Are you suspicious of your tremolo-equipped guitar’s tuning stability? You shouldn’t be — armed with a bit of knowledge, you should be able to achieve reliable performance from practically any type of tremolo unit. I consulted with four veteran guitarists here at Sweetwater — Nick Bowcott, Don Carr, Thom Grant, and Mitch Gallagher — to gather pro tips on how to make sure your tremolo performs its best. Whether you use a Stratocaster-style tremolo unit, a Fender offset-style floating trem, a Floyd Rose, or a Bigsby, we hope you find these tips useful.
Let’s get one thing straight
Yes, we know — the “tremolo” on a guitar actually produces a vibrato effect (pitch modulation) instead of a tremolo effect (volume modulation). Guitarists have been misusing this term ever since Fender advertised their first Strat as having “tremolo action” — it is what it is.
Getting to know your tremolo
Visualizing how your tremolo system works will go a long way toward helping you maintain your instrument properly. Regardless of what particular type of tremolo system you have, there are two forces that keep the system balanced: (A) the tension of your strings being balanced and opposed by (B) the tension of springs within the tremolo unit. When you depress your guitar’s trem arm, you’re applying force to the trem’s spring(s) in order to lower the tension of your strings, lowering their pitch. When you release the trem arm, you release the force in the springs and allow the tremolo unit to return to its starting position, determined by the tension of your strings.
There are other variables at play here that we’ll get into, involving every point of contact along each string’s path, as well as other factors. The important thing to know when you’re approaching a trem-equipped guitar for the first time is that it’s a complex system, but it is simple to maintain once you have some understanding of what’s going on. We’ve talked with countless guitarists that have trouble with their trem system, and often all it takes are a few simple tweaks to achieve reliable tremolo performance with almost any guitar. That being said, let’s take a look at some general tips that will apply to practically any guitar with a tremolo tailpiece.
General tips for maximizing tuning stability
There are some things you can do to maximize tuning stability with any style of tremolo unit. Thanks to Mitch Gallagher for helping compile these tips.
Stretch new strings thoroughly
- This is especially true if you use a Floyd Rose tailpiece with a locking nut. New strings go through a bit of a break-in period, and stretching them helps reduce the number of times you’ll need to retune them early on.
Lubricate any point of contact along the string’s path
- Use a string lubricant like Music Nomad’s Tune-It string lubricant to prevent your strings from binding at the nut or saddles. Lubricants also help prevent oxidation, which can prevent your strings from moving smoothly along their path.
Check your nut
- While you’re lubing it up, check how well your strings sit in your guitar’s nut, and try to identify if there’s any resistance or binding as the strings move through the nut slots. Having a guitar tech file your nut slots — or learning to do it yourself — can make the biggest difference when it comes to tremolo tuning stability.
Consider upgrading to staggered-height tuning machines
- Staggered-height tuning machines eliminate the need for string trees on your guitar’s headstock, which can impede tuning stability with tremolo usage because of the additional tension they add to certain strings. Staggered-height tuners ensure each string has the same break angle over the nut, allowing better tuning stability.
Use locking tuners
- Locking tuners minimize potential slack in the strings and reduce string movement at the tuning peg during trem use. If you don’t use locking tuners, at least try to use a minimum number of wraps on the tuning post when you restring your guitar.
Bonus tip — change your strings one string at a time
- Because a tremolo unit is balanced by the force of your strings against the force of a spring or springs, it’s better to change strings one at a time instead of removing them all at once. This maintains most of the tension on the tremolo system, which makes it easier to bring each new string up to pitch.
Stratocaster tremolo tips
When tuning up, tune your strings from the inside strings to the outside strings, i.e., D, G, A, B, E, E. We’ve found that this tunes up a Strat faster and more reliably than tuning the strings from high to low, or from low to high.
Also when tuning up, depress the tremolo arm once quickly each time you get a string to pitch — this will help release any built-up tension on the tuning peg. You’ll need to spend an extra couple of minutes getting everything up to pitch with this method, but once you do, just pressing down on your trem arm once quickly should return all strings to pitch to fix any minor tuning issues.
If you have a vintage-style 6-screw tremolo unit on your Strat, tighten the screws down until they just barely touch the top of the bridge plate. If the screws are too tight, the plate and its knife edge may bind. If the screws aren’t holding the plate down, it may ride up and mess with both tuning and trem response.
