Tremolo Systems
The innovation called the guitar tremolo was produced in the 1940’s with the Bigsby Vibrato Tailpeice. This was found on Gretsch, Rickenbacker and Gibson guitars. The purpose of this is invention is to vibrate the strings or raise and lower the pitch of the string with a bar in your picking hand. The tremolo or whammy bar has been heard in many music styles including, rock and roll, country, surf, pop, blues rock and of coarse heavy metal . There are also whammy bar style innovators like, Hendrix . Jeff Beck, Steve Vai and Joe Satriani There are so many tremolo units on the market today that it can be a minefield to know which to choose. Fender tremolos are a solid unit which have been around in their original form since 1954. They are solid but lack some of the more abusive type functions . The two point system solved this problem and are found on many guitars today. Some manufacturers of these types of trem are Wilkerson, Schallar , Fender and Floyd Rose. The two point system is a floating design that pivots on two pegs screwed into the guitar body making it smoother and able to raise the pitch up and down significantly more. The Floyd Rose developed in the late 70’s is the hair crazed heavy metal divebomb trem of choice, It has a unique double locking system that stays in tune with both up and extreme dive-bombing action. These trems are fantastic but do have their drawbacks. If a string breaks on the guitar then it is rendered useless and impossible to play on with. It take a while to replace strings plus they can be tricky to set up at first. The Schaller is the original German manufacturer of the Floyd Rose and this version is the very best as are the USA Floyd rose models. Its worth looking into where your unit is made before buying it , Europe and US are Good , Japan is good , anywhere else I would give a wide birth Floyd rose also made a Speedloader system , this needed special pre stretched strings for quick changing. Unfortunately this never really seemed to become popular but they were very good to use. Another downfall is the strings they need are getting harder to source. Floyd Rose make a trem called a Floyd Rose Special which is a far eastern model that I personally would avoid and spend a little more on an American original There are many very useful Floyd Rose copy tremolo’s like the Edge , TRS , Edge low pro found on Japanese Ibanez guitars. There are also many cheap inferior Floyd Rose Copies made like the Edge III and other licensed Floyd type trems found on Indonesian or Chinese guitars. They are often made from inferior materials and wear out very quickly plus the trem arm play and movement ( or wiggle) make them awful to use. . The Kahler tremolo is also very nice and was invented in 1979. I’ve used a Kahler tremolo and they are a very smooth tremolo’s and stay in tune perfect. I would say these are on power with Floyd rose tremolos and have plenty of whammy action plus stay in tune. Washburn Wonderbar (not wonderbra) is another trem known in the guitar world but I’ve never used one myself. Stetsbar have made a very innovative tremolo that can be fitted straight onto a guitar that has either an inferior trem or no trem at all. This has made it possible, with no alterations, to fit a trem on vintage hard tail guitar and be removed with ease, so there is no de-valuing of the guitar. There are several models of Stetsbar and they make them to fit on most guitar types . Ibanez have a new zero point tremolo system out now that is also a very nice tremolo to use and is fitted onto their newer range of prestige guitars . Tremolo’s are quite varied and have different stylistic purpose. Some tremolo’s can take more abuse and are more stable than others. Choose wisely
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