A tremolo arm, tremolo bar, is a commonly used term for a Vibrato arm on a guitar (sometimes called a whammy bar). Eddie Van Halen calls it a wiggle stick, It consists of a lever attached to the bridge and/or the tailpiece of an electric guitar or archtop guitar to enable the player to quickly vary the tension and sometimes the length of the strings temporarily, changing the pitch to create a vibrato, portamento or pitch bend effect.
Instruments without this device are called hard-tail. The term vibrola is also used by some guitar makers to describe their particular tremolo arm designs.
The tremolo arm began as a mechanical device for more easily producing the vibrato effects that blues and jazz guitarists had long produced on arch top guitars by manipulating the tailpiece with their picking hand. However, it has also made many sounds possible that could not be produced by the old technique, such as the 1980s-era shred guitar "dive bombing" effect.
Since the regular appearance of mechanical tremolo arms in the 1950s, they have been used by many guitarists, ranging from the gentle inflections of Chet Atkins to the exaggerated twang effects of early rocker Duane Eddy to the buoyant effects of surf music aficionados like The Ventures and Dick Dale to art rock innovator Frank Zappa.
In the 1960s and '70s, vibrato arms were used for more pronounced effects by the psychedelic guitarist Jimi Hendrix , Pink Floyd guitarist David Gilmour and Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page. In the 1980s, shred guitar virtuosi such as Edward Van Halen , Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and metal guitarists ranging from Brian May to thrashers like Kirk Hammett used the "whammy bar" in a range of metal-influenced styles. The pitch-bending effects, whether subtle inflections or exaggerated effects, have become an important part of many styles of electric guitar.
Despite their common names, these devices cannot produce tremolo in the normal sense of the word, but can be used to produce vibrato, while the vibrato units used by electric guitarists generally produce a tremolo effect, rather than vibrato.
Bigsby Tremolo
Fender Floating Tremolo
Fender Standard
Floyd Rose Licensed
Gibson Lyre Vibrola
Hipshot Tremolos
Ibanez Tremolos
Kahler Tremolos
Mosrite Vibramute & Moseley Tremolo
Pearlcaster Tremolo
PRS Original One Piece Model
Rickenbacker Kaufmann System
Rockinger Tremolos
Steinberger Tremolos
Trem King
Wilkinson Tremolo
TransTrem
Bearing pivot tremolo designed for transposing of strings and chords in tune.
This is the only Steinberger bridge ever that offered a transposing feature. I
used to really like this bridge back when it came out. However I am now much
more in favor of a hardtail on any headless guitar.
S-Trem
Bearing pivot trem similar to TransTrem, but without a transposing feature.
Think of it as a non-transposing TransTrem. Nice quality but very hard to locate
and can be unduly expensive because of it
R-Trem or Ambi Trem
Traditional knife edge trem. A completely different design from Trans and
S-Trems, it also allows for more fixed bridge like operation when locked. This
Trem
Z-Trem
Modified knife edge R-Trem design which included a knife edge nut. It was made
specifically for the GS headed guitars. This design eliminated the need for a
clamping nut ala Floyd Rose.
Jam Trem
Ned's most 'recent' trem design was a more basic knife edge design with a better
system for locking the bridge. Very few were made and they were installed only
on the GS headstock guitars. Rumor is that most of these went overseas to
Australia and the Far East. Ned claims this is the best design for those who
complain that trems kill sustain, as it comes closest to providing 'fixed
bridge' results when locked.
Whereas the Trans and S-Trems have a bearing and shaft unit that provides the
pivot point, a knife edge trem consists of a bar or points that fit into slot on
each side. Most guitar trems are knife edge in nature and this is the oldest and
most proven design. The pressure of the strings keeps the "knife" in the slot.
The key benefit is that there are no moving parts. Ned says this is actually a
better overall design for tremolos. However, it can't be used for a transposing
situation - the bridge is too 'loose' to operate properly Knife edge trems are
not foolproof, as the pivots can wear/loosen/misalign causing usage problems.
