Guitar "Whammy bars"
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Topic: Guitar "Whammy bars"
Posted By: Guests
Subject: Guitar "Whammy bars"
Date Posted: March 07 2005 at 11:06
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How many of you guitar players DO NOT like using whammy bars ? Personally, I've never liked 'em. |
Replies:
Posted By: sigod
Date Posted: March 07 2005 at 11:17
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I'm a hardtail guy myself. Whammys are fun but for me, you lose a bit of sustain and the tone is not as bright. The Transtrem system is fun though. ------------- I must remind the right honourable gentleman that a monologue is not a decision. - Clement Atlee, on Winston Churchill |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: March 07 2005 at 13:11
| I like whammy's if they are on a strat, but I HATE Floyd Rose whammies. They are such a pain in the butt when it comes to changing strings. I really don't notice any difference in tone or sustain either way. I like hardtails fine, though. |
Posted By: Radioactive Toy
Date Posted: March 07 2005 at 13:44
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floyd rose kicks arse I just dont really make a lot of use of mine.. stuff like (early) camel is a lot easyer to play on an lespaul (found that out resently).. But I'll stick with my ibanez! -------------  
Reed's failed joke counter: ||||| R.I.P. You could have reached infinity.... |
Posted By: Dan Bobrowski
Date Posted: March 07 2005 at 17:25
| I've got a tremolo system on my strat, but no whammy bar. If I wanna slur, I just push down with my palm a bit. 's'bout it. |
Posted By: sigod
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 05:23
I LOVE the Digitec Whammy pedal though...   ------------- I must remind the right honourable gentleman that a monologue is not a decision. - Clement Atlee, on Winston Churchill |
Posted By: arcer
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 07:02
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Hardly ever use the tremolo/whammy bar whatever, much prefer simple bends with fingers or if in desperate need to physically pull the board up with my fingers for a little effect now and then, usually in the empty, empty spaces of a song where a little of that kind of thing sounds pretty cool. I think there's nothing worse than hearing some dive-bombing goon blurring every single damn note. The nicest tremolo technique I think I've ever heard is Gilmour's. Always tasteful, judicuosly used and never out of place. Check out the trademark double bends on Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 - sl*g the song all you want but it's an amazing solo. Top marks. Actually I think the real reason I don't use a tremolo arm is that I've lost them all and can't be bothered to replace them!!
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Posted By: James Lee
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 07:13
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I hate whammys because I gouged up a perfectly good strat trying to put one on. I DON'T like the typical strat tremolo. Between tuning and sustain, it's just not worth the few times it comes in handy...the Bigsby doesn't work any better but it looks damn cool. Floyd Rose trems work pretty well but again, it's a lot of trouble for an effect that I just don't find myself missing when I play. Maybe I just never got used to them. I hear the Parker has a great trem system but I was too afraid to yank on it any of the times I played one (didn't want to hurt the poor little guitar Some players have great technique (Belew's 80s output and some Vai comes to mind) but way too often it's just a cheesy metal gimmick. Still, there is something really cool about squeezing out a really nasty artificial harmonic and dive-bombing the sucker. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/sollipsist/?chartstyle=kaonashi"> 
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Posted By: sigod
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 08:52
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Have you seen Adrian Belew and his 'neck' whammy bend?. Man, I fear for
his guitars when he does that, grabbing the body and the headstock and
then just.....pushing the neck forward. I've heard him get a whole tone
drop out of that method! I bet if I tried that the neck would just come away in my hands.   ------------- I must remind the right honourable gentleman that a monologue is not a decision. - Clement Atlee, on Winston Churchill |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 09:13
This gadget looks interesting... Sigod...you have all the really cool stuff ... sheeesh  BTW, I found out the other day that Digitech's headquarters are not too far from my house !!! |
sigod wrote:Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 09:16
Ever played a Gibson SG ? They don't even need tremolo arms at all...just pull on the neck - Not like he's doing however... |
Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 09:17
Reminds me of Eddie Van Halen... sort of... |
Posted By: arcer
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 10:42
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Ah, Edward was a in different league. You have to remember that 'Eruption' was recorded in 1978 - back then the guy was treading turf that had, up til then, only been walked by Hendrix. To hear that when it was new was a serious case of the jaw-dropping WOOOOWs! A singular talent but unfortunately the catalyst for a deluge of s***e from a load of po-faced, tight-trousered poodle-haired w***ers (and that was just Dave Lee Roth!)