In the back cavity of your Strat, make sure the trem springs are balanced (being stretched about the same amount) — you can adjust this by turning the screws holding the claw to the guitar’s body. This will help your tremolo operate more smoothly and will also help ensure all strings return to pitch equally.
Fender floating tremolo tips
The floating tremolo found on Jazzmasters, Jaguars, and other offset Fender guitars was designed with big strings in mind. If you’re having tuning stability issues with 9s or 10s, try 11s or even 12s — the greater tension of heavier strings helps the tremolo mechanism return to true pitch better and also helps prevent the strings from buzzing on the bridge.
Raise your bridge as high as you can while still maintaining playability — this increases the break angle of the strings, raising tension and helping the tremolo return properly.
Reverse the three screws closest to the tailpiece so that the screw heads are underneath the top plate, not above it (this requires removing the whole mechanism, removing those screws, then screwing them back in the reverse direction). Those exposed Phillips-head screws are the cause of a lot of string breaks, due to the relatively low break angle of the strings off the bridge. Reversing those screws buys you a couple of extra millimeters of clearance, which can make the difference between catching a string or not.
Fender’s floating tremolo tailpieces have a small adjustment screw for the tension of the arm spring — it’s also the key to using the tremolo lock properly. Adjust this spring up or down (retuning as you go), until you can just barely slide the trem lock button into position. When set up properly, you can leave the trem lock button disengaged most of the time (allowing both up and down vibrato movement) — if you break a string, slide the trem lock button into position, and your remaining strings will be back in tune (you’ll still be able to press the trem arm down, but not up with the lock engaged).
Bigsby tuning tips
Sweetwater guitar expert Thom Grant recommends replacing the arm tension spring (the one that keeps the arm from swinging back, not the main tension spring) with a nylon washer. “It makes the action on the Bigsby more immediate and eliminates the creaking that can occur.”
Assuming the roller on your Bigsby isn’t a string-through design, try bending the ball end of your strings into a “C” shape before restringing. This helps them curve around the roller and just makes it easier to restring.
Be careful about how far you’re bending your Bigsby — it’s the most nuanced design on this list, created for subtle warbles instead of dive-bombs. If you’re trying to get much more than a 1/2-step bend out of your Bigsby, or you’re breaking strings often, you may be better off with one of the other styles of tremolo tailpiece.
The main tension spring on a Bigsby is hefty, and there will be a break-in period before it’s operating as smoothly as possible. To speed this up, some players remove the main spring and compress it in a vice for a day or two. It’s not necessary, but keep this in mind if your brand-new Bigsby-equipped guitar feels a little stiff the first time you play it.
Because the main tension spring is very stout, heavier strings help balance that extreme tension. You may experience better performance and tuning stability if you string your guitar with 10s, 11s, or even 12s.
Floyd Rose tips
As mentioned above in the general tips, it’s best to change strings one string at a time with a Floyd Rose-equipped guitar. Loosening multiple strings simultaneously can cause the Floyd Rose assembly to dip into the cavity in your guitar, making it harder to access adjustment screws and making it take longer to bring everything back up to pitch.
When securing a new string to the saddle, hand-tighten the screw and then snug it up with a wrench. Be careful not to over-tighten and strip the screw.
Stretching your new strings is important with any guitar, but especially so for Floyd Rose players. If your strings are properly stretched, your bridge will accurately return to the proper tilt and pitch when the whammy bar is not in use. Before locking them down at the nut, stretch your strings across the entire length of the fretboard and then retune. Continue retuning and stretching until the pitch stabilizes. Once will not be enough.
Once you’ve tightened down the locking nut, don’t use the headstock tuners, or you could break your strings.
Get to know your tremolo
We could go on for days about all the nuances of getting along with your tremolo-equipped guitar. The important thing to know is that all the tremolo systems we’ve discussed can be set up to be incredibly stable. Watch Jeff Beck play live, and he’ll do things with his Strat’s tremolo that you didn’t think were possible. Check out Eddie Van Halen with his Floyd Rose — if it can stand up to a player like him, it can stand up to anyone. Listen to Johnny A’s use of a Bigsby to hear the epitome of nuanced vibrato. These systems would not have lasted if they weren’t capable of reliable, professional performance.
If you’d like to know more about these guitar tremolo systems, just give your Sweetwater Sales Engineer a call at (800) 222-4700.