struggling to think of specifics - maybe Bullet in the Head

...and then I got stuck. Maybe something by Metallica? 

thegummy

stickyfiddle said:

Rocker said:

stickyfiddle said:

It's because there are about 4 great songs that need a Floyd to do properly and they already got written. 

Four?  I'm surprised that there are as many as that.  Please school me on this by listing those songs.  Thanks.

I had the following in my head:

Beat It (guitar solo)
Walk this Way (Aerosmith & Run DMC)
You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
and there's probably one by RATM though I'm struggling to think of specifics - maybe Bullet in the Head

...and then I got stuck. 

Eruption?

stickyfiddle

thegummy said:

stickyfiddle said:

Rocker said:

stickyfiddle said:

It's because there are about 4 great songs that need a Floyd to do properly and they already got written. 

Four?  I'm surprised that there are as many as that.  Please school me on this by listing those songs.  Thanks.

I had the following in my head:

Beat It (guitar solo)
Walk this Way (Aerosmith & Run DMC)
You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
and there's probably one by RATM though I'm struggling to think of specifics - maybe Bullet in the Head

...and then I got stuck. 

Eruption?

Not a song, just a bloke widdling :P 

I guess that makes it the ultimate poster-child for locking trems...

clarkefan

stickyfiddle said:

thegummy said:

stickyfiddle said:

Rocker said:

stickyfiddle said:

It's because there are about 4 great songs that need a Floyd to do properly and they already got written. 

Four?  I'm surprised that there are as many as that.  Please school me on this by listing those songs.  Thanks.

I had the following in my head:

Beat It (guitar solo)
Walk this Way (Aerosmith & Run DMC)
You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
and there's probably one by RATM though I'm struggling to think of specifics - maybe Bullet in the Head

...and then I got stuck. 

Eruption?

Not a song, just a bloke widdling :P 

I guess that makes it the ultimate poster-child for locking trems...

Definitely not just, "a bloke widdling"

He didn't use a Floyd obviously on Eruption but a Floyd would have made his life a lot easier on that album had it existed at the time.  Probably why he installed one as soon as it became available and used one for the last 38ish years.

stickyfiddle

clarkefan said:

stickyfiddle said:

thegummy said:

stickyfiddle said:

Rocker said:

stickyfiddle said:

It's because there are about 4 great songs that need a Floyd to do properly and they already got written. 

Four?  I'm surprised that there are as many as that.  Please school me on this by listing those songs.  Thanks.

I had the following in my head:

Beat It (guitar solo)
Walk this Way (Aerosmith & Run DMC)
You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
and there's probably one by RATM though I'm struggling to think of specifics - maybe Bullet in the Head

...and then I got stuck. 

Eruption?

Not a song, just a bloke widdling :P 

I guess that makes it the ultimate poster-child for locking trems...

Definitely not just, "a bloke widdling"

He didn't use a Floyd obviously on Eruption but a Floyd would have made his life a lot easier on that album had it existed at the time.  Probably why he installed one as soon as it became available and used one for the last 38ish years.

I was being (slightly) facetious

I didn't actually realise that wasn't even a floyd in use. So definitely doesn't qualify, song or not!  

breakstuff

Phil X does pretty well without one. 

JDE

Tenebrous said:

p90fool said:

Because without huge levels of gain the guitar sounds like a broken banjo.

Is it bad that I think pos 2/4 on an RG sound better than normal strats a lot of the time?

Not only you. The locking trem does *something* whether or not you like it is preference. If you have heavy strings or flats and put something in the back cavity to stop spring rattle you can get very close to an electric archtop sound. There is something about taking away the resonance of the wood immediately around the bridge that does this. It sounds like a floating bridge guitar because it is. You also get an immediacy which just isn’t present when you have all the pretty overtones of body resonance mixed in. A locking trem guitar (whether you use the trem or not) is brilliant for bebop.