Well, I'm not too experienced with bridges but I would
like to become more familiar with them.

I just got a 1984 BC Rich Stealth and it has a Kahler
floating bridge and a locking nut. It looks complicated
compared to other bridges I've seen out there.

I would like to know about all bridges used on electric
guitars and what their advantages/disadvantages
(technical, maintenance, etc) and what your opinions
are of them.

I appreciate your help metal heads.

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Kahler bridges are all pretty damn good, a bit more sturdy then OFR's (original floyd roses)

I have an old Edge trem in my '89 rg750, great trem, really doesnt go out of tune, much better then ibanez trems these days and especially better then all of the immitation licenced china crap. this trem holds its tune 10x better then the licenced floyd I had in a Dinky.

advantages : kickass dimebag sounds, full trem, super sturdy, stays in tune for ages (well, mine does)

disadvantages : string changing is a bitch!! (TIP: cut the ball end of the string so you only have to cut it ONCE!) using different gauges will result in a messed up trem, you'll need to sort it out again with the springs and shit (pain in the ass)

stuck.

In my opinion the Floyd Rose tremolo are by far the worst with the exeception of the Vintage style system. They have the least amount of adjusting options in comparision to other systems (ie Kahler Flatmounts, and Wonderbars). Also when you use it, the string height changes, it may not be much in most cases but its enough to be annoying. Also the the Fine tuners are just barely in the way enough to get rubbed occasionally. I have also found that they dont palm mute as well as others. And since its a floating system its the biggest pain in the ass to change your tuning.

Now my 2nd favorite tremolo bridge is the Kahler Flatmount. It has a nice feel. individual saddle height adjustment, something the floyd rose doesnt have. the string height is the same whether your playing normal or have the whammy bar pushed all the way to the body. Since its not a floating system, you can change tuning much much easier. Palm muting is also very good too.

My favorite tremolo is the Washburn Wonderbar. it takes the kahler a step further. its a true flatmount, so it will mount to anything without routing. it has individual saddle height adjustment, the intonation adjustment has the widest adjustment range. The fine tuners are mounted horizontal so there out of the way. Again since its not a floating system, changing the tuning is really easy. String height is constant like on the Kahler. Its a shame they stopped making them.

Sorry for all you people out there that like the Floyd Rose. This is just my opinion

Floyds are great if you acually know how to use them. Its not that difficult. I can have my guitar tuned to C with a set of 10-46 and it still has great tension like ime playing in e. But i did have to put a shim under the nut, no biggie. Kahlers are better though but there also more expensive. They give you a better tone due to the amount of wood that is saved, theres no trem cavity. But if you want it to stay in tune well you have to solder the strings. They both take about the same amount of time to set up in my opinion, but ive been using Floyds for about 4 years now. Heres a good site that has alot of info on the Kahler http://www.glowingtubes.com/p/Kahler_Instructions.htm and heres one about Floyds http://www.glowingtubes.com/p/FloydTuning.htm

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ihave the edgepro II on my rg350dx. lemme tell you that mother stays in tune like you wouldn't believe. now it's time for good ol freek to tell a story

i went to grab my tuner because i figured it would have gona flat a little bit because it's been a whle since i locked the nut. well what do ya know. 1 month after locking it and it's DEAD PERFECT. go figure

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both my ibanezs have the licensed floyds, i disabled them both. one by placing screws on the inside and taking out the springs, and weird complicated shit. it wouldnt be to hard to undo, but it was a pain to do, so in my other ibanez, i've wedged a jenga block in it.
the only reason i disabled them is because everytime i broke one string the tuning of the rest of the strings would go up about a half step, making me completely out of tune with the other guitarist so i couldnt play the rest of the song unless i had a backup guitar.
i like the availablity of a whammy and stuff. but seeing how crazy i get at practice and on stage, i broke strings quite a bit, so staying in tune when i broke a string was a bigger priority to me. besides, theres a "whammy" pedal .
i love ibanezs, but i didnt have the option of an rg or pgm without a floyd style trem. so i did what i had to do, sorry stevie ray.

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You just said you have atleast two guitars, meaing a backup. Use the trem man they kick ass.

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i hate trems, a good old string-thru body w/ a tonepros adjustable bridge will do me just fine, thanks

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the thing is, i don't always have two guitars with me, and its a pain to not be able to finish the rest of a song with just one guitar. because if a break a string, the whole guitar immediately becomes useless, instead of just being able to finish the rest of the song with out a high e or something.

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Well we've heard the downsides now, if you break a string, you're fucked.

if you detune a lot, don't even think about getting a floyd, it takes a while to adjust.

