So at the end of January I made a conscious decision to play only ONE guitar for several weeks rather than switching often between instruments. Get to know it, be one with the instrument, make it sound/act like other instruments that I dig, yadda yadda. I've found a cool trick and wanted to share my discovery. A video would be great, but you'll have to use your imagination.
The guitar I'm playing has a floating Floyd Rose tremolo. The thing I wanted to mimic was the Jazzmaster's tremolo. The JM's tremolo has a long bar and limited range which makes it great for soft, subtle, textural warbles. The Floyd Rose is the exact opposite - short bar, tons of range. They're both floaters.
The trick I've discovered in getting the Floyd Rose to mimic the feel of the Jazzmaster tremolo is to have the bar facing directly down - so, perpendicular to the strings. At this angle, there is a ton of resistance and not a lot of range. The closer you put the bar to be parallel with the strings, the less resistance and more range there is. So, you simply tweak the position until you find one that allows you to get a similar range to what the Jazzmaster has. Viola! Soft, subtle, textural, shimmery warbles.
On the Floyd, the bar ends up being beautifully out-of-the-way, and the bar stays where I put it. It's picky, but certainly doable - having a bar that stays put seems key to the success of this technique. I would imagine this technique would work on any floating tremolo bridge, but I don't have any to test. Just wanted to share, hope anyone else finds this helpful and fun.
The guitar I'm playing has a floating Floyd Rose tremolo. The thing I wanted to mimic was the Jazzmaster's tremolo. The JM's tremolo has a long bar and limited range which makes it great for soft, subtle, textural warbles. The Floyd Rose is the exact opposite - short bar, tons of range. They're both floaters.
The trick I've discovered in getting the Floyd Rose to mimic the feel of the Jazzmaster tremolo is to have the bar facing directly down - so, perpendicular to the strings. At this angle, there is a ton of resistance and not a lot of range. The closer you put the bar to be parallel with the strings, the less resistance and more range there is. So, you simply tweak the position until you find one that allows you to get a similar range to what the Jazzmaster has. Viola! Soft, subtle, textural, shimmery warbles.
On the Floyd, the bar ends up being beautifully out-of-the-way, and the bar stays where I put it. It's picky, but certainly doable - having a bar that stays put seems key to the success of this technique. I would imagine this technique would work on any floating tremolo bridge, but I don't have any to test. Just wanted to share, hope anyone else finds this helpful and fun.
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