The Fatal FLAW of Floating Trems... 

Braun's (F)Law ... there are no known exceptions at this time. Just tried it on my G&L Dual Fulcrum. Dang...

I fought the flaw and the flaw won.

Sorry to disagree but regardless of being a pro or not, if you play 5 to 6 hours a day as well as teach your gonna break a string once in a while especially if your a live performer and you throw down and use a whammy a lot.

Did you try turning it off and back on again?

Beat the flaw...play bass

This is the famous Shrödinger's Trem problem. When taken in isolation, strings have a clear "in tune"/"not in tune" state but when coupled together through a floating bridge the system they build moves between a "balanced" / "imbalanced" state which is based on a complex, quantised set of string states. The more strings there are, the more combinations there can be of "not in tune" strings leading to a "balanced" bridge and an observer cannot know these states without playing them, which in turn affects them, making exact knowledge an impossibility. There is a important theory about quantum tuning which I shall not expose here. At least we know we have no dead cats in these guitars.

Well, this video is pretty old, so you may by now know that this can be overcome. First, your double-locking system did not exhibit the flaw, at least not to the degree that the non-locking systems do. Here’s the key… it’s not the nuts. Well, it could be, but not the high quality ones you have. It’s the saddle. Specifically the G string saddle, which is usually farther back, for intonation purposes, than the other two non-wound strings (B, E). When you bend, or dive with the bar, the string is prone to moving slightly in that saddle due to the extreme angle it’s coming up out of the trem block. Try this: do a dive bomb first. Test the G string. It will probably be… Sharp. Now bend, and it will go back in tune. So the opposite of what you were demonstrating. Either way, bend first - flat; bar dip - back to pitch, OR bar dip first - sharp; bend - back to pitch. Now, without going the full Floyd-type route, the only thing I’ve found that avoids this problem is a set of locking saddles. And as far as I know, Wilkinson is the only company that makes a set of locking tuners. WS130 is the model, I think. Suhr uses them on some of their guitars. I have one set on a Strat and it stays in tune beautifully. But as of this writing, I cannot find any more of these saddles anywhere. As good as they work, you’d think they would be more widely available, and more widely know/used.

Ok, I'll add my thoughts here. A lot of pretty old comments but this system is ancient and very crude. As a machinist my whole life I'm shocked that it works at all. So hook up those springs and tune up the guitar. Leave the tuner on and then beat the hell out of that tremolo arm back and forth. Check the tuning again. Don't touch the tuning pegs, instead tighten or loosen the spring tension on the back of the guitar to tune it. Then bash it around some more. If the notes all become flatter then tighten the spring screws. If it becomes sharp then loosen them. Eventually you'll get to a place where the tuning repeats back to normal. Tune up again with the pegs like normal and repeat.

Just broke a string on my Les Paul and was literally oh that's weird haha

They put a man on the moon, but can’t keep a trem in tune. Incredible. Drives me nuts!

The reason for this is really quite simple.

I always thought it was a situation I only had on my guitars with trems, and now I see it is just a reality of floating trems.

We should call it The Darren Braun Effect.

Despite not having an answer, this was one of the most enlightening guitar videos I've ever watched! Thanks Darrell!

I always thought using the bar to put the guitar back in tune was a feature.

MIND BLOWN!

Darrell - I think I found the solution:

I thought i was going crazy with this as i stretch strings ALOT. Thank you for giving me the smallest bit of my sanity back, Darrel

I’ve experienced this flaw but didn’t die so it isn’t a fatal flaw.

That riff is going to forever give me anxieties. 😂