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I made a stainless shim to sit under my 6-screw Hipshot, very stable with heavy hauling on the trem and feels totally smooth. Bone nut, flared slots, lube. Bridge screws set with enough room. And bridge & screws in good nick - very clean surfaces & edges, no burrs, pitting or shitty plating (all stainless). So you can't deck it and have the strings go completely loose then have it back in tune like a Floyd, but it takes a good lot of stick. My 2-post Strat only needs the nut lubing fairly regularly. Very easy to live with.
Nice one P90... :-)
And you're right - Andy's a lovely bloke. I just bought a guitar from him...
What if we were to use locking saddles with a conventional strat tremolo.
The tremolo would then function a bit like a non fine tuner Floyd Rose right? But wouldn't require any major modifications to the guitar...
I found these - not very pretty - but sure look interesting.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/STRING-LOCKS-upgrade-to-locking-saddles-for-Strat-style-tremolo-tailpieces/162597475240?ssPageName=STRK:MEBIDX:IT&_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/sarmo3T.jpg)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/GbwlDSD.jpg)
[Imgur](https://i.imgur.com/N4PrUGW.jpg)
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
I use a small amount of oil on all moving parts and silicon spray in the nut
Played at a very high volume everything tends to sound in tune (unless you’re badly ‘out’), so making a judgement at a live gig is perhaps fundamentally flawed.
Short of a double locking system, the Charvel Guthrie Govan is probable the most tuning stable system.
What does Jeff Beck use ? cos he hammers the shit out of his trem
(A challenge for me anyway, plenty of guitarists have used the Strat effectively over the course of their glittering careers, but I have always found it difficult to keep in tune)
Smooth well lubricated nut slots, well installed strings etc are of course a given. I also use a bucket handle type of string tree, which moves with the string - so no friction (link below)
Previously - the Frudua Way:
I was previously tuning my Strat in such a way that every time I depressed and released the tremolo arm it would be in tune - I could do dive bombs and the stability was very impressive. But whenever I bent a string, it would come back flat. That required a quick press of the arm, to bring the strings back in tune. In the middle of playing a solo, that is of course a real inconvenience...
So I did things the other way round:
Tuned each string after bending it such that, after a bend, the string is in tune. Now I can play ‘bendy’ solos with impunity, and the guitar remains in tune.
I can now use the arm to add gentle vibrato to a note or chord - and it stays in tune. But if I depress the trem arm significantly, the strings come back sharp. An upward pull on the arm brings them back in tune again.
That obviously requires enough 'amplitude' to the upward pull, and so I set up the trem with some clearance to give me a good range of upward movement - 3 semitones on the G string. This automatically yields 2 semitones on the B string and 1 semitone on the E string, due to the very nature of the strings (which is of course why the G string requires less turning of the tuning post for more pitch change). The upward range is like the Carl Verhayen method - but whilst he is a great guitarist, I'm not convinced by the physics involved in his explanation. Angling the claw makes no difference at all - the trem block is rigid and does not angle. Also the low strings do not exert any more tension than the high ones - evidenced by the published tensions on the back of a pack of D’Addario strings.
The only caveat is that I can't really 'dive bomb' - but I don’t do that anyway.
Thought you may find the stuff below interesting...
My Strat has a rather nice Wudtone tremolo. The Wudtone Trem addresses many of the design shortcomings of the conventional six screw tremolo. Not as rock solid as a Floyd but I do like it...
http://www.wudtone.com/wudtone-hardware/
Sounds beautiful. The nut slots are cut perfectly, everything is lubricated and I have a bucket handle type of string tree, which you may find interesting.
http://www.dynaguide.nl/uncategorized/the-string-guide-that-loves-friction/
http://www.strat-talk.com/wp-strat/2014/10/dynaguide-string-tree-keeps-you-in-tune/
On my '98 Japanese '62 reissue the grinding on the underside of the bridge plate is terrible and it makes the whammy pretty much useless.
Do they mean they can tune a guitar, play it properly for hours and at the end the strings are all exactly still in tune?
That weeks/months later the guitar still doesn't need its tuning adjusted at all?
I didn't think that was possible for a guitar (maybe on a locking system, no idea about them).