It's also interesting to note that ball bearings (as used in the S and TT) are
designed for true rotational (circular) movement and not the very small linear
(back- and-forth) motion on the S-Trem and TT. From a pure engineering
standpoint they are the wrong component to use in a tremolo. With normal
playing Trans and S-Trem bearings should to be replaced every couple of years,
as the constant movement of the bearings in relatively small path causes
excessive wear. They can be fixed easily simply by moving them a little so they
wear at a different point.
But these facts don't diminish from the sheer genius of Ned's radical approach
and design.
FLOYD ROSE TREMOLOS
Floyd Rose is the organization that licenses,
distributes and manufactures the Floyd Rose Locking
Tremolo invented by Floyd D. Rose. Floyd Rose owns
the patents on the design, and licenses these
patents to several original equipment manufacturers.
The Floyd Rose system consists of:
A lock at the nut of the guitar, which prevents the
tuning heads from being used and holds the strings
taut
A "floating bridge", where the other ends of the
strings are also vise-locked, hence,
"double-locking"
The locking system helps to keep the strings in tune
while the strings are slackened to a degree which
was not achieved with older tremolo systems, such as
those found on Fender Stratocaster, allowing dive
bombs, a rapid lowering of the pitch of a note.
Since the tuning heads are ineffectual with the lock
in place, the Floyd Rose bridge has heads for fine
tuning; the guitar is tuned before the lock is put
on, then fine tuned afterwards. Each guitar
incorporated with a Floyd Rose tremolo system has
springs put in the back of the hardware which create
balanced forces with the strings, thus keeping the
tremolo in a "floating" state.
History
Floyd D. Rose, an accomplished machinist working on
jewel inlays, moved from Durango, Colorado to Reno,
Nevada in 1964. He was also an amateur guitarist,
playing in local bands like Q5. Rose's influences
included Ritchie Blackmore and Jimi Hendrix, so he
favored an aggressive playing style with lots of use
of the tremolo bar. In late 1970s, his
dissatisfaction with regular Fender tremolo bridges
led him to apply his engineering skills to design a
new type of tremolo bridge.
The first prototypes were installed on his own
guitar.
Renting the necessary equipment, Rose made several
other prototypes and showed one of them to Randy
Hansen. Hansen was very impressed with the stability
of guitar tuning made possible by this new bridge.
Slowly, popularity of the new Floyd Rose tremolo
started to grow. Rose received an increasing number
of orders for his invention: soon he bought his own
manufacturing equipment and started commercial
production in his basement. Guitar Player magazine
published a review of the new bridge and even more
guitarists become interested. On January 3, 1977,
Rose filed his first US patent application, which
was issued almost 3 years later on October 23, 1979.
Around that time, Rose made the acquaintance of
emerging guitar virtuoso Eddie Van Halen, who also
liked the design of the new tremolo and was an early
endorser and promoter for it. Between 1978 and 1980,
the Floyd Rose became the tremolo of choice for such
guitarists as Brad Gillis and Steve Vai.
Around 1982, Rose cemented an agreement with Kramer
Guitars, whereby Kramer became the exclusive
distributor of Floyd Rose Locking Tremolos, even
those that were not yet attached to guitars.
The agreement stipulated that Rose would be paid a
royalty for every unit sold. Kramer saw great
potential in the new double-locking tremolo, and
following the endorsement of Eddie Van Halen, they
dropped the earlier Rockinger Tremolo in favor of
the new Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo between June 1982
and January 1983.
In 1982, Rose and Kramer engineers came up with the
first major improvement to the original bridge: a
set of fine tuners that allowed tuning of the guitar
without unlocking the top lock. The enhancement
quickly became the standard for all Floyd Rose
tremolos, and by late 1982 Kramer was using them on
majority of its tremolo-enabled guitars.
A rising popularity of heavy metal music gave birth
to a guitar design called "the superstrat" — a
common name given to guitars that resemble Fender
Stratocaster design with several important
modifications. A floating point tremolo, such as
Floyd Rose, has become an essential feature in
superstrats. Kramer quickly became a major player on
superstrat market — its share was rapidly growing
due to huge demand for superstrats with Floyd Rose
tremolos, and in late 1984, other tremolo options
(such as ESP Flicker and Fender-like tremolo) were
dropped from Kramer's list and Floyd Rose became a
solitary tremolo of choice.
