Floyd Rose

Contents

The Floyd Rose Locking Tremolo, or simply Floyd Rose, is a type of locking vibrato arm for a guitar. The first of its kind, Floyd D. Rose invented the locking vibrato in 1977, and it is now manufactured by a company of the same name. The Floyd Rose gained popularity in the 1980s through influential guitarists like Eddie Van Halen, Neal Schon, Brad Gillis, Joe Satriani, and Steve Vai, who used its ability to stay in tune even with extreme changes in pitch to invent new guitar licks. Its tuning stability comes through the double-locking design that has been widely regarded as revolutionary; the design has been listed on both Guitar World magazine's "10 Most Earth Shaking Guitar Innovations"[1] as well as Guitar Player's "101 Greatest Moments in Guitar History 1979-1983".[2]

History

Floyd D. Rose first started working on what would later become the Floyd Rose Tremolo in 1976.[3] He was playing in a rock band at the time, inspired by Jimi Hendrix and Deep Purple, where he used the vibrato bar a lot but failed to be able to keep his guitars in tune using traditional approaches like lubricating the nut, or winding the strings as little as possible around the tuning pegs.

Rose's profession at the time was making jewelry, and after noticing one of the issues with the regular nut design is the string moves freely, he used his tools to create a brass nut where the strings were locked in place with three U-shaped clamps. He installed this nut in his 1957 Fender Stratocaster. Later he improved this design by using hardened steel, as otherwise the strings would wear the clamps down too quickly, and a redesigned bridge which also locked the strings using clamps.

The first bridges and nuts were all hand-made by Rose, and were quickly picked up by some of the more influential guitarists at the time, perhaps most notably Eddie Van Halen.[4] Other well-known guitarists who picked it up early were Neal Schon, who purportedly got serial number 3,[5] Brad Gillis (serial number 4),[5] and Steve Vai.[6]

The first patent was awarded in 1979,[7] and shortly afterward, Rose made an agreement with Kramer Guitars because he could no longer keep up with demand manufacturing the bridges by hand. Kramer's guitar models with the Floyd Rose bridge became very popular, leading them to drop the earlier Rockinger vibrato in favor of the Floyd Rose between June 1982 and January 1983.[8] Due to the popularity, other companies started making similar bridges, thus violating the patent. This led Rose and Kramer to make licensing agreements with other manufacturers, and there are now several different models available based on the double-locking design. Because the bridges and nuts were no longer hand-made it was necessary to update the design, and the bridges were changed to add a set of tuners that allow for fine-tuning the guitar after the strings are locked at the nut.[9][10]

In January 1991, Kramer's exclusive distribution agreement with Rose ended when Fender announced they would be the new exclusive distributor of Floyd Rose products. While Fender used Floyd Rose-licensed vibrato systems previously, this move allowed Fender to offer a few models with the original Floyd Rose Tremolo, such as the Richie Sambora Signature Strat in 1991, the Floyd Rose Classic Stratocaster in 1992 and the Set-Neck Floyd Rose Strat in 1993.[11] 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 vibrato system on certain humbucker-equipped American Deluxe and Showmaster models until 2007.[12]

In 2005, distribution of the Floyd Rose Original reverted to Floyd Rose, whereas the patented designs were licensed to other manufacturers to use.

Principles

Position I illustrates the normal position of an ideally tuned Floyd Rose bridge. The bridge (orange) balances on a pivot point, being pulled counter-clockwise by the strings' tension and clockwise by one or several (usually up to five) springs. Controlled by special tuning screws (turquoise), 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 (green) as well as at the bridge, hence "double-locking".

Position II illustrates the position of the bridge when the vibrato 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. While the tension of the strings decreases, the tension of the springs increases. It is the balance between string-tension and spring-tension, as well as the fact that the strings end at the bridge saddles and nut (eliminating "play" in the string, which would negatively affect tuning), that brings the strings reliably back into tune.

Position III illustrates the position of the bridge when the vibrato 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 vibrato 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 vibrato installations.

