jojoagogo234 Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 i live in lewisham (london). theres a bar/ venue thing down the road from me called dirty south. its a nice venue the other day my mate paddy was sorting out a gig down there with one of his mates bands who were meant to play, however they pulled out at the last minute. so he called me up and asked me out of the blue to come down and jam O.o . so me and a guitarist mate of his (paddy himself plays drums, and is really REALLY good) had to jam out some songs we both knew. we had this one problem that has allways pissed me off about guitarist...... a floyd rose -_- . we wanted to play some songs in drop D that everyone would know (killing in the name of, heart shaped box ect) but we couldnt because of that f***ing FLOYD ROSE !!!!. basicly my point here is. has this ever happened to anyone here ? (both the call to come down and at the last minute and have to just figure out what songs you all know, and the floyd rose) joe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thisnameistaken Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Play them in E instead? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Musicman20 Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 I had a guitar with a licensed Floyd Rose back in the day, (some sort of cheaper Jackson). Super thin neck, very easy to play, but I hated the Floyd Rose and I hated the shape/headstock. I still hate Floyd Rose trems. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmmettC Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Both my guitarists use them to great effect, but they are always in drop D, actually one of them has 7 strings, so I have no idea how he's tuned, but they work well for what they do. I used to have a strat with a fender trem and if you looked at it funny it went out of tune, my current strat has a fixed bridge for that reason. I think I'm saying if you must have a trem, make it a lockable one so it stays in tune. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
icastle Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 The last minute call, yes. The fixed tuning issue, no. If a different tuning is required then my own expectation is that the guitarist would have a suitably tuned (or detuned) instrument ready to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Vader Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 decent nut and a shedload of wd-40 over the strings. keeps any trem in tune. (oh and set the thing up properly as well) Bugger locking trems, had one once, and never left the lock on it. he needs one with a pushy d-tuner like Eddie has. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fat Rich Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 [quote name='jojoagogo234' timestamp='1329836935' post='1548193'] i live in lewisham (london). theres a bar/ venue thing down the road from me called dirty south. its a nice venue the other day my mate paddy was sorting out a gig down there with one of his mates bands who were meant to play, however they pulled out at the last minute. so he called me up and asked me out of the blue to come down and jam O.o . so me and a guitarist mate of his (paddy himself plays drums, and is really REALLY good) had to jam out some songs we both knew. we had this one problem that has allways pissed me off about guitarist...... a floyd rose -_- . we wanted to play some songs in drop D that everyone would know (killing in the name of, heart shaped box ect) but we couldnt because of that f***ing FLOYD ROSE !!!!. basicly my point here is. has this ever happened to anyone here ? (both the call to come down and at the last minute and have to just figure out what songs you all know, and the floyd rose) joe [/quote] Simple, get him to put a capo at the 10th fret. If he doesn't mind sounding like George Formby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maverick Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 [quote name='Dave Vader' timestamp='1329842499' post='1548345'] decent nut and a shedload of wd-40 over the strings. keeps any trem in tune. (oh and set the thing up properly as well) Bugger locking trems, had one once, and never left the lock on it. he needs one with a pushy d-tuner like Eddie has. [/quote] I had a jam with a guitarist once who refused to lock the nut on his, as apparently it kept going out of tune. It kept going out of tune anyway, about every 2-3 minutes. Fairly sure he just hadn't stretched his strings in but he wouldn't listen to me. Needless to say, didn't jam with him again (he wasn't very good either, which didn't help). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 Yamaha solved the Floyd Rose problem with the FingerClamp, as fitted to the RGX 620 but it doesn't seem to have caught on. Takes about 2 seconds to undo the clamp, lower the bottom string to D, and do the clamp up again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcnach Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 [quote name='pete.young' timestamp='1329848352' post='1548515'] Yamaha solved the Floyd Rose problem with the FingerClamp, as fitted to the RGX 620 but it doesn't seem to have caught on. Takes about 2 seconds to undo the clamp, lower the bottom string to D, and do the clamp up again. [/quote] I'm not familiar with the FingerClamp, but if it's just an easily undone nut clamp, it does not solve the problem: on a floating bridge guitar, if you detune the E to D, the loss in tension affects the rest of the strings which go out of tune too. Floating bridges and locking nuts... they work really well when set well. But if a string goes or a different tning is required fast, you'd better have another guitar ready. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EdwardHimself Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 This is why i wasn't so keen on floyd roses. Like all floating trems, they have to be set perfectly for the tuning it is in, even tuning down to D can affect it. I used to have the bottom block unlocked so I could tune down to D but I found that I had problems with tuning stability so I got rid of mine. Prefer hardtails. If you want to play in different tunings then my suggestion is he gets another guitar set to drop D or brings it to gigs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pete.young Posted February 21, 2012 Share Posted February 21, 2012 [quote name='mcnach' timestamp='1329858656' post='1548738'] I'm not familiar with the FingerClamp, but if it's just an easily undone nut clamp, it does not solve the problem: on a floating bridge guitar, if you detune the E to D, the loss in tension affects the rest of the strings which go out of tune too. [/quote] Ah, OK - I was thinking about the problem of fannying about with Allen keys inbetween numbers. I don't know whether it has a floating bridge - there is one in the house somewhere that belongs to my son, I will see if I can find it. We had a guitarist with a new-ish Strat which exhibited similar symptoms - break a string and all the others went miles out of tune because of the tension change. Utterly useless. Hardails are the way to go, or Biggsby. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doctor J Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 The main problem with Floyds is user ignorance, they're incredibly stable [b]once they've been set up correctly[/b] and, by a comfortable margin, the floating bridge which stays in tune the best (although Steinberger have an incredible system too but I trust we're discussing guitars with headstocks?). Every floating bridge will exhibit the same issue if you try alternate tunings on the fly. The bridge is kept in place by the force of the strings pulling it forward vs the force of the springs pulling it back. Funny, I would count a Bigsby as one of the least stable vibratos I've ever encountered and they're affected by string breakages too, they just get a lot of unjustified credit on account of the look. Plus, have you ever tried to get a string on that tiny post with sweaty hands at a gig? A well set up Floyd will only require minimal tuning tweaks, I'm talking about once at the start of each rehearsal or gig after you take it out of the case, throughout the lifespan of the string set. I found a fulcrum style Kahler to be the easiest to switch between standard and dropped tuning, you'll need to tweak all six strings, which is to be expected, but your top five won't stray too far from pitch and it can be done rather quicky. For my last band I had a Floyd in standard and the Kahler in dropped which also acted as backup for the Floyd, I could tune it to standard in about 20 seconds without too much drama. I can't remember the last time I broke a string though, so it was never required. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 [quote name='Doctor J' timestamp='1329898115' post='1549138'] The main problem with Floyds is user ignorance, they're incredibly stable [b]once they've been set up correctly[/b] [/quote] This. IME unless you are using very light strings and a very chunky neck, any guitar will go out of tune enough to be a problem if you break a string - vibrato system or not. Hard tail will go out of tune less. Playing music is all about selecting the right instrument to do the job. Fair enough you needed to use an alternate tuning and a vibrato-equipped guitar isn't easy to re-tune on the fly and a Floyd Rose one even less so. However the OP could just have easily bemoaned the lack of vibrato on a hard-tail instrument had that been what was available and the songs they'd chosen to do required a vibrato system. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Vader Posted February 22, 2012 Share Posted February 22, 2012 psst... my strat is set up as a floating trem, and dropping one string down to D, makes f-all difference on the tuning (though they are 11-54 gauge strings on it) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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