I don't care because I allways use the same tuning and same strings, my setup is perfect for me and I can't imagine playing without a trem... theres a LOT of differences in the floyds, the OFR's, old Edges, new edges, licenced, the worst I've had was the one they have in the jackson dinky (korean) those trems are terrible, same goes for most ibanez's nowadays, I'm really happy with my old edge on my RG though, they only put descent edges on the vai models and shit these days, just compare a rg550 to a vai and check out the difference in trem, no wonder the edge stays in tune better.

I've played the esp haneman, which has a great kahler trem, it didn't feel much more sturdy then my edge though, but it surely wasn't crap, I've had some guitars without trems which got out of tune more then my RG, I love my edge...

floating trems can be a huge pain. for changing string gauge, detuning, restringing, and string breaking.
if none of these factors are a huge deal to you, go for it. i'd enjoy the option of having a trem, but its not worth it to me., my next few guitars probably wont have floating trems, and if they do, i can just disable them.

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Yeah, that's a good link there BLS.

When I initially got my Stealth, it was somewhat out of tune. I wasn't familiar enough with the Kahler so what I ended up thinking is that you could only tune with the pegs. Well, when I loosened the locking nut with the allen key, the high E snapped right at the locking nut (one locking nut per 2 strings = 3 locking nuts total). I've changed the strings since then and now know to tune a step or two flat before tightening the locking nut. I don't know the reason why it would snap, the high E was flat to start of with.

I noticed a significant increase in playability from my Strat to my Stealth. It's much simpler to palm mute and tremelo pick, with increased speed. The reason may be that the kahler ball bearing rollers are set high, above the guitar, which makes it feel like a much more natural hand position for metal (It's a shredder guitar by design). How are the other bridges with comfort and playability with respect to hand position?

Also, the my intonation is off a bit and there is some buzzing. I am willing to mess around with the Kahler (floating) bridge, reading the technical info on the websites, to help me out.

Another question is this: I bring in my acoustic for a setup and it costs $35 CAN (plain old bridge). If I screw up my settings on my Stealth, do you think they will charge me extra (because it's more time consuming)? What happens with the stores that you guys go to for your setups? What if the guitar techs are not proficient, they wouldn't charge by the hour, would they?I can easily call up my stores but I would like to know how your stores operate with these situations.

PS: My stealth kicks ass.

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kahlers are way nice., i wish i had one, but no .
a music store shouldnt charge much more for your stealth than it did for your acoustic. just call and ask for an estimant.

i think guitars with big trems are alot more comfortable to palm mute and tremelo on, it just gives me something big to rest my hand on.

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I've got a ZR trem on my ibanez s and it fucking rocks, its in league with my original floyd on my v. Its has a real smooth feel and basicly kicks ass but the thing i like about it the most is when u snap a string the guitar stays in tune.

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hmmmmm.. no one mentioned the classic ' vintage style' bridges... you can find them on strats and stat copies what are they? pure shit

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Floyd has also released a new trem called the speed loader, only catch is its a toal bitch to get strings and change the settings of it, otherwise it is great, FULL string change in under a minute and the trings are all pre streatched so there is barely any of that involved, if you are worried about breaking a string at a show and you use only the one tuning, look into one, its worth the pain in the ass to order strings if you want to use a trem and not worry about breaking a string, or at least haveing to take 5 mintes to fix it

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interesting, i totally wouldnt mind have a trem if it stayed in tune when i broke a string.....

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yeah, but floyd rose is the only brand of strings you would be able to get because they have 2 bullets on either end, and that limits your desired tonal range greatly, because what if you dont like the tone of the floyd rose strings? i think the speedloader bridge is a stupid idea.. why sacrafice tone for ease?

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Im sure other companies will start to sell the speedload strings once the bridge starts selling. Right now the only company thats endorsing it is B.C. Rich

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The BC Rich licensed Floyds are the worst. Not the speedloader, but the regular one. Fucking digusting.

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it isnt just b.c. rich. alot of licensed floyds for any brand are crap, non of them are nearly as good as a Real floyd.

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Oh I know, but BC Rich is probably the worst I've played.

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The worst is found on a Squier Stagemaster, the post spacing isent even normal. Just rediculous and it stays in tune like shit. ESP licensed floyds are pretty good, the Krame floyds are like a floyd rose II, but by far the best trem IMO is the Ibanez Edge Pro. MMMMM

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Kahler trems are the best ever made ! period

the flatmounted are definetly the best

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anybody here like 'bigsby'(?) trems?