Further development continued. After development
by Gary Kahler of the world-famous Kahler tremolo
following a law suit between Kahler and Rose/Kramer,
Rose presented in 1989 a new low-profile version
named "Floyd Rose Pro" that was developed for ProAxe
guitars and a few of the Hundred Series models at
Kramer.
However, heavy metal and superstrat popularity was
rapidly declining, and Kramer eventually defaulted
on the agreement, which resulted in a lawsuit
between the two parties.
In January 1991, Fender announced that they would be
the new exclusive distributor of Floyd Rose
products. While Fender used Floyd Rose-licensed
tremolo systems previously, this move allowed Fender
to offer a few models with the original Floyd Rose
tremolo, such as Richie Sambora Signature Strat in
1991, Floyd Rose Classic Stratocaster in 1992 and
Set-Neck Floyd Rose Strat in 1993. Floyd Rose
collaborated with Fender to design a Fender Deluxe
Locking Tremolo, introduced in 1991 on the Strat
Plus Deluxe, the USA Contemporary Stratocaster and
the Strat Ultra. Fender used the Floyd Rose-designed
locking tremolo system on certain humbucker-equipped
American Deluxe and Showmaster models until 2007.
In 2005, distribution of the Floyd Rose Original
reverted to Floyd Rose whereas the patented designs
were licensed to other manufacturers to use.
Principles
The basic principles of the action of a
double-locking floating bridge are shown. Its
proportions are exaggerated to demonstrate the
effect.
Position I illustrates the normal position of an
ideally tuned Floyd Rose bridge. The bridge (green)
balances on a pivot point, being pulled
counter-clockwise by the strings' (red) tension and
clockwise by one or several (usually up to five)
springs (light blue). Controlled by special tuning
screws (sky blue), these two forces are balanced
such that the bridge's surface is parallel to the
guitar body (olive). The strings are locked tightly
with a special mechanism at the nut (also green, as
it is a part of the Floyd Rose system) as well as at
the bridge, hence "double-locking".
Position II illustrates the position of the bridge
when the tremolo arm is pushed down towards the
guitar body. The bridge rotates around a pivot point
counter-clockwise and the tension in each string
decreases, lowering the pitch of each string. The
sound of any notes being played becomes flat.
Position III illustrates the position of the bridge
when the tremolo arm is pulled up away from the
guitar body. The bridge rotates clockwise, tension
in the strings increases, the pitch of the sound
increases and so notes sound sharper than normal.
Note that when using the tremolo string action is
affected, and this can cause the strings to
unintentionally touch the frets and create unwanted
sounds on instruments set up with extremely low
action and heavily recessed tremolo installations.
Advantages
You can achieve a very wide range of pitch changes,
both up and down.
You can create many dramatic sound effects such as
dive bombs and reverse dive bombs, wild artificial
harmonics, flutter, engine's roar, etc.
Due to the double-locking design, tuning remains
stable after even extensive playing, bending and use
of the tremolo. Under normal circumstances,
correction of tuning during a performance is not
required. Floyd Rose's tuning stability is the
primary factor for its worldwide popularity.
String breakage is reduced substantially because (1)
the strings are fully locked inside the bridge
saddles without the windings and ball ends; (2) the
strings don't rub against any friction point; and
(3) the strings are fully set on a straight line -
without passing through any angle on the bridge.
If a string breaks, you can reuse it by unwinding
some of it and reinserting/locking it inside the
saddle (but see below).
Sustain is increased because the internal block -
also called sustain block - resonates longer than a
guitar's wood.
Disadvantages
A string breakage changes the tension on the
floating bridge, causing the remaining strings to go
out of tune. When performing live, and depending in
the song, this requires great technical skill to
correct while playing (by keeping the tremolo arm
depressed) and usually limits the guitarist severely
until he has the time to change to a replacement
instrument or quickly reinsert the string. This
generally makes having at least one reserve guitar
necessary for playing live.