Advantages and disadvantages

The main advantage of the Floyd Rose Tremolo system is the double-locking design which allows the guitar to stay in tune even through extremely large pitch changes, e.g. like forcing the vibrato bar all the way down to the guitar body, or pulling up on the bar to raise the tone as much as a fifth or a seventh.[13] Some examples of this type of usage is described in the popular use section.

A typical set-up of the bridge has it floating, allowing for both raising and dropping the pitch of notes using the vibrato bar. In this case, if a string breaks the balance of the bridge is disrupted, rendering the guitar out of tune.[13] If this happens in the middle of a performance, the guitar is not going to be of much use to a guitarist who would like to sound "in-tune," which is perhaps most users of the Floyd-Rose (since the main advantage of the system is to achieve pitch-bends without losing intonation when the whammy bar returns to its stationary position). Moreover, since the tension of one string affects the tension of all the others, it can take several iterations through the tuning process before the instrument is tuned. Some players prefer to instead have the bridge flush with the body, one example is Eddie Van Halen,[14] and in this set-up a broken string will have no effect on the pitch of the other strings. This also allows fitting a device to the bridge that can drop the low E-string down to D to extend the tonal variety of the guitar, even during live performance.[15] Bending, however, still affects the rest of the strings, which makes some double-stop techniques more difficult to achieve.

The bridge's effect on the tone of the guitar is a topic of much disagreement, some players find that the guitar has a "thin tone",[16] which has led to the development of replacement sustain blocks. This block is larger in size than the standard block,[16] and can be made of a metal alloy with larger mass.[17] According to the reviews this modification might lead to a preferable change in the tonal quality of the guitar.[16][17]

Models and varieties

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.[3][18] Other players frequently cited to be influential in the area of Floyd Rose usage are Steve Vai,[6][18][19][20][21] Joe Satriani,[19][21] Kirk Hammett,[19] Brad Gillis,[18] Tom Morello,[22] Allan Holdsworth,[20] Nuno Bettencourt and Frank Zappa.

Many guitarists use this system to create new sounds that were not practical to achieve with traditional vibrato systems:

Due to the popularity of the Floyd Rose system and the licensing to other manufacturers, a variety of other players also regularly use guitars equipped with this system, including Adrian Smith and Dave Murray of Iron Maiden, Criss Oliva of Savatage, Alex Lifeson of Rush, Bruce Kulick of Kiss, Living Colour's Vernon Reid, and Kirk Hammett of Metallica.