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no

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the edge pro II on my guitar, though i dont think is liscensed, is a veeery good bridge

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Ok, I was talkin to a guy on another forum the other day and he mentioned somethin bout knife edge and ball (something) trems..... Is that the point where the bridge meets the 2 posts (as in the point of movement [sry for the vagueness]).

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A knife edge is the part of the bridge that touches the post. Its what the birdge pivots on. As for ball somthing i think you mean ball bearing, which is whats used on a kahler bridge. The string roll on this ball bearing so that when you move the tremolo bar, the bridge dosent acually move up or down, just the part with the ball bearings. Its kinda hard to explain. Just look at this pic http://www.glowingtubes.com/p/Kahle...ctions.htm#diag

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is there anyway i can just replace my licensed floyd with a kalher? or would that be impossible?

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Yes its possible but probably not worth it. You would have to fill the spring cavity up with some wood. Meaning you would have to completly strip and refinsh the guitar if you want it to look good, then you would need to route the recessed part a bit deeper and fill in the post holes. And then kahler would cost you quite alot. If you really want to do it then ask over at Projectguitar.com im sure they can help you out.

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I'm surprised no one has said anything about a Wilkinson bridge. It's simple, looks good, sounds good and it's not near the pain in the ass as some of the tremolos I've had to screw with. I've got one on my jackson ps7 and it is a simple floating trem. This old peavy guitar over here has a kahler spyder tremolo on it that you basically have to disassemble to change strings.And my washburn guitar has one of those cheapo strat trems that I just cranked the springs down on and disabled But, I don't jack my guitar off, I like hard tail bridges, strings through the body like my Kramer. I thought I would throw out another possibility. Check 'em out:

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Bridges...es.html#details

and I guess this nut would work if you had some gotoh locking tuners:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...bayphotohosting

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Yeh those arent bad but for that price just get a floyd. Floyds stay in tune better anyways.

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Somehow, this Official Bridge thread became an Official Trem page.

1-piece stopbar bridges (fernandez, bronze b.c. Rich) are good if you tune all over the place, but have the tendancy to start to lean forward after some useage, therefor destroying your intonation

Those hardtail bridges that resemble fender trems look cheap, and are cheap. but they dont seem to deteriorate after a whiles use.

PRS bridges, you cant adjust the intonation... WTF???

Those 2 peice gibson bridges are alright, though they seem to lean forward too, though not as badly. but the intonation is A PAIN IN THE ASS to adjust (same the the 1-piece stopbar bridge).

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WTF are you doing that makes your bridge begin to lean forward?!!? Is the tailpeice leaning forward? Or the acual bridge?

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The best fixed bridges/tailpieces are Tonepros locking! They lock down so intonation doesn't change and there is no threadplay when changing tunings and bending!

ONE-PIECE BRIDGES BLOW ALL ASS! They eat ur sustain!

Tonepros makes replacements for those PRS one-piecers on which u can't adjust intonation.

I really wanna get an Edge Pro for my KH-2 cuz i'm not a big fan of the original floyd rose. Is that an easy modification? Also, what is a good place to get one and about how much do they run?

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How come u dont like ure original flyd, mines great, stays in tune all day and all night.

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Basically I just have too many problems with mine. After playing on the strings for a week, they rae too stretched out or soemthing and the bridge can't compensate for tremolo movements as well. If the last movement i did was down, the guitar will be about 1/3 of a step low, and if the last movement i did was up, the guitar will be about 1/4 step too high, and it drives me crazy! I've heard better things about the Edge pros than the OFRs.

\m/

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the bridge itself is leaning forward. i put on heavy guage strings, but my friend uses 8's and his bridge is leaning forward BIGTIME... and it's a GIBSON!!!

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WTF??? Its a tune-o-matic bridge right??

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I have just got a Kramer Stirker form the early 80's with a floyd on it, but I am wondering what it actually is, a Floyd II or an OFR or what?
I know they were made with all of them, but does anyone have any ideas on what it could be,

as well, to the tune-o-matic's leaning foward, what the hell are you doing to them??? I have never heard of anything like that cept on cheap woods or on improper mountings or personal replacements

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Its probably a floyd II copy. takes some pics and i can tell you for sure

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here are some pics of the Striker bridge

Attached Images

	Dscf0012.jpg (31.7 KB, 379 views)
	Dscf0003.jpg (39.9 KB, 334 views)

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yeah

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it's his guitar, not mine, and everythig is original

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thats definately an OFR

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EWWWWWWWWWW thats an antique. That bridge just clamps the ball ends down... dosent lock the string at all

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lol, I know, they actually arent eve clamped down, they just feed through the ends,

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daamn, really?


i saw the weirdesest bridge once... it was on an old ibanez.. it was a floyd rose... w/o fine tuners and a locking nut.. wtf, mate?

