Tremolo help

Hey there , need help with my tremoloing skills, basically I need some advice, I understand the techique but find it hard to use within piece's of music.

Can anyone help me or tell me how they went about learning how to perfect the art of a good tremolo? :)

Thanks alot

Do you need odd and special trem tricks , or you're still not comfortable with making wide vibratos ?

"or you're still not comfortable with making wide vibratos ?"

Thats the one , I can do them , but Im still not comfortable with them.
For instant I was practicing some licks and tried to finish them with a bit of trem, but it just sounded wrong, it sounded out of place, I dont know why or how to improve it ...!

If you're playing a tremolo thingi for David Gilmour for example on a Floyd Rose tremolo , it would sound awkward cuz the Floyd Rose would give it a wilder range ... You should try to make weaker action on the tremolo.

Tremolo is one thing you don't really think about when you do it , it just take a while to get used to it , then you'll never look back ... Try practicing with EVH divebombs , and may be some Vai if you're into his stuff (his tremolo work is very advanced).

cheers I'll give it a go,

Originally Posted by: SLYmaybe some Vai if you're into his stuff (his tremolo work is very advanced).

Yeah, he may want to practice up a bit before he shoots for Vai or Satriani tremolo work.

Ok Im improving a bit, Ive seen a tremolo pedal, how do they actually work? because in a solo or riff that has alot of trem , it would be a nightmare to keep turning it on and off........

OK, I think it's getting a bit confused here.

AFAIK (in the guitar universe; not necessarily music-wide):

Tremolo = rapid picking of a note
Vibrato = the quick raising and lowering of the pitch of a note

However, things get more confused, even in the guitar world, when companies decide to make amps & effects that are called "tremolo" and they do a vibrato-type effect.

After doing a quick dictionary double-check, it seems that tremolo is produced by a pulsating effect, attained by rapid repetition of a note, whereas vibrato is (again) a tremulous or pulsating effect; however, it is attained by "minute and rapid variations in pitch".

Not trying to be a jerk or anything here, just trying to clear some things up in this discussion.

Thanks for clearing that up, :)

What was the name of the pedal you saw ?
There are pedals that produce a vibrato effect , similar to what you do with your fretting hand (but not the same at all) , usualy these are called "Vibrato Pedals" , and they look like the distortion pedals ... They are turned on/off like the distortion , and they have settings of the depth and speed of the vibration (most Fender amps has this effect ).
Other pedals produce wide range of pitch shifting , like the "Digitech" whammy pedal , these look like a wah or a volume pedal , with few buttons on the side... They operation is similar to the wah pedal , except that you're controling pitch not tone.

erm , cant remember the make, but it looked like the boss range. So the whammy bar or whatever its known as, that screws into your guitar is to do with vibrato not tremolo, now i understand.

Originally Posted by: iamthe_eggmanOK, I think it's getting a bit confused here.

AFAIK (in the guitar universe; not necessarily music-wide):

Tremolo = rapid picking of a note
Vibrato = the quick raising and lowering of the pitch of a note...

[font=trebuchet ms]Close.

Vibrato is what happens to the note when the finger that determines the note (not just fretting, but on fretless instruments like violin or cello) is rolled back and forth. This is mostly pitch variation.

Tremolo (tremolando) is variation in the volume intensity of the sound. This effect is quite common on amps, but true vibrato is almost entirely limited to newer gear with digital processing.[/font]

Originally Posted by: English Enigma erm , cant remember the make, but it looked like the boss range. [/QUOTE]
Then most probably it's what they call a vibrato pedal , it changes the volume intensity with time to give a vibrato like feel , or what the vocabulary freaks like to call "tremolo" ;) .... But practically , you'll find almost every amp and effects manufacturer call it vibrato.

[QUOTE=English Enigma] So the whammy bar or whatever its known as, that screws into your guitar is to do with vibrato not tremolo, now i understand.

Well , people call it whamy , tremolo , vibrato bar (actually , the first two are the most popular ) ... It doesn't matter what it's called , but whenever you hear/read one of these words folowed by "bar" , you'll know what it is .

a whammy pedal for example a "digitech whammy" pedal does what the whammy bar on a guitar does, hightens and lowers the note, as you push the pedal down it lowers the note just like pushing the whammy bar down does.

a tremolo pedal increases and lowers the volume in set pulses in relation to a time period usually set as a parameter on the pedal. this creates a stuttering effect as if you turned the volume knob on the guitar up and down really fast.

a good piece of advise is forget about calling your whammy bar a tremolo arm, just completely disregard it as part of you guitar vocabulary (unless your buying spare parts or something over the net, cause the word comes in useful then, lol), it avoids a lot of confusion

hope that helps

that helps alot cheers

As far as guitar techinques go,

Classical tremelo is a technique that takes a LONG time to perfect,

http://www.guitartricks.com/trick.php?trick_id=8130

anyone intrested in it can check that out.