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Original message:84 days 21 hours 23 minutes ago

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Member: shanejohnson2002

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So now that I've had the new Ibanez for a while, I've come to realize that having a hard-tail instrument forces me to concentrate more on things like picking technique, vibrato, and left-hand / right-hand coordination. Not that i never worked on it before, it's just that without a bar to play with, everything you do has to come from the fingers. It has made me notice some glaring inadequacies in my playing that I'm going to have to work on.

I was wondering who else out there prefers tremolo-less instruments. I think that after playing mine a while, I actually do prefer it. I wouldn't mind a nice Wilkinson though...

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Reply:84 days 20 hours 38 minutes ago
Member: ibzRG

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I practically never use my whammy. I would like a hardtail, because they are easy to re-tune at will...

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Reply:84 days 18 hours 3 minutes ago
Member: Craig Robinson

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having a hard tail certainly has its advantages, being able to quickly change tunings. I know that is simple with a Strat style trem but with a floyd is annoying yet warrants more guitars lol I kn ow I have my eyes set on a few tele's and maybe a LP, not yet anyway as I am trying to get a new motorbike first.

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Reply:84 days 15 hours 51 minutes ago
Member: Richey

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Been playing for nearly 20 years and never owned a guitar with a tremolo. Not to say that I will never get one. Strat is next on my list so this reign of terror by the hard-tails is about to end at my house.

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Reply:84 days 15 hours 25 minutes ago
Member: frumsapap

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I only use a hard tail now. It took a while to get used to, but I love it so much more than tremolo. I do use my fret hand for the vibrato. I never really thought of it as a better playing, though. I can't use a tremolo worth a shit. Maybe it's because I had a 200 dollar Ibanez, but mine never stayed in tune. Maybe this is not the case with others, but I could never get the tremolo on my old GIO. There are certain things though that one can do with tremolo, and not with stop or hard tail.

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Reply:84 days 15 hours 21 minutes ago
Member: jobabrinks

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I have almost always played hardtail instruments. So much so that when I had my first trem not long ago, I sat down to play it when I was piss drunk. I noticed my unison bends were off pitch. I told myself I was just drunk, but when I was playing it the next morning, they were still way off. After checking the intonation to be on, I was like "Oh shit, my bending pitch is really terrible, I really have to practice that. I never realized it was so horrible. Crap." This was before I realized that bending a string with a floating bridge flattens the other strings significantly. I was so relieved...

Reply:84 days 15 hours 16 minutes ago
Member: Fred Kraus

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I was never one for trem bars. I have them on my strats but I rarely use them. On the one I just built, I have a Wilkinson trem, but I put and extra spring in and they're heavy gauge. I can move the trem if I want, but I think the stiffness helps hold the intonation better. For me, excessive trem use is not natural, say like Brad Gillis. I would have to say that I'm more in the hard tail camp.

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Reply:84 days 15 hours 16 minutes ago
Member: dcunning30

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I play 7-string guitars, almost exclusively. My problem is with my ESP that has a floyd, the extra string and tighter spring to compensate causes more tension on the trem. It has more resistence than a 6 string with trem. Becuause of that, I don't use the trem as much as I would like to. I have a 7-string strat that has a floating trem, I have the same issue as with the ESP. So I hardly use the strat trem, almost never.

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Reply:84 days 13 hours 17 minutes ago
Member: Johnny

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i dont care much for any kind of trem. i have always been satisfied with the hardtail. of course, i may be more fond of a trem if i had mastered the art of using one, which i never did.

.........now that i think of it, i dont recall ever mastering anything unless you count spanking my monkey. LOL

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Reply:84 days 11 hours 33 minutes ago
Member: ibzRG

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The funny part for someone who rarely uses the whammy unless the tab tells me to, is that sometimes when I'm on the bass or the acoustic, I instinctively reach for the bar, which doesn't exist. =P

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Reply:84 days 6 hours 48 minutes ago
Member: Craig Robinson

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one of the reasons why I play a wolfgang is the floyd version never goes out of tune and it's great. you can bend the hell out of it, do all sorts with it and still it'll stay in tune. I haven't tried a hardtail version yet.

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Reply:84 days 4 hours 19 minutes ago
Member: shanejohnson2002

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See I went the opposite direction. I had nothing but tremolo equipped guitars (yamaha pacificas, fender strat, Ibanez RG, etc) until my Epiphone Del Rey. It's sort of like a double cut les paul, but I never really played it much. I'm having my brother bring it down when he visits so I can check the possibility of fixing it up and / or selling it. It was a great guitar, I just never really got used to how "dry" it felt.

Now I bought an RG2EX1...the Ibanez el-cheapo RG that they made for Musicians Friend / Guitar Center. It's not even on the Ibanez website! But it is a *beast* of an instrument. I mean, for 300 bucks I got a solid, great-playing, great-feeling instrument with jumbo frets, and soon to have Gotoh locking tuners / bridge, dimarzio D Activator pickups, and a custom pickguard made out of abalone...mmmm.

Anyway the point is I'm getting used to the idea of fixed bridges because I have long since been burnt out on tremolos. The out-of-tuneness, the other strings goin flat when you bend any string, the having to unlock / lock it constantly. Of course, I had an RG320FM which is a great guitar with a crappy tremolo unit (the Edge Pro II). I think maybe if I get one again, it'll be a much nicer model...perhaps with an original Edge or Edge Pro.

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