PRO TIPS for quick Floyd tuning: 1. Tune your strings in the order E>e>A>B>D>G 2. Overshoot the correct pitch. E is flat? Tune it sharp. Now e is flat? Tune IT sharp. A is flat? Tune it less sharp. Repeat the pattern until the middle two strings are close to already being in tune by the time you get to them. Get a feel for this and I promise you you'll be able to tune within 30 seconds. Thank me later.
@@orora667 Same concept applies, tune from the "outside in," so tune the lowest string first, then highest, then second lowest, then second highest, etc, ending with the one in the middle. "Overshoot" the correct pitch, more on the outer strings less on the inner strings, not at all on the center string. By the time you've tuned the center one, the outer ones should have gone from "overshot" to close to the correct pitch. It should work with any number of strings once you get a feel for it.
Really? I just saw a youtube video an was ready to go. That being said I don't like crazy whamy stuff so that may be why mine doesn't give me any problems
@@thekramer1097 I think people just love to make that comment for meme’s sake. Same with changing strings on a floating bridge or tuning the high E (e?). I can’t set up string action nor do trusrod adjustment but I can do the intonation on my Ibanez RGs (Edge&Edge Zero) just fine and string changing is easier than breathing for me. And I’m not even a guitar geek nor a good player. People who comment “tuning high e is scary” or “floating bridge sucks” are just trolling or just being lazy.
@@iganpparamarta8813 Yeah I think the joke went over my head because I love floating bridges. I don't even have a good one, I have an ibanez rg with one of the the crapier edge bridges (I think) still never goes out of tune
@@ChronicMetamorphosis I agree, there is definitely a learning curve. However, this created a love - hate relationship with that particular guitar which I am still getting over xD
I legit rewatch a RU-vid video of a guy restringing and setting up his Floyd rose guitar every time I start to think about buying one. Still don’t own one. I recently bought a Solar with an evertune system on it and it doesn’t divebomb or anything but I’ll tell you what it takes 5 seconds to change a string and I don’t have to ever...tune it again after the first time
Same i got a sterling music man jp70 and it doesn’t do dive bombs or crazy stuff like that but the tuning is rock solid and restringing it is the easiest it’s ever been in my life.
Changing a string is like 3 minutes tops on my Ibanez Edge, which is basically a floyd. Tuning stability is amazing, sometimes it gets off like every few months but that's really not bad. People will complain but the floyd rose is not that bad and I intend to get a few more.
Nah, you just need to block the bridge first. I started on a Floyd and still haven't considered getting rid of it. I would just say, if you don't have use for one, of course don't get one. But if you want it, it's not rocket science...
At the guitar shop I used to work at we would call them "Freud-Los"(pronounced kinda like "froyd lose", so swapping the r and l) which is german for "joy-less" and that about sums them up
@@scourge34 Yeah i don’t got one yet but idk what it is with people thinking changing strings on a floyd rose is so dramatic and painful. Im getting one soon :)
I love divebombs to death but after all the pains of floating bridges, I ended up loving fixed bridges cuz I just wanna play, not tune or set up the damn thing for hours. Nice Ibanez btw, loved that flamed top.
@@leakingmud My bud bought a floyd rose washburn and i, for the life of me, would never even think about buying one, even though i'm a heavy fan of metal. he just went home with it, after we both tried to restring it from scratch (cuz the strings are old as shit and we don't know the gauge) for 4 hours. it was my first ever experience of setting up an electric (yet alone a floyd one) and as you guessed, it was horrible...
I remember when it took me an hour to put strings on my first one. Had to look up a RU-vid video and everything. There was definitely some buyers remorse.
Lmao I love Floyd’s. It’s all about setup and if you tune it low E, high E, B, A, G, D in that order you’re good to go. AND NEVER EVER take all the strings off, you replace them in that same tuning order too. I actually grew quite fond of the fine tuners after that.
How would I put it in drop D? Would I need the EVH D-Tuna, or can I do it by hand? Also stressed that if I buy a FL guitar with the floating bridge, the strings will always snap and I’d have to start over.