Tuning a Floyd Rose equipped instrument takes a bit
longer than tuning a fixed bridge one, because the
floating design makes fine-tuning of each string
necessary after the normal pitch tuning is complete.
Because of the moving parts, wear and tear might
make repair or replacement necessary after certain
years of use, depending on playing style.
When bending a string, the rest of the strings go
slightly out of tune. This is particularly a problem
when doing double stop style two string bends.
The Floyd Rose SpeedLoader, released in 2003,
addresses some disadvantages of the original design,
at the expense of requiring specially-made strings.
Other tremolo designs, such as the Kahler, attempt
to correct some of the disadvantages while
maintaining a similar sound range, yet has some
disadvantages of its own.
Models and varieties
Floyd Rose Pro
Licensed Ibanez Floyd Rose variant
Floyd Rose SpeedLoader
Floyd Rose Original is the oldest model still in
production. Since 1977, production models bearing
this name are mostly the same as the first model,
with only minor changes. Note that the name "Floyd
Rose Original" is used to differentiate this system
from "Floyd Rose Licensed". The first Original
Floyds were double locking but did not have fine
tuners, requiring the nut to be unclamped any time
minute string tuning changes needed to be made.
Floyd Rose II is a lower end version of the Original
Floyd used mostly on import and mid-range
instruments. Originally, Floyd IIs were single
locking, locking only at the nut. Later versions
were made double locking, but used weaker materials
than the Original Floyd Rose, making them less
dependable.
Floyd Rose Licensed are made by other manufacturers
that have purchased a license from Floyd Rose. These
model generally follow the designs of the Floyd Rose
Original, but tend to deviate slightly from the
original for the manufacturing process to be more
cost-efficient. Most licensed companies use the same
design that makes their parts inter-changeable
between any two licensed tremolos, but not the Floyd
Rose Original. The bridges of such systems are
clearly engraved "Licensed under Floyd Rose Patents"
and Floyd Rose does not offer any customer support
for them. Construction quality of Floyd Rose
Licensed tremolos range from being sub-par to
excellent generally reflected by the price of the
product purchased after market or the guitar it is
constructed into. Two well-known manufacturers of
Floyd Rose Licensed tremolos are Schaller and Gotoh.
Yamaha Finger Clamp is a variety of Floyd Rose that
have built in levers, and thus when tuning, no allen
keys are needed.
Floyd Rose Derived In order to reduce licensing cost
from Floyd Rose, some manufacturers further improve
their double locking trems that, despite being
double locking, are no longer considered a licensed
product, but are distinct relatives derived from it.
Ibanez Edge is Ibanez's Floyd Rose variant. There
are 6 versions: Edge, LoPro Edge, EdgePro, EdgePro-II,
Edge-III, EdgeZero.
Ibanez Zero Resistance is another of Ibanez's Floyd
Rose variant. It uses a ball-bearing mechanic
instead of knife-edge as the joint, which gives the
tremolo more consistency after use, and a stop-bar
to help the guitar stay in tune, even with heavy
abuse of the tremolo or string break.
Ibanez Fixed Edge. While it still uses the locking
nut and locking bridge, it was mounted on top of the
body, and was used not as a tremolo system, but to
provide even more tuning stability on a hard tailed
guitar (they can go out of tune during bending, with
fingers)
Fender Deluxe Locking Tremolo. A specially designed
system that was made by Fender Musical Instruments
Corporation in 1991 in conjunction with Floyd Rose
himself, utilizing locking tuners, a modified Fender
2-point synchronized tremolo with locking bridge
saddles and a special low-friction LSR Roller Nut
which allows strings to slide during tremolo use.
This is a double locking system, except the other
locking point is at the tuner instead of nut. Its
main advantage is the unneeded requirement to
perform any major alteration on a solid-body
electric guitar, due notably to its similarity (in
size and feel) to a normal Fender 2-point tremolo
system. Fender discontinued this product in 2007.
