I have never used the whammy bar on my strats because I can never get it set up to work properly. I don't want to modify the nut to be a locking system, but I am not opposed to using something like an LSR Roller Nut...

Does anyone here have a website or video link to how to set up a strat so it stays in tune while using the whammy bar.. I see Gilmour use it and Jeff Beck and it works for them... How do they do that?

Thanks,

TJ

It can be easily done with attention to a few key points during setup, I'd suggest you get hold of this book. It shows you a great deal about your guitar including trem setup/troubleshooting and how you can set it up to work the best it can, it's almost like the owners manual you didn't get when you bought the guitar.

http://www.amazon.com/Electric-Guitar-Great-Softcover-Player/dp/0879306017

Thank you.... I have a guy I go to for setups and he is great... but, he only does the locking systems and is not clued in on the stock fender whammy.

Please keep the references coming...

Thanks,

TJ

You can get this DVD in any ebay store that sells music DVDs or right on wwwlicklibrary.com but then you would have to wait for it to come from the UK, so use ebay that is where I bought mine. Tremelo bar techniques by Michael Casswell. You will not find a more informative lesson on trems. He starts out with 3 guitars a 6 point trem, a Floyd Rose and a 2 point and takes you step by step and shows you all the little tricks of the trade for each on which he spends a good half hour and then the rest of the DVD is about licks and tricks. You will not be disappointed.

There is a really good setup guide on the Fender website here: http://www.fender.com/support/stratocaster_setup_guide.php.

What you have to decide is how you want to set it up. Do you want the bridge to be floating -- which means that you can push and pull on the tremolo -- or do you want it to sit flush to the body, allowing only pushes. Once you decide that, follow the steps and be patient. It takes awhile to set properly, but should stay in tune if you get it right.

Find a new guy to do your setups would be my suggestion. Any guitar tech worth his salt will know his way around a basic non-locking trem. Or better yet, learn to do it yourself. All of the suggestions above are great. You don't need an LSR nut or locking systems to stay in tune. Good luck!

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

TJ, If your tech can't float a Fender standard trem, he's not great. I suggest you get a new one. It's not rocket science. I've been floating my trem since 72 and never had any problems with it. I set it up myself. It's not hard. A little lubrication with a #2 pencil or Big Bends Nut Sauce goes a long way.

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Life...... It's sexually transmitted and always fatal

Greetings Metro and Supro,

Thanks for the input. My poor tech is an old dog who could stand to learn a new trick, so I am going to learn it myself and then show him.

When doing a floating bridge, is it possible to set it up so that if you want to do a single string bend while having another string stationary, that the stationary string not go flat as you bend the other string? Is that possible?

Regards,

TJ

+1

Andy

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Pending Greatness

You don't need a LSR or any other type of special nut for trem use.

It needs to be setup properly and its mainly getting the saddles and the claw tension right especially if its been blocked or tightened against the body as almost certainly this will require you to adjust your saddle heights to get a lower action.

It is possible to setup a guitar well yourself if you are patient, Buying a couple of tools is really required. A feeler gauge, 6" steel rule in 64ths and its handy to have some under string radius gauges and a small and large Philips head screw driver for the claw tension. You also need the truss rod hex key wrench and the saddle height hex key wrench (aka Allen keys) that came with your guitar.

Also its recommended you know how to string your guitar the best way possible so you have no slippage. The other thing you will need to know is if you have tuning issues how to isolate and correct contact point probs where the string binds. I would say this is about the most common problem and leads people to think you cannot have tuning stability which is incorrect.

If you decide this is too much work (practice make perfect) then ask around and just go to a setup tech that the local musicians use instead of a retail store tech.

I agree....But,

I'm a very heavy whammy user and have found the LSR nut I installed on my last Partscaster freak-ishly stable. If its good enough for Jeff Beck to put on his sigy Strat, its good enough for me!

Andy

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Pending Greatness

That's the downsides of floating a trem is that when you bend one string, the others go slightly flat. It has been plaguing Strat players for 56 years now. I just live with it or slightly bend the stationary string when doing double-stops and that sort of thing to compensate for the strings going flat. Honestly though, it doesn't bother me or listeners at all to just play a floating trem as is. I love the having a floating trem and find my well setup American Series Strat stays in tune as well as the double locking trem on my HM Strat.

There is a device called a Tremsetter that I was going to use when I first got my Strat, but I found I don't need it. Maybe it will help you stay in tune if you do really big bends and go 'Hendrix' on your whammy: http://store.hipshotproducts.com/cart.p ... tail&p=115

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Obligatory gear list: Fender, Rickenbacker, Gibson, Gretsch, Vox, Martin, and more Fender.

If you use silver (higher tension) springs found on the Vintage Reissue guitars you wont notice much of a flattening of unbent notes. Between 15 - 25 cents at most. Thats around 1/8th of a step. You'll hear it, but it's not so bad. Good enough for rock'n'roll.
if you search the Carl Veheyen method of setting up a trem, thats about the best and most direct way of getting to a well balanced easily tunable trem.

Ditch your tech or if he's a mate and you have some loyalty then use another as well. He may be old, but so's the fender tremolo system. Theres only the Bigsby that predates it.

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No no and no

Ok...Strats...setups...LSR roller nuts. These are, as always just my own personal opinion here.

Ok...like locking tuners, personally I think that LSR roller nuts are a gimmicky waste. I put one on my '96 MIM a number of years ago and I really wish I hadn't. It doesn't really harm anything by being there (other than having had to remove some wood from the neck to install it that is) but it's not really a benefit either. I wouldn't reject a guitar because it had one, but I'll never go out of my way for one either. I"ve also had a Wilkinson-style roller nut too...again just not that impressive. In this case, a properly files nut of more traditional materials will serve you just as well, without having to make any permanent alterations to the guitar's neck/headstock.

To be completely honest, of all 5 of my current Strats, the one that stays in tune best...is the most stable, is actually the partscaster I build last year. She's got an '04 Indo Standard Squier neck with the plain ol' plastic nut and a newer MIM big block trem...nothing terribly fancy at all. Further as has been already stated, a great many people have played Strats over the years and have done some pretty heavy whammy bar work on just an ordinary Strat...in other words, those gimmicks aren't really necessary anyways. And btw...all of my trems are floating too!

As others have suggested, the number one thing about keeping a Strat in tune is the setup. I'm not going to go in to a lot of details here...the info on this website is a good start and you can easily Google "Strat setup how to" for lots more good information. That said, if you go to Youtube.com and just search "Strat setup" you should find a lot of really useful vids that can show you exactly what to do (and what not to do). The main thing to watch out for is the spots where the strings have a tenancy to bind a little...the nut of course, the tuning pegs, the string T and of course the bridge and saddles. Sometimes just changing the way you wrap your strings on the tuners can make a -huge- difference.

So I have to agree with the others...if your tech doesn't know how to properly setup a Strat, it's time to either find a new tech or simply learn how to do it yourself. Personally I do my own setups mainly because I have close to 25 guitars...it just makes more sense for me to do my own. That said, it's not hard but as with anything of this nature it is a skill...take your time, do your research and learn how to do it right.

Just my $.02 worth,
Jim

I have the standard trem and LSR nut, I set the trem flat against the body because I didn't want another trem guitar (my hybrid has a Floyd on it) and the few times I did a good dive it went miles out of tune. In spite of all the stretching and retuning my Strat will not stay in tune when I use the whammy with even a little vigor.