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yeh in those bridges only the bridge locks, and theirs no need for fine tuner sbecause the nut dosent lock, floyd soon realized he needed the nut to lock for it to stay in perfect tune, but then he needed the fine tuners on the bridge to retune it after you lock the nut.

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I have a licensed floyd on my washburn. I dont know how good it is and I'm planning on someday upgrading to an action Floyd. How big of a job would that be?

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What the hell is an "action" floyd??

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holy shit, Im an idiot. I ment REAL floyd. I must have been drunk or something.

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I have a bcr bronze warlock with one of those shitty wraparound bridges that suck so much c*ck. Do you think its possible do drill six holes in the body and make it a string thru body guitar?

Yes. But you would need a drill press because its harder to get those holes lined up than you would think. You would also need to purchuse some string ferrules, i say just get a tuneomatic with a tailpeice. It would still require some drilling, and a fairly large drill bit.

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So here's an ignorant question..
Is kahler defunct? Why aren't they on the web anymore?
If they're defunct, what good quality flatmount trems are still made (or should I just look for a Kahler on ebay)?

Thanks..

http://www.forgedclassics.com/ they msotly make golf clubs now but when theirs enough orders placed then they make a run of kahlers and ship them out (this can take long... depends on how many people want them)
$289 bucks for one

Theirs also some guys at projectguitar.com that sell them for cheaper ($199 if bought from rhoads56)

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i still say a string thru body w/ a tonepros tuneomatic bridge is the best, you lose a lot of sustain with trems, esp the floyd kinds

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I know about those Tune-o-matic bridges that lean forward. Only the ones that have strings that attach to the bottom or back of the tune-o-matic have this problem. The ones that use a stop tail piece or the strings that go through the body are very good. The tune-o-matic bridge and stop tail post are only designed to have have the strings apply force downward into the guitar OR toward the nut, NOT both force directions on one set of post at the same time. B.C. Rich and Epiphone and the only ones that use this bridge right now and it is a very bad design ideal to save a little money. It's very sad.

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The cheap-o licensed floyds that are made out of pot metal kill sustain, but a origanal Floyd made with hardened steel with sustain for days.

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.

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haha

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Thats a cool picture

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Ya theres 2 bridges here in Halifax 75 cents to cross them, and thats the McDonald, the other is the McKay. I live about 20 min walk from that bridge.

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eewwww dime bucker

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Questions-
What are the big differences one would experience from changing bridges from a licensed floyd to an original? And what are the differences between the floyd rose original and pro?

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More sustain, better tuning stability. The only difference between the origanal ans the pro is the design.

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Any difference in tone between the real floyds and the licesned ones?
The pro one costs more than the original for only a difference in design, I think ill just go with the original unless some one would advise me not to.

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yes, a origanal floyd will a better tone because its made out of hardened steel, not cheap-o pot model molded into shape like on the licensed.

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A dime bucker is good ONLY if you coil tap it, then it has so many different tones. I played a guitar with it coil tapped and it sounded awesome.

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wheres the routing on the striker?

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Thats not a recessed floyd. Much like EVH's floyd it can only lower the pitch not raise it.

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I wouldn't like that, I like raising and lowering the pitch and stuff.

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well thats why they came up with the idea of recessing them

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I'm still a little confused on which floating trems are the best and which to avoid. Here's the info I gathered from all the posts in this thread. Let me know if I'm way off on any of this:

Kahlers are the best floating trem, but they're a completely different design from floyds and are difficult to put on a guitar with a floyd and it takes a lot of guitar building type skills to do it.

The Ibanez edge pro floyd that comes on the Steve Vai models is otherwise the best floating trem, and the original floyds are just about as good.

All licensed floyds are shitty to varying degrees depending on who made them.

I have an Ibanez low trs II licensed floyd on one of my guitars that I don't like at all. Can it just be swapped with an original floyd or an edge pro without having to do any drilling or anything like that?

The Kahler 2300 is NOT a floating trem. An OFR is better than an edge pro, but the edge pro is still one of the best floyd copies. Not all floyd copies are horrible, but most are. You should be able to swap out the TRS for an origanal floyd.

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Ahh ok. Thanks for the info.

HAHAHAHAHA

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i still like my edge pro II

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Good, you can keep the floating peice o crap.