Floyd Rose 7-String is a redesign of Floyd Rose
Original for 7-string guitars. The design and
working principles are otherwise the same.
Floyd Rose Pro is a low-profile version of Floyd
Rose Original. The bridge and arm design is changed
in such a way that the guitarist's hand will be
generally closer to the strings while holding the
tremolo arm. The bridge has a narrower string
spacing (0.400 inches or 10.16 mm in this design
versus 0.420 inches or 10.66 mm of the Floyd Rose
Original). Fine tuners are slightly angled for more
comfortable play.
Floyd Rose SpeedLoader Tremolo (see pic) is a
redesign introduced around 2003 that combines Floyd
Rose Original with the SpeedLoader system to produce
a new design that overcame many disadvantages of the
original Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo design, but
required special strings.
Parts
Floyd Rose Pro: disassembled, parts numbered
Floyd Rose tremolos are known for their excellent
serviceability: the mechanism is well-documented and
spare parts can be purchased directly from
manufacturer or via dealers. Usually, Floyd Rose
device consists of these parts:
1. Saddle — A metal box
the string is locked into. There is one saddle for
each string, hence six for the standard 6-string
guitars, and seven for 7-string guitars. Each saddle
contains a long screw that fixes the string holder
block inside it. An Allen wrench is required to
loosen or tighten these.
2. String Holder Block or Saddle
Block — A cube-shaped metal block that
presses the string end into the saddle wall thus
locking it tight.
3. Intonation Screws —
Screws that hold saddles on the base plate; when
loose, the saddles can be moved forward and
backward, effectively changing intonation of a
string. An Allen wrench is required to loosen or
tighten these.
4. Fine Tuners — Screws
that are used to fine-tune strings instead of the
machine heads which cannot be used after the nut has
locked the strings at the neck. It can be rotated
with bare hands.
5. Tremolo Arm — The most
visible part of mechanism, a handle that can be used
to change played notes pitch up and down during
play.
6. Nut — A string clamp,
installed as the "zero fret" at the neck. It has
screws and braces called "locks" to clamp on the
strings that run through it. An Allen wrench is
required to loosen or tighten the nut.
7. String Retainer — A
metal bar installed at headstock to retain strings
that go to the machine heads.
8. Springs — Springs that
pull the bridge downward around the pivot point,
balancing the string tension. They are installed
into a cavity that is usually accessible from behind
the guitar body and is hidden under plastic cover.
There are usually 3 springs. However, to change the
resistance of arm to more comfortable one, some
guitarists may use anything from 1 to 5 springs.
9. Spring Claw Hook — A
connector between the guitar body and springs. It
has special "claws" to attach the springs to. This
part is usually mounted to the guitar body using
long screws that can be adjusted to change the
tension of springs and thus re-balance the whole
tremolo system.
10. Allen wrenches — Three
sizes are usually supplied with the tremolo. The
smallest is used for intonation screws; the
mid-sized wrench is used for fixing screws on saddle
blocks and the largest is for nut screws. Floyd Rose
Licensed systems usually supplies and uses only two
sizes of wrenches as their variation uses the same
size for the screws on the saddle blocks and nut.
However, on some models only need the first two, as
the bridge and nut screws are the same size.
Setting up
To remove a string, one must first unlock it at the
nut with an allen wrench, loosen the string, unlock
it at the bridge with an allen wrench, and then
remove the string. To install a new string, you must
cut the ball end off, then reverse the process of
removing a string, or you must insert the string
backwards with the ball end against the tuning peg.
If the locking nut isn't loosened first, the string
will break if the tuning peg is tightened just
slightly. A break such as this would occur between
the locking nut and the tuning peg. However, the
string will still be unbroken between the locking
nut and the bridge, as the locking nut will hold it
in place. Guitarists who are used to non-Floyd Rose
guitars have a habit of breaking strings this way
when they forget to loosen the locking nuts first to
retune their instrument.
