Locking tuners vs Floyd Rose systems

12 Responses to “Locking tuners vs Floyd Rose systems”

1. Dibsmjf
   June 11th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

   

   I’ve installed a set of Wilkinson locking tuners on a strat copy, these seem to work a bit differently to the ones you’ve mentioned. These have a screw mechanism in the top of the post which clamps the string in place instead of relying on wrapping the string round the post.

   To string up, you put the string through the hole in the tuner as normal and pull it tight, then there is a slot in the top of the screw which you put a plectrum in, then holding the plectrum still you turn the tuning knob, which turns the post whilst the screw remains stationary, clamping the string in place as the string comes up to tune. The tuner itself is not locking in position, instead the string is locked relative to the tuner.

   The main advantage seems to be that with this method you only half 1/4-1/2 wrap of string round the tuner, to less opportunity for slippage and obviously because the string itself is clamped in place it cannot slip about.

   The guitar has a Wilkinson fully floating 2-point bridge, with a properly cut and lubricated (with carbon) nut and the locking tuners it’s a very stable system, I haven’t played a Floyd-equipped guitar for any period of time so can’t really make a good comparison, but mine will withstand serious whammy abuse no problem.

2. Ovidiu
   June 11th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

   

   Interesting description, seems that solutions do exist, there is more to this world than Floyd Rose

   Thanks for your comment, I will look more into these tuners.

3. John
   June 11th, 2008 at 3:38 pm

   

   Dibsmjf’s comment about the properly cut and lubricated nut is, I think, the key item in this discussion. Whether the tuners lock or not, if the string doesn’t return to it’s original position after thrashing the whammy, your tuning is gone.

   I have an old strat with the original tremolo, and as long as I’m gentle (and keep that nut lubricated) I have no tuning issues, even with the stock tuners.

   However, if I lean hard on the bar, and let the strings go slack, they will fall out of the nut, and off the string tension tree on the headstock. No amount of carbon is going to make up for that
   The locking tuners will hold the string in place, but I’ve had strings jump over to an adjacent nut slot, or shift positions on the saddle, causing tuning issues.

   The double locking tremolo’s (like the Floyd) eliminate the string movement issues by locking the strings in place.

   The drawback is that tuning can be a chore…unlock the nut, adjust the bridge fine tuners to middle position, tune, lock the nut, and then use the bridge fine tuners to re-tune to compensate for any string drift that may occur when locking the nut down.

   After that, however, tuning is very stable, requiring only minor adjustments due to changes in heat or humidity (or the infamous string stretch).

   The locking tuners (imho) are adequate if you’re using the tremolo gently, but if you tend to be aggressive, the double locking mechanism will save you some frustration on stage….you’re guitar tech may not like putting the extra time in on string changes, but hey…that’s why we pay them

4. eric
   June 11th, 2008 at 4:10 pm

   

   I’ve got locking tuners on my Anderson. I opted for them because of the weight of the F.R.. To me it’s a less complicated, less pricey and it works well to boot.

5. Ovidiu
   June 11th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

   

   Very informative comment, John!Thank you! Indeed, you have a very good point, the strings shift position on the nut when working with the whammy bar and I guess that unless the tuners have some mechanism to hold the strings in their position, they are not very good when sky bombing, right?

   But as far as I understand, they work fine in case you want just to give that beautiful low frequency smooth bar tremolo. Great comment!

6. Ovidiu
   June 11th, 2008 at 4:19 pm

   

   @Eric: I guess it also depends on what you play. I guess that (as I have also said above) if you want to give that nice and smooth low frequency tremolo like when you strum chords on clean, letting them ring and using the bar just to make them vibrate, they work.

   But I have always asked myself how Malmsteen does his tricks on his Fender without the Floyd Rose? I remember some shows where he abused his whammy bar, I think it was the G3 show and I have observed this because he was the only one there not having a Floyd Rose. Don’t his strings go out of tune? What does he use?

7. Jon
   June 12th, 2008 at 12:47 am

   

   I have locking tuners on my Patrick Eggle and I’m thinking of getting a graphite nut, the tuning is crap I just got the guitar “Plek’d” (http://sydneyguitarsetups.com/acatalog/Plek_Vedeo.html) so I know the nut is cut correctly just needs a bit of pencil lead in there until I get it replaced. My old Ibanez with a locking nut hardly ever went out of tune no matter how much punishment!

8. Stratoblogster
   June 12th, 2008 at 7:44 am

   

   On the first Van Halen album EVH was Floyd-less. A couple other pre-Floyd/pre-locking tuners live recordings worth checking are:

   Hendrix - Band of Gypsies

   Deep Purple - Made in Japan

9. Ovidiu
   June 12th, 2008 at 8:44 am

   

   @Stratoblogster: Yeah, but I remember reading somewhere an interview with a sound engineer who was obsessed with tuning the guitars saying that all the greatest guitar players of the 70s were out of tune due to poor tuning capabilities.

   Also my ex band had a hard rock record before me joining them, where the guitar player had no Floyd Rose and he seriously abused his tremolo bar (it’s in his nature and he does it great) but it is on the recording so multiple takes and re-tuning are OK. But live…

   @Jon: Did you actually go through this process described in the video? Cool!!

10. How about fine tuning your guitar(neck, frets, saddle)? | Guitar tabs,electric guitars,acoustic guitars
    June 12th, 2008 at 8:56 am

    

    […] Acoustic guitars, Electric guitars Thursday Jun 12,2008 Thanks to yesterday discussion about locking tuners vs Floyd Rose systems, Jon of GuitarNoize.com pointed me to this video. It is very interesting to watch a custom […]

11. MG
    June 15th, 2008 at 7:56 am

    

    Some of the comments bring to mind some questions I have about tuning issues (in general-I don’t currently have a guitar with a whammy bar) We just got some graphite for a sticky lock-would that be ok to put on the nut slots to help with “sticky” strings? I think I remember that a guitar tech I knew a while back used that. I think I also heard of someone using vaseline in the slots too! (I wouldn’t do that myself-I would be worried about messing up the tone/brilliance of the strings and the “messiness” of it).
    I had an old Ibanez Roadstar (damn wish I still had it!)with a stock locking trem. and it would stay in tune to itself but the tuning of the guitar would stick too high (usually) or too low.
    I always wondered about the Hendrix, Blackmore, and Malmsteen thing. On the Woodstock Star Spangled Banner version, it does seem that Jimi went slightly out of tune, but too bad considering how he used the bar! Maybe someone out there knows some secrets about those players with stock Strat whammys?

12. Ovidiu
    June 15th, 2008 at 10:15 am

    

    Yea, I would be curious too. Mostly about Malmsteen because I have seen him abusing his whammy bar and he doesn’t seem to get out of tune.