I stick with my Kahlers

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you are extrememly arrogant with your guitar shit huh? holy fuck! calm down. Everyone has there own preferences, but do you have to be a douche because someone likes something that you dont??

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and for the record, my trem stays in tune. it has never gone out of tune. not once. it has never broken a string either. i like the feel of it, so i am happy with it. so it's not a kahler. so fucking what?? apperently, i'm 100 percent satisfied with it so a kahler will not make me any bit more happier. the world does not revolve around BLS, so fucking think before you decide to dis our guitars.

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You seem to be the ignorant one who REFUSES to try anything besides what you have. Try a kahler and you will see the light.

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I have to agree that Kahler bridges kick the holy shit out of any Floyd style bridge. It's like, how would you know something sucks when you have never tried something that is cool?

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I hope kahler starts producing again so i wont have to buy on ebay

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They are going to, but it's taking a little time. I will be so happy once they do because I'm sick of paying for over priced parts of Kahlers

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Well, I recently changed the strings on my guitar which has a Kahler Flyer (as pointed out by BLS) and what I am going to try out for now is not to use the locking nut. I don't use the trem arm at all anyways. I'll be tuning the guitar with the conventional pegs and ignore the fine tuning knobs.

The reason for me to try this is when I have used the locking nut the high E string has snapped after a while (on the headstock side of the nut). It did not change the string tension because the locking nut was tight enough to hold the string on its own.

The second reason is that after awhile, the fine tuning knobs were threaded all the way into the bridge for tuning purposes (the string would always go flat over time). After a while, I couldn't tune the string anymore with the fine tuning knobs. I would then have to unlock the strings and tune it with the headstock pegs anyways and to reset the fine tuning knobs on the bridge.

It was starting to drive me nuts. I still haven't had it professionally setup yet.

Has this happened to anyone else, that is, having the fine tuning knobs fully adjusted?

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After you tighten the locking nut, releave tension using the tuning pegs. This takes ALOT of tension off the headstock and will alos tell you if you locked the nut enough (obviously if it goes out of tune when you do so.. then the nut isent tight enough.)

Kahlers make jesus shower the planet with chocolate, please put it to good use

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I use Kahler and I too had the same problem with having some of the fine tuning knobs max out, but it's normal as the strings stretch more and more over time. Try to have the fine tune knobs almost half way down on the 3 thinker strings and about 1/3 of the way down on the thin strings before you tighten the nut. This preverts the problem from ever happening agian.

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Hey guys,
I don't really know anything about the whole trem thing but i was looking for a good trem just to mess around on without shelling out a ton of cash. Any suggestions?

read the fucking thread...

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Fuckin A!
http://www.nealmoser.com/kahlerbridges.htm

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lol yup. Those are the new ones and only he is selling them too. The only difference from the older ones is that the base frame is more rounded at corners. Other wise they are the same as ever.

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I love kahler bridges I have one in my explorer nowadays. really comfortable

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anybody know how much a 1 piece tune-o-matic/stop bar is? like... the one on the KKV signature...

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I have a very oldass Washburn acoustic which I've been playing on for a year. It must be around 8 years old, and the strings have never been changed lol. The bridge is really starting to worry me, it's peeling off leaning towards the neck quite a bit, I can fit picks in the space between the bridge and body, and while it's still sturdy, I can only imagine what will happen if I decide to change strings.

The day I decide to get my lazy ass to change the strings, should I reattach the bridge with some wood glue or should I take it to some luthier, have him rip me off but do a good job at repairing it? I'm just afraid of the neck fucking up when I remove the strings to fix the bridge. The neck is doing fine, just some high action(gets higher as you get closer to the body)

I've read most of this thread and I'm becoming intersted in tremolo bridges. I still don't own an electric guitar though I've been playing for a year, and I'm about to buy a very good axe with a tune-o-matic... I've heard that tremolos are not ideal for a first electric since they can be problematic, but I'm wondering if there's any (non-shitty) tremolo-equipped guitars for $600 new or less? Obviously I'd love to go with a Kahler or an OFR, but I don't think I'll find guitars in that price range with such bridges since they bridges alone cost up to $300, right? Should I just wait until the day I spend $1000+ for a tremolo bridge? How's the one on the Jackson RR3?

I have a question about locking nuts, you have to unfasten them to tune up right? And what's this "fine-tune" screw on the bridges? Is this used to tune after a locking nut has been fastened?

Got any pictures of that?

Here's a very noobish question. I just bought a string-thru body guitar, which is my first electric. My question is: how the hell do you set new strings? I mean... what keeps the strings clinged inside the body? Some kind of screw? I'm very confused.