Some models, such as Yamaha's Floyd Rose license,
include build-in cranks that operate the clamps, and
thus need fewer allen keys, while others, such as
Fender's Deluxe Locking Tremolo, is basically
"normal" floating tremolo and tuners, but each with
locking mechanism, and incorporate friction free
(roller base) nuts.
With the newer Edge Pros on certain Ibanez guitars,
such as the JEM and JS and RG series, it is not
necessary to cut the ball ends. They are equipped
with a top sliding string block that you loosen with
an allen key to allow insertion of the string from
the top. This improves string life and tuning and
speed of string change. However, to attain high
pull-ups, you must solder the string windings to
prevent strings from breaking at the ball end.
Ibanez
players are fiercely loyal to the edge series Ibanez
Floyd Licensed trems. The metal used by Ibanez for
even their most expensive top of the line units is
substandard compared to an original Floyd. The
evidence is plain to see, the metal used by the
Ibanez trems actually seems to melt away under the
sweat from the guitarists hand. This corrodes the
saddles horribly and makes adjustment much harder,
not to mention the metal actually looks like it
rotted away.
The Original
Floyd Rose Tremolo is without a doubt The Best Way
To Go !!!!! When Floyds patent expired
he lowered the prices to stave off competition from
eating his lunch. So there is little excuse at this
time to not use a Floyd.
When
The Floyd Rose Tremolo first became popular In The
early 80's they could cost up to 500.00 installed.
Today installation is no big deal and the cost is
minimal.
Popular use
The Floyd Rose tremolo rose to popularity in the
early 1980s. Many popular artists quickly adopted
the device, making it difficult to measure how much
each individual artist contributed to that
popularity. Most sources consider Eddie Van Halen to
be a pioneer of Floyd Rose usage. Other players
frequently cited to be influential in the area of
Floyd Rose usage are Steve Vai, Joe Satriani , Kirk
Hammett, Brad Gillis. Tom Morello, Allan Holdsworth,
Nuno Bettencourt and Frank Zappa.
Many guitarists use this system to create new sounds
that were not practical to achieve with traditional
tremolo systems:
Joe Satriani uses his whammy bar to raise the pitch
of a pinch harmonic, usually on the open G string,
in order to do his signature "Satch Scream".
"Dimebag" Darrel Abbott of heavy metal legends
Pantera was known for using the whammy bar to
release the tension on the strings and flick the g
string and catch the string in a spot that creates a
natural harmonic and play with the bar to raise and
lower the pitch ex. in the end of "Cemetery Gates"
This has become known as the 'Dimesqueal'
Karl Logan of Manowar is known for simulating sounds
of motorcycle engine burn-in — this "guitar versus
bike" dueling effect is particularly used on Return
of the Warlord track of 1996, although the effect is
probably better known from Todd Rundgren's playing
on the 1977 Meat Loaf song "Bat out of Hell" or even
Mick Mars of Motley Crue's intro into "Kickstart My
Heart"
Herman Li and Sam Totman of DragonForce use the
system to create video game-esque noises.
The Floyd Rose SpeedLoader, Kahler
Floyd Rose Pro
Kaufmann Rickenbacker Vibrola
One of the first mechanical tremolo/vibrato units
(although not hand-operated) was the Kauffman
Vibrato as used on Rickenbacker Vibrola Spanish
guitars. They were not operated by hand, but rather
moved with an electrical mechanism. It was developed
by Doc Kauffman to simulate the pitch manipulation
available with steel guitars. A hand operated unit,
the Vibrola was also patented by Kaufmann in 1935
and distributed as an option with Rickenbacker's
Electro Spanish guitars.
A later unit was created and used on Rickenbacker's
Capri line of guitars in the '50's, such as John
Lennon's '58 325. It was a side-to-side action
vibrato unit (rather than the up-down action of
later units) that was notorious for throwing the
guitar out of tune, hence John's replacing it with a
Bigsby B5. It was later replaced by the Ac'cent
Vibrola, which used no coiled springs to change
tension, giving it less chance to throw the guitar
out of tune.
The Rickenbacker system is antiquated and favored
only by the vintage crowd.