For the readers out there who play guitar, perhaps you'll share my frustration when I say that there's nothing more troublesome than the floating bridge. For those who don't know, the bridge of a guitar is the anchoring point of the strings and can be divided by either "tremolo" or "hardtail." Tremolo means the guitar player can push or pull on a tremolo bar to move the bridge like a lever, changing the tension on the strings and affecting the sound. Hardtail refers to bridges that are securely attached to the body of the guitar and do not move. As opposed to the fixed bridge, which allows the player the tremolo ability but only allows downward movement (like the Fender strat-style tremolo), a floating bridge gives players upward and downwards motion on the tremolo bar.
My seven-string Washburn 587V uses a Floyd Rose pivot bridge, which is fantastic for hammering out divebombing and whammy combinations, but the problem is while tuning the guitar, you must find the equilibrium where the bridge "floats" even with the body of the guitar. The strings pull the bridge upwards, while tension springs under the bridge pull it back. Since it relies on equal tension, each time you adjust the tuning on one string, the other six change. You end up having to tune the guitar around five times before it averages out. And if you're tuning a floating bridge without an electric tuner, good luck. For the trouble they cause, it would've been better for me to keep my Ibanez with its hardtail. For anyone giving the gift of a guitar for Christmas, avoid the floating bridge.
Recent Comments