I think that the LSR roller nut is the best choice. I have a 2005 Jeff Beck signature Strat with the 2 point floating trem, locking tuners and an LSR rolling nut and it's by far the best system i've used. It will not go out of tune no matter how hard I use the whammy. I believe the Custom Shop version as well as Jeff himself has the Wilkinson nut like the early Strat Plus. It's just my personal opinion but it's not necessary to change out the whole bridge for a locking trem when the most important change is at the nut. I also use 9s which allows the trem very close to the body so you can still palm mute.

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2012 Fender American Standard Stratocaster
2013 Fender Pure Vintage 65 Stratocaster
2003 Gibson ES-355
2015 Gibson Les Paul Traditional
2002 Gretsch Duo Jet
1980 Rickenbacker 360/12 Fireglo
2014 Martin 000X1AE
2014 Fender Blues Junior III

Hi Kevin: one thing nobody's mentioned so far on this thread is that Jeff's guitar is usually wildly out of tune most of the time. I had the pleasure of spending an evening in the company of Trev Wilkinson (inventor of the original Wilkinson roller nut Beck still uses on his own Strats): he is big buddies with Jeff and said that his guitars go out of tune almost the minute he starts playing them and he just compensates for that by the way he handles the whammy and with his finger bending. And frankly, sometimes he's just plain playing out of tune.

If you really want to replicate Jeff's tricks on a non-Floyd equipped guitar then using your hands to correct the intonation just has to become part of the trip.

BTW: you mention the well-known pinging sound when you dive the bridge. That almost certainly comes from the string tree(s). You could try lubricating those with graphite and/or vaseline too, but an alternative is simply to disengage the strings from the trees entirely. That lessens the string breaking angle over the nut, and some people are OK with that and some aren't. If it works for you then you have removed one friction point from the system, which will help.

Good luck - C

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^^^ Good advice Ceri, no matter what if you're not using a locking bridge as well as all the rest then you will go out of tune somewhere. Learning how to get it back in tune is an art in itself, well not an art but you have to learn to bend the strings or depress the bar again when you're slightly out of tune and that usually, if your guitar is well set up, get's you back in tune.

That's the thing about Jeff people forget; he used the standard fender tremolo system forever before getting the stuff he uses now and he became adept at working with it when he slipped out of tune in order to tweak it back in.

As regards the loosening of the 4 inside screws on the 6 screw bridge: i tried an experiment to see the difference loosening these made. I tightened them all up nice and firmly and adjusted nothing else then i used the bar, not excessively, fairly subtley and i was way out of tune. I then backed the screws out until they floated slightly and hey presto! the action and tuning was 100% improved.

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

That's a very good point about the string trees and it's worth mentioning that on the Custom shop and signature versions of Jeff's Guitar, there are no string trees.

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2012 Fender American Standard Stratocaster
2013 Fender Pure Vintage 65 Stratocaster
2003 Gibson ES-355
2015 Gibson Les Paul Traditional
2002 Gretsch Duo Jet
1980 Rickenbacker 360/12 Fireglo
2014 Martin 000X1AE
2014 Fender Blues Junior III

I think it's because the machine heads are height adjusted to give you the proper angle to the nut without the tree's. Interestingly Eric Johnson takes the B string out from under the tree supposedly, although i don't know why he does that

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.

Maybe it has to do with the break angle of that string over the nut. There are many interesting variations of string trees, staggered tuners, break angle of the strings, for different models. Even the single tree has different heights on some models through the years. Some people even like to have the low E string coming off the top of the post to reduce the break angle of string over nut. I'm sure that there are at least subtleties and nuances involved, as well as very noticeable differences in string vibrations and harmonics.

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---> "The amp should be SWITCHED OFF AND UNPLUGGED before you do this!" <---

Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.

Hi shimmilou, yeah i'm sure Eric just likes the way the guitar plays like that. I tried it once too and didn't like it

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Luck won't do it and ignorance can't

George Van Eps.