Put it in drop D, or whatever tuning, then use the screws under the back cover that the springs attach to, to adjust tension and keep the FR level with the body. Re tune the guitar, then adjust as needed, then retune. Rinse and repeat a few times till its good to go.
@@Flatule don't forget that you'll have to adjust intonation. And probably action. And maybe the truss rod. And each of those things (string thickness, action, truss rod) will all separately affect intonation. So if you did intonation before noticing you needed other adjustments you have to do it all over again. Including having to loosen the strings for every individual adjustment. Unless you have a special tool, which I do, but which doesn't fit on the specific model bridge I have.
@@theharvardyard2356 Yeah bit thats the game with fixed bridges too. Ever adjusted an acoustic? File the saddle until intonation is perfect. If you go too far you're fucked.
So true! LOL. Actually my trems stay in tune pretty well once the strings stretch out, but then there probably only a few weeks from needing to be changed again so they're not dead sounding. First world problems.
I sold my two guitars with FRs for this very reason haha. I never had the patience for it and I was forever trying to change tunings to whatever song I wanted to play. Just doesn’t work for a FR!
The only guitar i have is a floyd rose guitar. I can confirm this, and it's more pain when you break a string or something goes wrong with the action, specially if you're like me and only have 2 springs instead of 3
Oh god, is that ever the truth. I've bought Floyds three times, thinking, this time it'll work. This time I'll love it! Shortly thereafter... Kijiji, here we come!
Ive been playing for thirty years, and picked up a Schecter with the Floyd Rose. I had never tried to mess with one, and it took me a week, and several sets of strings before I finally figured it out. Tuning, string installation, intonation. It has a Sustainiac, which is really cool.
Not me at 14 years old getting a Floyd Rose equipped Jackson and constantly switching between drop D and standard. I stayed tuning that guitar ALL THE TIME. I would always revert back to my hardtail Ibanez RG. Love both guitars and when the FR was good and I left it alone, it was amazing. Soon as you go touching it or break a string, prepare for a few hours of messing around if you've never set one up.
New at guitar, bought my first floyd rose bout 2 weeks ago without realizing. No clue what they were. So you could imagine my frustration when I couldn't make it hold tune. Figured it out though, and now I have achieved perfect F L O A T
I love the floyd on Jackson Smith Signature. First floyd I've owed personally and once it's set up, It never looses tuning! Setting it up correctly is half the battle!
@@axeman2638 definitely a fault in design, agree there. That's why a good set sorts them. Have had plenty of success in plenty of years doing that to other peoples guitars 😉. I'm not a floyd man myself but I wanted the Smith Sig, being a fan. Was gonna block it off but thought I'd spend time on it and it works flawlessly. Just out of a 3hr band practice there and had to fine tune maybe twice. Setup is half the battle!! Good luck!
@@jonjoe9232 don't need luck cos i don't have or want a floating tremolo guitar. Try doing SRV trainwreck multi string bends with one, how flat do the unbent strings go? What happens to your intonation when you use palm damping ? You go girl.
Easy, just buy a bunch of picks, tape them together and use that to block the bridge on both directions, carry on with whatever you want to change, string gauge, tuning, intonation, truss rods…retune using tuning heads and screw drivers, never use the fine tuner. It does take more time but once you know how it’s done, it’s easy.
String slip was literally the bane of my existence. I had to try several different remedies but in the end i wasted 2 packs of new strings. And even once i fixed it, i was wayyy to scared to use it for fear of my damn strings coming undone.
