well this topic has been brought up to many times and i still cant make up my mind. now i know floyd is no.1 but i dont want to mess up my neck so what will i be safe with for lets say dive bombs, oh ya it also has to be pretty. p.s. i heard the if you get a well tuned vintage strat trem and a perfectly cut nut itll stay in tune is this true.

oh ya sorry i forgot im useing locking tuners

Your guitar will stay in tune when using a trem with a perfectly cut nut. Look at Jeff Beck. He uses his a lot, but will switch out his guitar several times in a set. If you are going to use it like EVH, Satch, Vai, etc. It will eventually go out of tune and sooner than you want. Floyd Rose is what you want if you are going for this style.

If you detune (Drop C, Drop D, etc) a lot, then keep with locking tuners and standard bridge, as you won't have to go through the trouble of setting up the guitar for the desired tuning. The things I do have to say about that it is that yeah, you do need a well cut nut, but you also gotta lube up the points where the strings come in contact with the guitar. Another thing is to tune up to the note you want, rather tuning down as the strings will have more hold when tuned up. Another thing I could is that you could try your hand at the Carl V. floating trem setup of angling the trem claw. It takes a considerable amount of time to get it right, and while pursuing it, I broke a lot of strings.
The advantages while not plentiful, are important as they are. More tuning stability, and knowing that your top E string can shift 1 semitone, the B, 2 semitones, and the G, 3 semitones.

That being said, if you stay in one tuning for a majority of your playing, then go with the locking nut-Floyd Rose, as 99.8% of the time the guitar will be in tune. (assuming you don't pull at the tremolo arm as you would pulling out Excalibur from the rock) Do be careful though, as when a string breaks, your tuning goes out of wonk.

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1987 Fender Squier Strat - Lake Placid Blue
1981 Yamaha Eterna Folk Acoustic
2006 Peavey Bandit 112
2007 Roland HP-207 Piano

I have an American Deluxe HSS. It came with a roller nut, and stays in tune perfectly no matter what I do to the trem. Oh, and it has locking tuners.

I always thought the nut was the biggest issue with strats as far as tuning goes. Even if it's cut good, there is still alot of friction at the nut, but these roller nuts realy work quite well, and you can put any guage strings on without having to worry about adjusting the nut.

thanks guys for the advice ill probably go with a roller nut
they good. i do dive bombs sometimes and heavy tremalo but thats it.
long live tremss!!!!

Does anyone notice any change in tone or sustain when using the roller nut? I haven't tried one but they look like a good investment.

Jeff Beck has used roller nuts for years, matter of fact the Jeff Beck signature models came installed with either Wilkerson or LSR roller nuts. My strat plus which was originally supposed to be the jeff Beck signature model came with locking tuners, roller nut and hipshot tremsetter installed to keep it in tune. The approach used on the start plus addresses the three main areas of tuning problems.

1.) binding at the nut - solution: roller nut
2.) loose string wraps at tuning post - solution: locking tuners
3.) balancing act between springs vs strings - solution: hipshot tremsetter
4.) slippage at ball end of strings - solution: Fender Super Bullet strings

The above setup will always stay in tune. You can probably get away with not doing #4 but the other three are importanat.

The only thing it could possibly affect would be open notes.

As an aside, the instructions that accompany the LSR nut advise to tune down. I've tried that, but feel more comfortable tuning up, in spite of the LSR or Wilkinson nuts (I have one of each).

Thanks wrvond

Tremsetter also has a nifty perk of returning the tuning to standard when a string breaks.

_________________
1987 Fender Squier Strat - Lake Placid Blue
1981 Yamaha Eterna Folk Acoustic
2006 Peavey Bandit 112
2007 Roland HP-207 Piano