The original intent was for downward movement of the tailpiece to cause a slacking of the strings. The Bigsby was designed to be mounted on the top surface of either a hollowbody or solidbody guitar. The strings are anchored and wrapped around a metal bar that is the moveable part of a big hinge. The strings then pass over a rocker bridge that is mounted onto the face of the guitar. The arm rests on a thick gauge return spring, and the pressure of the strings holds the spring in place.
When the arm is returned to its resting position, the strings should return ideally to tuned pitch. Photo courtesy Fender This tremolo takes little effort to use, and the arm has a limited range of downward travel. An inability to return to pitch accurately and a thinning of the tone, however, are inherent characteristics on the original Bigsby.
The revision also added more pressure on the bridge to couple it to the body more substantially, which increased the resonation factor, but resulted in the problem of friction at the bridge saddles. With the Bigsby tremolo, players not only had to deal with friction at the nut, but also the strings catching on the bridge. The saddle offered by Bigsby was a piece of aluminum with compensated positioning on the surface to pre-intonate the strings.
Strings hung up in this bridge saddle, largely because the windings got caught in the string slots. To alleviate this, Bigsby developed a rounded-surface bridge that improved the travel of the strings but still provided enough of a break angle for the strings to achieve much-needed sustain. Players with a need for warbling enjoyed the Bigsby for a time, but the limitations created a need for improvements.
Pulling up on the arm would cause catastrophies, like the return spring falling out. Hit page 3 for Fender's innovations Enter The Fender Fender Synchronized Tremolo Photo courtesy Fender Since the tailpiece and the bridge were two separate assemblies, there was a need to consolidate them, making for fewer moveable parts. Fender was enjoying success in the s with their solidbody guitar designs and was developing a guitar called the Stratocaster.
This guitar would feature their Synchronized Tremolo; it would soon become the defining tremolo of that era. The idea of this tremolo was to combine the bridge and tailpiece into one assembly, and have it move in its entirety. The original design called for it to be floated movement up and down , making it possible for guitar players to apply to vibrato chords and bent notes, as well as doing more extreme pitch bends. The Fender tremolo was a feat of engineering.
It is attached to the guitar both externally and internally, as a single assembly. This tremolo bridge consolidated the tailpiece and bridge into a single unit that pivots off six screws. The baseplate of the tremolo is mounted to a steel sustain block with a considerable amount of mass.
Six bent nickel-plated bridge pieces are anchored to the baseplate and are adjustable to intonate each string more accurately. The arm screws into the baseplate and continues into the sustain block, making the assembly move as a whole.
With the strings tuned, the bridge is counterbalanced by three to five springs, anchored by a claw inside a cavity routed in the underside of the body. These springs pull the sustain block backward while the strings pull the whole bridge forward. It is a balancing act. This is what makes the Fender so much more responsive to the touch of its tremolo arm. The Fender tremolo was also easier to comprehend, because it was self-contained. The strings are threaded through the sustain block to the saddles.
Because the strings are coupled with the steel sustain block and pivot from the six bolts screwed into the wood of the body, there is a more substantial tone compared to the Bigsby. The Fender tremolo also has a further travel, and was designed to have upward as well as downward movement.
The tremolo arm has a stiffer feel and is much more responsive to the touch. As cool as that design is, though, there are some inherent problems. This is difficult to avoid when dealing with vibrato because of its stringslacking action.
With the Fender tremolo bridge assembly, the strings slip or become disjointed from the sustain block when the bar is depressed. This adds some tuning discrepancies as well. During the slacking of the strings, the strings will loosen within the sustain block, and when the arm is returned to the resting position, the ball ends of the strings have a tendency not to return to resting position.
Years later, Fender came up with strings that have bullet-shaped ends, to seat them more properly inside the block.
Regardless of small shortcomings, this Fender tremolo bridge was resilient to abuse, and if its design was understood, players had no problem maintaining it. To alleviate friction at the nut, many players chose to tighten the springs in the back to anchor the baseplate firmly to the body, giving it only downward motion, and limiting the amount of friction hang up in the nut. The Fender tremolo bridge and licensed versions of it prevailed for most of electric guitar history so far.
Fender has since made modern revisions to their tremolo. On some later-produced Stratocaster guitars, the bent steel saddles were replaced by solid block saddle pieces. Along with Bigsby, there were also others made by Mosrite and Gibson. But none rivaled the playability and action of the Fender tremolo. As the electric guitar entered the s, more extreme conditions created a need to build a better mousetrap. Hit page 4 for the "better mousetrap," courtesy of a man named Floyd You need 4 holes like in type 1.
The 2 big screws are for the side hooks of the mounting frame. When screwed up or down, they control the level of the back of the tremolo. The thumb wheel under the front of the tremolo sticking out is a front leveler. There is one on both sides. Will it fit properly? Read on to find out. In the 80's, most guitars with Tune-o-Matic bridges, had a standardized installation location that was programmed into the routing machines at the factory and in those days, Kahlers were a drop on perfect installation.