All memes aside, if the tension springs are properly balanced, I find you really only have to tune the 6th string once in a while. Make that never if you only play by yourself. ;)
@@thekramer1097 in the 80s and early 90s, whammy bars and crazy solos (think Steve vai, Van Halen, poison, etc) were a lot more common is what I mean. There’s a handful today, but more often I see guitarists with fixed bridges or non locking trems. Locking trems aren’t particularly convenient for guitarists who change tunings often. But I did say “I wished they were more popular”, cherry picking five bands doesn’t negate what I said, it reinforces it lol. I could name 20 bands from the 80s alone. Edit: Billy Idol, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Poison, Van Halen, Ratt, Iron Maiden, Ozzy, Whitesnake (they had 12 guitarists, Adrian Vandenberg comes to mjnd), Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Scorpions (Matthias Jabs), Pantera, Skid Row, Dokken, Warrant, Queensryche, White Lion, Winger, and Firehouse, 20 bands just from the 80s.
@@salildeshpande7 It all depends on the series. A floyd rose original is pretty great, and often the problem people have with locking trems is the fact that they ended up getting a bad one like any of the lower tier floyd rose's out there. Edge trems are just as good, and I prefer the lo-pro edge from Ibanez because it's low profile.
When I got my first guitar with a Floyd rose, I ended up using every pair of strings I had trying to get the damn thing to work. I ended up having to wait another week before I could go to guitar center and pick up some more strings lol
Only issue I have is doing double bends. You have to overcompensate for the lower string while bending. Other than that I don't see why everyone has trouble setting up a Floyd. Just make the string tension = spring tension.
I have about 12 Floyd Rose equipped Guitars. One Kahler Spyder Floating trem. A. Couple ibanez and Jackson branded licensed Floyd Rose. and maybe two or five fixed bridge types. My bass. And my acoustic. And 3 electric. But I honestly LOVE my Floyd Rose equipped.Guitars
Lol, too true. I also had struggles with a certain Floyd Rose Special with the higher/thinner strings slipping out of the little locking block things in the bridge, even though I had other floating bridges for years, knew how to put a string in properly/deeply, and never had that problem before. Makes me afraid of getting any other guitar with a Floyd Rose Special again. I've had cheaper licensed trems hold up better than that one. I've also never had a problem with my Original Floyd Rose of course either, lol. I think maybe the softer metal used in the Special may have worn away the little locking block things to just be a tiny bit too small to tighten properly anymore. Or maybe the allen screw doesn't go in as far as it should on higher strings. Still haven't been able to figure it out, since the blocks look fine and not worn/scratched up. Maybe they got slowly compressed over the years and it's just hard to tell? I dunno.
this is so true it hurts. and you also need A FUCKING WOODEN BRICK to restring your guitar and it's not a joke. I actually have a wooden brick for blocking the bridge while balancing the springs tension. I've owned a fr equipped Jackson Kelly for a year so far and I can say this: all those drive bombs and other whammy bar tricks are great, but there's nothing better than a good fixed bridge that doesn't need literally hours of tuning and provides much better sustain
I restring mine by by sticking the top and bottom string through first and winding them in place, once you get enough tension on them the bridge stays locked where it should be.
i find floyd rose to be nowhere near as much of a hassle as people say, changing do drop d and back does take 20 minutes though, and requires the use of a screwdriver, so i just always play in standard tuning way up the neck. i also have never broken a string wile playing ever even trying, the bridge starts popping off the studs before the strings break.
the thing with floyds, DONT GET THE CHEAP ONES you want the 1000 or original or you will have issues like stay away form that "special" which is unfortuantely on most cheaper sub 1000$ guitars, which in turn will be most peoples first experience and in turn may deter them from floyd rose all together. I had a 500$ ibanez as my first axe like 20 years ago with a knock of floyd and i disliked it so much i mounted it with a battery and didnt pick it up till this year when i got a real ESP with a floyd 1000se and i fucking love it now
But when it’s in tune it’s the best thing in the world. I find it really helps to stick with a tuning and use wall hangers instead of floor stands and mine stays in tune really well. I keep mine in drop c and I use .10s
@@9hk38f I don’t know if it’s actually what helps keep it in tune but since I’ve put that guitar on a wall stand instead of a floor stand it’s usually in tune or very close whenever I pick it up. And it can be days in between use some times.
