Guitar Nerds Anonymous

You can screw in the claw on the back. Behind the plate on the back (if fitted) is a cavity, inside of which is the claw and the springs that tension the term against the string tension. There's a screw into the body of the guitar - screw it in and the springs will tension up, pulling the bridge down.

Might be a bit of setup needed after you do this.

Slacken off the strings first tho! Then tighten the claw/springs in th back a turn or two then re-tune up. Repeat till you’re happy.

Cheers both. Kept winding in the screws a quarter turn and retuning. Action has dropped a bit. Now at the point where action doesn’t reduce even if I push tremolo flat against body. Guess I need to adjust the saddles on the bridge to get lower? Probably also need a feeler gauge and string profile thing to get it exactly right?

Is there any knock-on effect of doing this that’ll I’ll need to adjust elsewhere?

1 Attachment

What do the two screws on the bridge do? Is there any adjustment there or do they just hold the bridge onto the body?

Have you played with any of the new DSP delay/verb pedals? My pedal knowledge dropped off around the time the RE-20 came out... I currently just have an EHX DMM but have previously had a couple of the older Boss efforts, an RE-20 and a Line6 DL4. DMM has lasted as it just 'works' live, not sure why I ditched the DL4 (possibly because it's massive) or the RE-20.

I've only ever used analogue or tape delays until the last few years, crappy Behringer then the DD3 and now the RE20... The RE20 sounds vintage, it suits what I'm doing so I'm really happy with it... Haven't heard any of the modern stuff, Strymon, TC, etc...

You shouldn't need those two screws that hold the bridge on. To lower the action, yeah - adjust the saddle height (but keep an eye on what happens to the action / buzzing at the nut end as you do it). I think you'll then have intonation to redo.

I'm no expert at this, but I think if you do a couple of rounds of saddle height / intonation then you'll get somewhere close. If you start getting buzz at the nut end, that's when I'd take it for a real set up.

Edit: if you're really adventurous you can shim the heel, which will shift the angle of the neck by a nudge - Fender certainly used to do this back in the day to get action decent at both ends of the neck.

Have you changed string gauge? That can cause the bridge to lift like that. Also tuning can do that. If you find your continually tightening the strings to get it in tune

Ah fair enough, they all seem to get great reviews but I don't know anyone using one and they're all mega $$$.

I didn't think so, but maybe I went slightly lighter. Ashamed to say the old strings had been on since I bought the guitar new.

ok, if you haven't put heavier strings on I think you may have put too much tension in to the strings causing the bridge to be pulled up. so the issue isn't with the springs holding back the bridge, its the opposite. floating bridges are a bit of a balancing act and can be a pain to set up.

in that case I would slacken the strings right off, get the e strings roughly in tune then tune up the other 4 but marginally increase the tension on each string, working from the outside going in, much like cutlery. once they're at the right tension try retuning it but keeping in mind you might throw the other strings out of tune, so don't go too far on each one.

other way is to block off the tremolo with a bit of wood and tune it up, then take the block out and retune it. that would be the easy way to do it at least.

I've never owned a strat but used to have Floyd rose trems to set up and this was usually what I did. once it's set up it's usually pretty stable

I thought an in-tune guitar with certain strings will create a certain tension? Can it be altered? If strings were too tight it’d be out of tune, sharp, no? Or (highly likely) am I missing something?

Tips on 2nd hand acoustic purchases?

Looking to upgrade from my Fender CD-60 - What things should I be looking out for to make sure I avoid a duff one?

I use one of the Strymon pedals an awful lot, the Flint. It's three different types of tremolo and three different reverbs.

I mostly use it for the spring verb, which is astonishingly accurate - gritty and splashy, both of which I love in a spring. But there are two other absurdly useful verbs on there - one is a solid state verb, very much like the verb Chris Isaac used on all his records, properly epic. The other is a sort of Lexicon - big rich in your face verb with a nice chorus tail, very wet and Vangelis-y.

It's a total workhorse of a pedal. I've been really impressed by it. I get the impression that the Big Sky is probably a bit of a one trick pony but if the delays are half as good as this pedal, they're worth it.

If you fancy borrowing it for a few weeks give us a shout dude, I'm not recording anything atm, you'd be most welcome.

yeah thats right if the tail piece is fixed, like on a les Paul for instance. but a bridge like on a strat is balancing on an edge with strings pulling one way and springs pulling the other.

thats what allows you to modulate the tension with the tremolo arm.

like I mentioned before, you can block this off with a bit of wood and it will become fixed and do away with this problem. but you lose the use of the tremolo

Hardtail strats are even more pointless than normal strats, no?

I always blocked off the trem on my old strat because I hardly ever used it and couldn't be arsed retuning it whenever I did.

Just found these on my phone - Chris Spencer off Unsanes teles.

3 Attachments

Like the sound (literally) of the Flint btw. I'm still using a T-Rex tremolo, which I love, and a Holy Grail mini which i'm less happy with. The basic spring sound on the HG is good but the one-knob thing leaves a lot to be desired in terms of being able to get the right balance of tail length and mix. To my ears it goes from barely there to swimming a wash of splashy verb within a tiny window at around 11 o'clock . That Strymon looks like it solve this issue and free up a spot on my board as well.

^^nice. what were you doing on stage?

Talking to Chris :) If you catch him at the right time, he'll chew the cud happily about guitar stuff.

Tips on 2nd hand acoustic purchases?

Looking to upgrade from my Fender CD-60 - What things should I be looking out for to make sure I avoid a duff one?

Any idea what size or style you want? What's your budget?

Solid top as a bare minimum I'd say. Ideally all sold construction (as in, no laminated wood). Easiest way to check the top is to look at the inside edge of the sound-hole. The grain of a solid top running through the whole thickness of the top should be easily visible. Laminates look like a sandwich of different woods. Back and sides are harder to check visually but a quick google is your friend at this point.

Other than that, just check the neck is straight, the bridge isn't lifting, you like to sound, feel and look of it.

Same offer goes if you want to borrow for a few weeks dude. Always easier to know if a pedal is for you if yo uget to live with it for a while. It's a great pedal.

very cool.

^^cheers BR. May well take you up on that. Cause for a drink?