But since the late 80's - early 90's, the stop tail part of the Tune-o-Matic bridge has been shifted around like the grills on a Chevy over the years. The bridge part is always in the same place for the scale range of course, but the tail piece is not as important.
It can go anywhere since all it does is hold the strings. Unfortunately the Kahler needs these studs to mount on and since they are no longer in a standardized locale, the studs sometimes need to be removed and relocated in the right spot. If you have the one piece wrap-around Uni-Matic, then you don't have a problem with relocation. This step can be skipped since you will be drilling fresh new holes for the rear studs and the install will look perfect.
I always suggest a qualified luthier to do the job. The other type of body is a flat top. It simply means the face of the guitar body is flat as a pancake. The stud mounting systems can fit on a flat top body as well, but only if it has a Tune-o-Matic, but if not, the flat mounting Kahler is better suited.
The versatile flat mount is a perfect glove fit on most Stratocasters right and can accommodate any flat top guitar. Like the stud mounting models, It allows for plenty of intonation travel room, radius matching and string spacing to make any guitar player happy. Ebart , Apr 11, Oh, I should chime in again. My actual thoughts about Kahlers is that they suck.
Better than nothing, but honestly, if you want a trem, go Floyd. Floyds are like a tight suspension, sway bar, stick shift sports car. Kahlers are like underpowered mushy big old boat "luxury" cars. Its just mushy and what you do is not directly translated to the strings in the way it is with a Floyd.
That said, Kahler do some crazy one off stuff, and are definitely more into paying the envelope than Floyd does. I do love them for that. Hollowway , Apr 11, I'll second the "Just get a floyd" mentality. Floyds are a much simpler beast. Fewer components, less hassle all round.
There is absolutely no reason setting up a floyd should be a difficult proposition. Just use a bottlecap and some folded paper under the back of the trem to keep it at the level you want it to be when tuned. Tune, and you'll only have to make baby adjustments once you then take the block out.
Very easy, very simple. A Kahler makes it very slightly easier when restringing, but frankly, they don't stay in tune as well and they have a billion moving parts to make it all a headache, rattle, ping and slip.
Comprehensive setup of a Kahler is not easier than a floyd. The only exception I can think of is that if you have a Floyd where the radius is wrong for the neck you're using it with, shimming a floyd is a PITA - But there's absolutely no reason you should have that problem unless you're putting a floyd on a guitar that never originally had one. GuitarBizarre , Apr 11, Four variations on the hybrid model are available with UK prices yet to be confirmed as we went to press : the steel-on-steel, which comes closest to retaining the original Strat sound, the brass with aluminium cam, the brass cam with steel rollers and the brass-on-brass model.
The locking grub screw passes through the rear edge of the fixed plate and, when tightened, locates into a groove at the rear of the moving cam. The neat thing about the Kahler design is that the bridge saddles can be adjusted separately for height, intonation and, to a limited degree, spacing.
All these adjustments can be made using either the Allen keys provided or, in the case of intonation, a small cross-head screwdriver. Once set, they don't move when the tremolo is operated, as the string tension is controlled by a cam supported on roller bearings behind the saddles that pulls the strings over small rollers set into the saddles. This is clearly a good thing, as most tremolos change the guitar action when operated. The cam angle can be adjusted from above using an Allen key, as can the stiffness of the screw-in tremolo arm, so there's no need to mess around with woodscrews to move a spring claw as there is in the traditional tremolo system.
Instead, the two relatively short tension springs are integral to the tremolo assembly. Mechanically, this makes a lot of sense but it does mean that the top of the guitar needs some additional routing, so if you're not confident with your DIY woodworking skills, you'll need to get a luthier to install the system for you. As I was using a relatively expendable Squier, I did the job myself, using the included cardboard template as a guide, and it turned out to be pretty straightforward.
However, the need to modify the guitar means that those with vintage models or models one day likely to be so may not want to risk devaluing their instrument.
Kahler have a design for a more conventional retrofit fulcrum tremolo for these users, but it is not yet clear whether they have decided to put this into production. In all, the fitting was very easy but there are a couple of points to note. Firstly, if your guitar has screw-in posts for the original tremolo, the post mounts will need to be removed.
In my case I did this by drilling a half-inch hole in a piece of scrap wood and placing this over the post socket, then screwing the post back in via a large washer. Tightening the post with a screwdriver was sufficient to draw the socket out of the wood. As it turned out, the front mounting woodscrews coincided with the edge of the post holes, so I had to fill the holes with glued dowel before I could proceed.
It's also a good idea to use a straight edge or guitar string to get the tremolo perfectly centred on the neck, as the amount of lateral saddle adjustment isn't sufficient to compensate for a badly fitted tremolo.
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