I love my Floyd rose, and even though tuning is a nightmare, once you tune it, it stays in tune for ages. The problem is, though, if you wanna use different tunings on your guitar. When I first bought my guitar I didn't really care about that stuff, but now I regret it a little as I explored more genres and more ways to play the guitar, and I would've loved to be able to do all of that. I mean, djent in E standard kinda sucks.
Keeping Floyds in tune is easy as fuck, just get some chapstick or Vaseline and lubricate the saddles, nut, and studs and away you go. My Ibanez Standard RG with the Edge Zero II can stay in tune for weeks, even months.
@@JamieSlays when lubricating, less is more. Don’t overdo it with the Vaseline, just lightly coat the surfaces of the nut, saddles, and pivoting surface of the studs. You may have to remove the bridge when lubricating the studs. This method absolutely works wonders for me.
I hated Floyd Rose bridges on two guitars (one was a cheap licensed)... I still wanted the "expectation" part so I bought a Charvel So-Cal... Finally, I got a floyd rose that works and a guitar with a lot of mojo. I would ALSO be a hater of Floyd Roses if that superstrat did not work for me... sort of a three strikes; you're out. Personally, I'm more of a subtle user of them than anything worthy of Dimebag.
To me the Floyd Rose is the sexiest and most incredible addition to any guitar that uses a tremolo system. Having said that, 1st non locking, like the Fender tremolo systems were good. The double locking OG FR systems, still my favorite personally, they lay on the body nicely and are quick to tune. The FR Pro models and the cutout body cavities for Dime style screaming , are a pain in the ass but when you are finished and things are clicking you feel like you've run a marathon. The floating is nice but quite a pain. Depends on each playing style I suppose
I disagree. A good quality floyd rose system keeps everything in better tune than a fixed bridge. I only do tiny tweaks every other day on my ibanez, despite crazy bends.
I love my Floyd-Rose guitar. We had a rough start to our relationship and then we decided to take a break for a couple of years to find ourselves and what we really wanted from our relationship, but once we decided to lock the bridge entirely, our relationship started to really flourish.
Indeed. I like Floyd guitars, but I always block the tremolo. For the tremolo stuff I use my Ibanez RG, it has a much better tremolo system that is way easier to use.
oh its not THAT bad, i repair guitars and i can get a floyd equipped guitar strung up and tuned in 5 minutes... as long as its the same string gauge as what was previously on there lol
Even if it’s not the same string gauge it doesn’t take long to block it at around the correct angle, tune to pitch, unblock, and adjust the trem claw until it is back in tune.
If you have this problem your guitar needs to be set up and balanced because I have an Ibanez Ex series with only a licensed Floyd Rose TRS 101 double locking floating term which is a low end Floyd Rose and I have no problem with tuning. But I am able to balance and set up the bridge and term in my guitar and have years of experience setting up these guitars. Mainly it’s from incorrect balance of the term and lack of proper term setup that causes a Floyd Rose to go out of tune. This setup requires the balance of the bridge, neck saddles and tension, your truss rod must be straight and your bridge level and your saddles need to be set up properly and the tension of the bridge needs to be correct. All these things need to be balanced and once the saddles are set you can balance the bridge and neck and the tension in the guitar. There are screws in the back of the guitar under the back plate and these need to be set at the proper tension by tuning and seeing how off the bridge is then correcting it with the tension of the screws to tighten or loosen the bridge to proper level. Then once everything is set you set your precision tuners to the right spot then tune guitar by the machine heads then lock and retune any slight loss of tune and your ready to go. It takes a lot to learn all this but if you own a guitar with a floating double locking bridge like a Floyd Rose then it’s best to learn how to tune and balance your guitar properly to avoid being stuck not able to play and having to take it in to be balanced. And if you don’t know how to balance your guitar take it to a guitar centre and have it tuned when needed other wise you will simply cause your guitar worse detuning by setting it up wrong or to not being able to change strings due to the technique required to change them. Don’t try and tune a floating double locking term unless you know what your doing.