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Posted By: sigod
Date Posted: March 08 2005 at 11:15
Actually, I've never owned one of these but it's next on my list. As for Digitec being just down the road from you, how cool that must be. ------------- I must remind the right honourable gentleman that a monologue is not a decision. - Clement Atlee, on Winston Churchill |
Posted By: clemdallaway
Date Posted: March 12 2005 at 05:05
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I like to use Hard Tail, Strat type and the Floyd Rose. I think it depends on what you are playing. If you are playing the Steve Hackett or Steve Howe type style and you need that sustain, then I would recomend a Les Paul type guitar. If you are more of a "widdler" and like that ease when bending then the Strat type is fine. The Floyd Rose is great if you are playing stuff like Joe Satriani or Steve Vai etc. When playing live, I tend to use an 80's Washburn MG fitted with a Floyd Rose, the good thing about it is that it stays in tune better than the others, a nightmare if you snap a string though!!!!!! So have that Strat or Les Paul at hand to back you up lol!!!!!!! ------------- Don't eat the yellow snow!!!!! |
Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: December 30 2007 at 00:51
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Although the guitar i use most, a jackson DK2S has a Licensed Floyd Rose, but i simply find it too hard at the moment to do anything musical with it, although pinch harmonics and dive bombs sure are fun, if not a little over used |
Posted By: darren
Date Posted: December 30 2007 at 21:37
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I prefer hardtail. I don't have the patience to get things set up so your guitar doesn't go out of tune every time you use it. Floyd Roses are a pain to replace strings. The last jam I attended, there was a guy, great guitar player but he'd play a four or five minute song, go twangbar wild with the solo and have to spend the next two minutes tuning up. I find it also messes with the sustain.The best use I've seen is a friend who got an 80's Jackson. He played one whole song dive bombing. It was kind of like a rhythm thing. Freakin' hilarious.
------------- "they locked up a man who wanted to rule the world. the fools they locked up the wrong man." - Leonard Cohen |
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: December 31 2007 at 05:38
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I really like playing guitars which have vibrato systems, but currently I have a hardtail ESP guitar because it's simply much easier to handle - not only when changing the strings, but also simply to keep it in tune. If you use a Floyd Rose style system extensively, it will soon go out of whack and require ex(t/p)ensive repairs. The most common problem is that the edges of the bridge block will become blunt ... and since the tension of the low strings differs from that of the high strings, the whole thing becomes unstable. One common effect of this problem is that your guitar will go out of tune once you move the vibrato bar away from the guitar (increasing pitch). Move it towards the body (decreasing pitch), release it - and it's back in tune. Another unpleasant side effect of the Floyd Rose system is that when you're playing palm muted notes the pressure of the palm often results in out of pitch notes, especially when you're using thin strings / little tension. And finally there's the problem of the loose bar ... that's another major pain in the anus. In order to use the vibrato bar to create tasty, subtle vibrato the bar has to fit very tightly ... yet at the same time it should be easy to move (rotate). That's a problem with most systems ... if you tighten the bar so that you can use it effectively for very subtle vibrato then you can hardly rotate it anymore, if you loosen it so you can rotate it comfortably it will "jiggle" so that it's use becomes limited to extreme vibrato or sound effects like dive bombs. And BTW: It's *not* a tremolo system ... tremolo is an alteration of volume. Vibrato is the correct word (alteration of pitch).   ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to: 
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Posted By: asimplemistake
Date Posted: January 01 2008 at 04:20
| I use a traditional whammy bridge or whatever it's called, and I have mixed feelings about it. I don't use it too often, mainly because the springs always seem to go out of whack and make the guitar out of tune, plus the whole tuning process is a b*tch because it takes multiple times through to get it in tune. |
Posted By: Leningrad
Date Posted: January 01 2008 at 16:30
| I've got a strat, and usually don't even bother with the bar. I can easily manipulate the bridge with my picking hand most of the time, though if it's something a bit faster I'll grudgingly use it. I just find that I can control the pitch better when pulling up on the bridge with my hand, and it doesn't put it out of tune as horribly as the bar does. |
Posted By: A B Negative
Date Posted: January 02 2008 at 16:59
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I don't use the wobble truncheon on my Strats as I've never been able to achieve anything musical with them (apart from unscrewing the bar and using it like a slide for Daevid Allen / Steve Hillage glissandos). The Strats are set up with five springs so the bridge soesn't move at all. I hate Floyd Roses so I've done the same to my Peavey Wolfgang Special (it doesn't have a rout for up-bends so the bridge can sit tight against the body) and I'm about to replace the locking nut with a roller one. I had an Epiphone Firebird VII which looked very much like Phil Manzanera's Gibson but I couldn't stand the Maestro Vibrola. The controls confused the heck out of me too. It was beautiful but it had to go! Strangely, since I got my Gretsch, I've grown to love Bigsbys. There's something about the way a hollow-bodied electric feeds back that cries out for a Bigsby wobble. I've replaced the trapeze tailpiece on my Peavey Rockingham with a Bigsby and I'm currently putting together a Thinline Telecaster which will also have a Bigsby. ------------- "The disgusting stink of a too-loud electric guitar.... Now, that's my idea of a good time." |
Posted By: SilverSean
Date Posted: January 07 2008 at 17:22
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I think I might like it If I had a real nice trem, but it's a pain to use the bar with a strat unless you want to tune it constantly. ------------- Hold on to the Dream... |
Posted By: ProgBagel
Date Posted: January 07 2008 at 20:19
| There any many innovative ways to use them, which is why...I love them. |