Opinions - Floyd Rose

[meltedbuzzbox]

Hello all,

Ok can someone explain the hate for me?

I have one guitar with a floyd rose and I dont get the negativity. I guarantee when ever I pick it, it will be in tune.
Also if you like wanging the bejesus out of the trem arm it stays in tune.

Is it an image thing? Is it because its not a 50/60s invention? Is it because its a bit hair metal?

[BucketheadRules]

It isn't an image thing, and Christ knows I'm all for modern inventions (I like quite a lot of hair metal too) but I just can't get on with Floyds. Ever.

I appreciate they're very stable and stay in tune, and they're undoubtedly great fun to mess around with and make stupid noises with, but I often find I don't use them for much more than that, and a non-locking trem (like on my Music Man) will usually do what I want just as well. Plus, they're a huge pain in the arse - way more trouble than they're worth IMO. Compared to a fixed bridge, they take ages to set up, and if a string goes during a gig you're basically up Shit Creek without a paddle.

I also like tuning down. If I want to go down to, say, Eb, for a couple of songs, it's pretty much as simple as can be on my fixed-bridge Jackson Soloist. If I wanted to do the same thing on my cheap-ish Ibanez RG (which has a really shitty imitation of a Floyd on it) it'd take about five times as long. At the very least.

I like what other people can do with them, but they ain't for me.


Other people hate them for different reasons, usually because they grew up in a totally different generation to me, and are sticklers for tradition. Either that or they all hated the hair metal scene, where (as we know) everyone and his dog used a Floyd.

Me, I just like getting things done quickly.

[octatonic]

It depends on the Floyd.

I have a Gotoh Floyd on one of my Suhr's.
It sounds fantastic and is easy to set up.

I recently had an Ibanez Premium here for a repair/setup.
That is a fucking shit Floyd.
Took me ages to get set right.

I only have one guitar with a Floyd though- I mostly prefer hardtails or non-locking trem's.
Gotoh do great work- the 510 trem is brilliant.

[Dave_Mc]

they're great if you like them, horrible if you don't

they're a bit out of fashion, which i guess explains why everyone seems to hate them

I do blame a lot of people for blaming a floyd for faults that afflict all floating trems, though- no-one complains about a strat going out of tune when you break a string, but it will if the trem is set up to float. Ditto all the balancing lark you have to do if you change tuning.

I also blame people for saying you can do everything you want to do with a floyd with a good non-locking trem like a wilkinson- i don't think you can. You can do 85-90% of what you do with a Floyd with one, in my experience, but if you play music which really requires a Floyd, only a Floyd will do, really.

[MALAM]

Some people simply don't like them and that's fair game, but I think the bad reputation comes from people's inability to set one up properly.

The four floyd equipped guitars I have just bought all needed setting up. The angles, height and intonation on all were shocking and not one of them held tune. Most of the floyd equipped guitars I have owned have come to me in similar states. A poorly set up Floyd isn't going to win any fans.

Set up properly they don't go out of tune, as long as you've remembered to stretch your strings properly before clamping the nut- something most people don't seem to do, then wonder why it's gone out of tune after whammy bar abuse!

Once you've mastered the art of setting up a Floyd, it doesn't take any more time to restring than it does a guitar with a fixed bridge. In fact, I hate restringing my Firebird because the bloody tune-o-matic always falls off when I do so and takes me longer

[Dave_Mc]

Some people simply don't like them and that's fair game, but I think the bad reputation comes from people's inability to set one up properly.

I'd also add that a lot of the hate comes from people who have only tried poor quality floyds, the like of which you find on cheaper guitars. I absolutely love floyds, and I'd rather have no floyd than most of the cheapo ones. they really are so bad that you get all of the bad points with none of the good. It's no wonder people don't like them if they're the only ones they've tried.

[Bidley]

Some people simply don't like them and that's fair game, but I think the bad reputation comes from people's inability to set one up properly.

I'd also add that a lot of the hate comes from people who have only tried poor quality floyds, the like of which you find on cheaper guitars.

These. People who hate Floyds are more than likely unable to set them up properly or have only used single-locking or otherwise poor quality copies. If you understand how a FR works and know how to set them up properly, then it doesn't take you long at all and you only have to set it up once.

I don't really use the arm on any of my FR guitars, but I like the tuning stability, the feel under the hand and the extra give you get with string bends. Also, the trem on my Ibby Prestige, the Edge Pro is my favourite. Easy to maintain, rock-solid tuning, slightly lower profile - awesome trem.

[guitarfishbay]

If you are ever in a position where you like a guitar, but the floating aspect of a floyd is a dealbreaker I'd personally recommend a Tremol-no. http://www.tremol-no.com/

I have one, and it works incredibly well. I have it locked down so my floyd guitar works exactly like a hardtail now. Every now and then you need to re-tighten the allen screws which attach it to the trem screws and that is the only maintenance it seems to need. I've re-tightened mine once in over a year of ownership. The tell tale sign is that when doing heavy string bending in locked mode you get a bit of knocking at the bridge. This is because it is moving ever so slightly. A quick tighten and that was it back to normal.

With a tremol-no installed the advantages are:

- You can lock and unlock within seconds
- You can change tunings when in locked mode just like a hardtail guitar
- You can still do the extra string round tuning peg trick - which means if you break a string at the bridge you have spare to unwind from the tuning peg and re-feed in to the locking part of the bridge. This is something you can't do on a regular tune-omatic/string through/traditional trem because if you snap at the bridge you've lost the ball end. Obviously repeated breaks at the bridge may mean your bridge needs filing. You can do this without a tremol-no, but was just highlighting this advantage of a floyd-hardtail vs regular hardtail.
- You can still lock the trem and nut for performing and the guitar will both respond like a hardtail but also have the tuning stability of the locking trem, should you feel you need it.
- If you ever change your mind about keeping it hardtail you can unlock the tremol-no and whammy away. Providing you lock and unlock at the same starting tuning you won't have to do anything to your set up.
- You can also set it to dive only, which means you can tune down and still have downwards travel on the trem. This only applies to floating set ups, and for obvious reasons you can't tune up in pitch without the trem moving.

They aren't that expensive, you can fit them easily yourself, and they are a bit more versatile than the standard wooden block approach. The only downside is if you loosen the thumb screws too much they can fall out, but that is it really. I just loosen mine the minimum amount when unlocking and check when I have finished playing to make sure they are still there and that is that.

Setting up a floyd well for floating operation can take a lot of patience, but thankfully is something which shouldn't need to be done too often.

[evilmags]

Floyds are excellent things IMHO. They never go out of tune and you can get them to make pretty much every sound associated with tremelos, from a full on dive bomb to a Bigsby like flutter. I love watching guys like Vai use them to the max. As mentioned above, cheap copies are shite, but a real Floyd is a most useful devise.

http://zappaplayszappa.com/videos/images_wide/zomby.jpg

[Mike.L]

Floyds are awesomes. If you're not used to setting them up and restringing them, then yes it can be a massive PITA to get right.
Personally I can re-string and clean a Floyd equipped guitar in the same time as a non-floyd equipped guitar.
As has been previously said string stretching is ssential for having them work properly. And cheap/single locking floyds ain't great.