Talk:Tremolo arm

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October 7, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed

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[edit] Tremolo or vibrato?

Tremolo is a variation in volume, not pitch? That's not how I understand tremolo. This is from the Wikipedia article on "Tremolo":

"Tremolo is a musical term with two meanings:

A rapid repetition of the same note, or an alternation between two or more notes. A rapid and repetitive variation in pitch for the duration of a note. This is more usually called vibrato."

I consider the above definitions to be accurate. I will deliberate on how best to edit this entry accordingly.

Michael 8:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time April 13, 2005

OK, I decided that it was simplest to delete the second paragraph. I don't think the word "tremolo" is used incorrectly in "tremolo arm." The tremolo arm can be used to bend a half step or greater, which is somewhat analogous to vocal tremolo but not vibrato.

Michael 8:54 A.M. EDT April 13, 2005

All my sources say that it was an erroneous name given by Leo Fender when he invented the synchronized trem; I've tried to be diplomatic in re-adding, but I don't think there's much dispute. Deltabeignet 17:40, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It's an ongoing and natural discussion! IMO the dispute is by people who are either ignorant of guitar culture, or in some cases possibly don't regard the electric guitar as a musical instrument (;-> anyway! See Talk:Vibrato unit, and also Vibrato unit#Vibrato or tremolo?. Andrewa 17:17, 12 September 2005 (UTC)
I've been playing electric guitar for most of my life and consider it an instrument. Yet, calling the vibrato bar/arm a tremolo bar/arm is one of the silliest mistakes a person could perpetuate. A lot of material (guitar magazines, instruction books) correctly call a vibrato bar a vibrato bar. That's because a vibrato bar modulates pitch. If it modulated volume, it would be a tremolo bar, but it doesn't do that. "Whammy bar", even though it's slang, may be the best thing to call the device. Most guitar-like MIDI-controllers let you assign the whammy bar to any MIDI parameter. These could be tremolo arms. But they could also be vibrato arms or low-pass filter arms or resonance arms, etc. "Whammy bar" is generic and there is no ambiguity. If it didn't sound so silly, I would definitely prefer it. In my opinion, this article should be retitled. --Trweiss 00:01, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

Yes, Leo Fender screwed up when he named it a tremelo arm, it should really be called a vibrato arm. Nothing is going to change the fact now. I don't think the name of the article should be changed for this reason, even though it was named incorrectly, that is what it's name is now. Jim

Please sign your posts on talk pages, Jim. Some very interesting stuff on this in the various articles now, particularly at Vibrato unit#Vibrato or tremolo? and in tremolo arm. Leo Fender did call the later Mustang trem a DYNAMIC VIBRATO, and stamped those two words on all the tailpieces in capital letters! Maybe this was to better compete with the Bigsby, from which the Mustang trem borrowed some design features. Andrewa 00:01, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Range of Strat-style trem

My experimentation would suggest about five half-steps down and one to two half-steps up, but, considering that this is clear original research, I can't think of how to include it. Deltabeignet 22:16, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

IMO it at least scrapes in as encyclopedic. Original research is sometimes a bit hard to delineate. We don't insist on citing a source for the information that the sky is blue!
My caution would be, how generally true is this? I'd specify the precise model and year of an example, and give its variation, in the article; That's encyclopedic and valuable information IMO. Choose an example you think typical, but I wouldn't try to justify the choice in the article; The information as to why you hold the opinion that this is a typical model is probably original research. I'd give the information as to all the guitars you tested (and I'd love to see it myself), but put it on this talk page, not in the article.
Commendable attitude, just BTW. Andrewa 17:17, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Locking tremolo, etc

Some very interesting contributions from an anon. Some very good stuff, but also a bit of bias and some outright errors.

I've removed the word 'sadlle' that they used to replace 'nut'. Nearly every trem (not all) I've ever seen has more than one saddle; The trem we're discussing in the section affected has six. It's the whole bridge that moves as a unit. Probably best just to say bridge in hindsight.

I've also removed (a development of Floyd Rose, see below) from the description of the Fender two-point synch trem. It's very interesting if true, but I'm skeptical. I've never heard this development attributed to Rose before. I'd think if it were true that Fender would be obliged to admit it on their web pages, or that Rose would claim it on theirs, and neither do as far as I can see. It sounds like folklore to me.

OHO! My guess, following some more anon contribs, is that some people confuse the Fender two-point synchronized tremolo with the Floyd Rose two-point locking tremolo. These are completely different concepts, but both based on the original strat trem and with similar names. I'll put something into the article to clarify this. Andrewa 23:59, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

And the additions or more commonly, string nut from inside a wikilink (admittedly a red one) and or tuning keys are also gone. The terms head nut and machine heads are fairly standard, and I'm very skeptical that there's any Rose-equipped guitar in the world with plain tuning keys rather than machine heads.