References

  1. ^ Gill, Chris (December 2006). "10 Most Earth Shaking Guitar Innovations". Guitar World. http://www.guitarworld.com/article/10_most_earth_shaking_guitar_innovations. Retrieved 2010-10-02. 
  2. ^ Blackett, Matt. "101 Greatest Moments in Guitar History 1979 - 1983". Guitar Player. http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/101-greatest-moments/mar-05/4282. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  3. ^ a b Bradley, Simon (August 2010). "Floyd Rose: New Interview". Guitarist (magazine). http://www.musicradar.com/guitarist/floyd-rose-new-interview-257435. Retrieved 2010-10-02. 
  4. ^ Vinnicombe, Chris; Leonard, Michael (2009-04-09). The 10 guitars that changed music. pp. 3. http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/the-10-guitars-that-changed-music-202799. Retrieved 2010-10-02. 
  5. ^ a b Gold, Jude. Whammy Bar Pyrotechnics. http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/whammy-bar-pyrotechnics/May-08/35259. Retrieved 2010-10-02. 
  6. ^ a b di Perna, Alan. Steve Vai: Flex Appeal. pp. 4. http://www.guitarworld.com/article/steve_vai_flex_appeal. Retrieved 2010-10-02. 
  7. ^ US patent 4171661, Floyd D. Rose, "Guitar tremolo method and apparatus", issued 1979-10-23  — bridge mechanism patent;
  8. ^ Christe, Ian (2007). Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga. John Wiley & Sons. p. 82. ISBN 9780470039106. 
  9. ^ US patent 4497236, Floyd D. Rose, "Apparatus for restraining and fine tuning the strings of a musical instrument, particularly guitars", issued 1985-02-05  — first fine tuners and saddle patent;
  10. ^ US patent 4549461, Floyd D. Rose, "Apparatus for restraining and fine tuning the strings of a musical instrument, particularly guitars", issued 1985-10-29  — second fine tuners and saddle patent;
  11. ^ A. R. Duchossoir (1994). The Fender Stratocaster: A Complete Guide to the History and Evolution of the World's Most Famous Guitar. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 40. ISBN 9780793547357. 
  12. ^ Gruhn, George; Carter, Walter (1999). Gruhn's Guide to Vintage Guitars: An Identification Guide for American Fretted Instruments. Backbeat Books. p. 91. ISBN 9780879304225. 
  13. ^ a b Ganaden, Gerry (April 2009). "Trem Wars: The Whammy Arms Race". Premier Guitar: 4. http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2009/Apr/Trem_Wars_The_Whammy_Arms_Race.aspx. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  14. ^ Bradley, Simon (2009-09-04). "EVH Wolfgang". Guitarist (magazine): 3. http://www.musicradar.com/gear/all/guitars/electric/6-string-solid-body/wolfgang-218864/review. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  15. ^ Gill, Chris (2009-06-30). "Eddie Van Halen: Of Wolf and Man". Guitar World: 6. http://www.guitarworld.com/article/eddie_van_halen_of_wolf_and_man. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  16. ^ a b c Ganaden, Gerry (February 2009). "Big Block Floyd Rose Tremolo Review". Premier Guitar. http://www.premierguitar.com/Magazine/Issue/2009/Feb/Big_Block_Floyd_Rose_Tremolo_Review.aspx. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  17. ^ a b Kirkland, Eric (May 2010). "FloydUpgrades.com Brass "Big Block" and Titanium Sustain Blocks". Guitar World. http://www.guitarworld.com/article/floydupgradescom_brass_%E2%80%9Cbig_block%E2%80%9D_and_titanium_sustain_blocks. Retrieved 2010-10-07. 
  18. ^ a b c Carruthers, John (2005). Alfred's Teach Yourself Guitar Repair & Maintenance: Everything You Need to Know to Start Working on Your Guitar. Alfred Publishing. p. 57. ISBN 9780739036013. 
  19. ^ a b c "History of Floyd Rose, the inventor of Floyd Rose Tremolo system". http://www.gear-vault.com/history-of-floyd-rose-inventor-of-floyd-rose-guitar-tremolo/. 
  20. ^ a b Schonbrun, Marc (2003). The Everything Rock & Blues Guitar Book: From Chords to Scales and Licks to Tricks, All You Need to Play Like the Greats (2nd ed.). Everything Books. p. 48. ISBN 9781580628839. 
  21. ^ a b Phillips, Mark; Chappell, Jon (2005). Guitar For Dummies (2nd ed.). For Dummies. p. 306. ISBN 9780764599040. 
  22. ^ Marshall, Wolf (2008). Stuff! Good Guitar Players Should Know. Hal Leonard Corporation. p. 63. ISBN 9781423430087. 
  23. ^ Whammy Bar Tricks 101: A guide to some dramatic whammy bar effects
  24. ^ Gress, Jesse. "10 Things You Gotta Do to Play Like Joe Satriani". http://www.guitarplayer.com/article/10-things-you/April-2010/112235. Retrieved 2010-09-22. 
  25. ^ Reinventing The Squeal
  26. ^ Dimebag Explains His Technique 'Dimesqueal'
  27. ^ Mike Errico, Stan Horaczek (May 2006). "DragonForce: Video Article". Blender. http://www.blender.com/guide/articles.aspx?id=1921.  Video is also available as YouTube video.

Patents

Floyd Rose holds a number of patents on floating bridge design:

External links