I'd say the most horrible thing about getting a Floyd as my first guitar was... ... discovering very early on that there are so many useless guitar techs that take your money while having no clue what parallel to the body means. I ended up correcting the angle as a barely 4 month old guitar infant (which also required to adjust everything else).
Not sure if you’ll see this but I’m going to buy my first guitar and I love avenged sevenfold and really want a synyster gates model, which has a Floyd rose. Would u say it’s worth the pain of having the Floyd if it means having the signature model of my guitar hero?
@@quinnquitars Hi. Which model are you thinking of? The cheaper one seems to have a Floyd Rose Special and while I don't have experience with it, I've heard quite a lot of not-so-good feedback on this model. Besides that, are you ready to take the time and learn and have the patience of dealing with a Floyd right in the beginning? Floyds can be frustrating, especially if you don't understand how they work. Floyd is based on balance, so if you disturb it (f.e. by tuning one string, it throws everything else out of balance ( = it goes out of tune on other strings too), so you have to achieve the balance again. One possible solution is to block the bridge (permanently or temporarily). That will help with the "balance issue". You can find videos on how to do that as well as how to live with a Floyd and not become crazy (I never blocked mine). It's merely up to you - are you ready to spend the time to learn how to deal with it or do you just wanna jam and not worry about technical stuff?
@@molekyyli I’ve been watching a lot of Floyd rosé maintenance videos and yeah… probably not a good idea for my first guitar. Thanks for the reply tho!
@@quinnquitars I haven't regretted getting one but I internally embraced myself for all what was coming. If you're not up to all the extra work, it'd be smarter to pick up something else first. What do you like? Can you go to a local shop to try different guitars? What feels nice in your lap? What neck feels nice in your hand? What look speaks to you? Plug it in and try to play a few power chords, do you like the sound? Ask the employee to help with amp setup to get the desired sound. Don't be scared to ask for help! Watch some videos on the topic to help to determine what features you wanna have. Happy journey! :)
I change strings on my floyd that i installed entirely by my self (instead of a tune-o-matic) in 15 minutes no matter what string gauge or tuning i want this time. You guys are just trying to find excuses no to try it. It's not this hard if you're doing it right.
Had 2 FR guitars and got tired of that same problem, then I realized I barely ever bend pitches up with the bar let alone do crazy natural harmonic squeals like Dimebag. More so of just doing early EVH divebombs and pitch harmonic finger bends followed by bringing the bar down. So I decided to made a partscaster with a flush mounted Floyd Rose where it only dives down and the absence of a locking nut and replaced it with a graphite nut practically solved most of problems…
I have a 7-string ESP LTD M1007QM with a Floyd Rose and I rarely have to tune it. I'm a death metal guitarist with 30+ years experience, so you know it's played pretty hard.
The hardest thing of owning my 250 dollar hss ibanez, with the floyd rose was not having the wrench for the tuning locks included and didnt lock the strings with a wrench at the nut until I was 18. Locked at the nut! Only then did the fine tuning actully work.
When I first bought my king v I was pissed that it had a floyd rose. Wouldn’t stay in tune, Had to take it to a guitar store to have it tuned. After that I slowly began to get used to it, and I even became confident enough to not only change the strings all by myself (which took less than an hour), but also be able to remove all the strings to fix a pickup and get them back on and in tune. It isn’t as hard to do as people say it is, I just recommend having it being taken to a guitar store the first time you tune. Overall I floyd rose is amazing and I can’t imagine playing a guitar without it, also word of the wise, I’d recommend lossening up the locking nut before trying any dimebag harmonic squeals as it’ll just pull the string out, and it’ll stay in tune too.
I just got my first guitar with a Floyd Rose the other day and all I was trying to do was just lower the action a bit and the whole damn tremeloes out now and dammit so many Allen wrenches. Literally the only reason I want Floyd Rose is this the smacking do that fluttery effect
Thankfully my 2nd guitar was a Jackson Dinky Reverse back in 97-98.So,I just learned or I wouldn't have anything to play.When I look at handrail guitars I feel like I'll be missing out.Even though I don't dive bomb very often.lol