Finally and most important IMO, I've done some rephrasing to the surviving additions to the Rose trem section. The point about the early units not having fine tuners, and being favoured by some guitarists, is a good one but IMO overstated. Most guitarists think the fine tuners are an improvement, as do Floyd Rose themselves! Similarly, the claim that most guitars are now available with Rose trems is just not true. No arch-top is AFAIK, nor are 12-strings, for example. It's an obvious overstatement by an enthusiast. But, my original phrase was probably too conservative. I've now gone for something in the middle. Andrewa 23:48, 5 March 2006 (UTC)

More interesting additions by anons. Good stuff, but I suspect that some of this material would be better moved to the Floyd Rose article, rather than here. Andrewa 14:27, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

On the unpopularity so far of the Speedloader system, the current article reads: Part of the reason for this may be the decline of the heavy vibrato effect in popular music. Hmmmm. IMO a much larger part is the need to buy special strings, limiting the choice, locking you in to one supplier, putting the guitar off the road in the case of any supply hitch and as a result making the instrument useless for any working muso of less than superstar status. But it may catch on, I've been wrong before. Andrewa 23:51, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

In that no-one speaks, I've removed the sentence. Andrewa 00:28, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
I've just stumbled onto this page and I know I'm talking about an extremely old comment here, but I think there might be some truth to this in general about Tremolo that may be worth mentioning.
Modern rock is often heavily based on power chords and other techniques that are pretty brutal to the strings. At least in my experience with the Fender system (and I'm a very less-than-stellar non-serious guitarist with an American Standard Stratocaster), playing hard, palm muting, and executing bends on one string while keeping others sounding at a steady pitch means the system gets in the way more often than I use it. Either the bridge moves inadvertantly, or the strings go out of tune way more easily than they should.
Never mind the joy of trying to correctly tune a guitar where the bridge moves to lower all strings every time you tune one up. If you use a lot of Drop-D or Eb, it's a nightmare. It's a balancing act that I don't think many musicians want to deal with when the positives are well outside of their stylistic tastes CSZero 16:12, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I'm a permanent beginner on the guitar, but I agree with your assessment completely. It's a headache with options on becoming a nightmare. Gzuckier 16:56, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Floyd Rose, who or what.

Floyd Rose, the person, is referenced with a link. the problem is that it is a link to the Floyd Rose, the object, artical. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.212.92.168 (talk) 21:43, 25 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] EVH's involvement in Floyd Rose fine tuners

I clearly recall reading a short article in some guitar magazine in which Floyd Rose himself confirmed that Eddie Van Halen had given him input on the range of the bridge end fine tuners. Van Halen indicated that it would be more practical for him if the fine tuners could accomodate tuning the low E string down a full step to D (or in Eddie's case, Db), enabling him to retune for songs such as Unchained without unlocking the nut. What I can't remember for the life of me is where I read this, so I suppose it's not entirely helpful. Hopefully someone else reading this might remember the article I'm thinking of.

Please sign your posts on talk pages. Andrewa 02:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mustang trem

I've removed the phrase wrapped around. That's how I've mostly seen Mustang trems rigged, but it's been pointed out to me that in all the Fender catalogs the strings are simply passed through the bar, in a similar fashion to those on a conventional open tailpiece. Possibly wrapping them round Bigsby-fashion gives still more range, but the design seems to have them straight through. Andrewa 02:14, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

And the mystery deepens... at http://www.warmoth.com/hardware/bridges/bridges.cfm?fuseaction=mustang_trem we read The strings load from the front and wrap around the height adjustable string mounting bar. Yeah, that's what I thought too! Watch this space... Andrewa 10:17, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Naming "controversy"?

I think "controversy" is the wrong word. Everyone agrees that Leo got it wrong and this invention is misnamed. I propose changing the name of this section to "Vibrato or tremolo?", which is what's used on the vibrato unit page. 64.171.68.130 23:13, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Well done

This article is very well done, someone should nominate it for WP:FA status. 128.158.145.51 14:48, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

The Guitar Riff is nice, but the single note doesn't really show the vibrato sound. I think this is mostly because the note fades too quickly.RSido 17:21, 14 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA review

Hi there! I'm quick-failing this article's Good Article nomination because it lacks any references at all. All Wikipedia articles need references to reliable sources in order to facilitate verifiability. See this page for a "how-to" on using citations and references in Wikipedia. Once that problem has been corrected, please feel free to renominate the article for a full review. If you have any questions, please contact me via my talk page. Cheers! Esrever 02:38, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Kevin Shields

I'm adding references to Kevin Shields, because it beggars belief that there has been no mention of him thus far. 85.134.144.6 16:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)