Info on bridges

I am mainly a metal guitarist and I was just curious as to what is the advantages/disadvantages of both a fixed and a floating bridge

I can't give too much help on a fixed. My guitar has a floyd rose style bridge. I can tell you a little negative about it. You have to be very careful about how much pressure you put on it when you rest your hand on it. Too much and you will hear those strings stretching throwing off your sound. :rolleyes:

Originally Posted by: HjorvardI am mainly a metal guitarist and I was just curious as to what is the advantages/disadvantages of both a fixed and a floating bridge

A fixed bridge would, in most all likelyhood, give you less tuning problems. As long as the guitar (truss, intonation etc) is set up, you'd almost never have tuning problems in an environment/temperature that is stable. No real disadvantage other than you can't do divebombs.

However, even though floating (Floyd Rose style) bridges are technically more unstable, in that the stability comes from the spring tension vs. the string tension, if you have a pro set up on your guitar you should almost never have a tuning issue. I was lucky that the store I went to for years had a very gifted tech on staff. His set ups were just amazing and for a lowely $20. That said, if you have th right set up, having a floating trem is no big deal. Just gotta get used to the pressure you place but that isn't too much of an issue and pretty easy to adapt too.


I don't think there is negative to either and I have guitars with both....well, I should say that they are on different guitars ;) . I like having those options. As life does for musicians, you have to decide whether it's one or the other and you can't have both, I probably lean towards a good guitar with a floating...that way I can have that option as needed. Just be sure to bring it in every few months and be sure that you keep newer strings on most of the time...helps intonation versus old strings that have stretched and are not providing the same back pressure to the springs. I usually brought my guitar in for a set up every 2-3 months.

I've always loved the whammy bar ever since I heard Slayer's 'Reign in Blood' and Nocturnus's 'The Key' - so I started with the floating bridge and have never looked back. Takes a little while to get used to and about twice as long to change a set of strings and tune up but the benefits far out weigh the difficulties IMO. I would never buy a guitar now with a fixed bridge but that's just me, I'm too used to having it there - probably use it every time I play lead now.

Originally Posted by: SuperhumanI've always loved the whammy bar ever since I heard Slayer's 'Reign in Blood' and Nocturnus's 'The Key' - so I started with the floating bridge and have never looked back. Takes a little while to get used to and about twice as long to change a set of strings and tune up but the benefits far out weigh the difficulties IMO. I would never buy a guitar now with a fixed bridge but that's just me, I'm too used to having it there - probably use it every time I play lead now.

My favorite use of the whammy has to be anythng King Diamond/Mercyful Fate related. I do think it would be a good tool in my arsenal to have, yet I have no clue how to use a whammy bar honestly. I did end up buying an Ibanez GRG170DXBKN RG Series E guitar. It has two humbuckers and one single coil, and a trem system, but I heard the tremolo system is the only bad part and comes out of tune easily. I figure all I'd have to do for that is tighten the strings in the back.

Once your guitar is set up properly and you lock up at the headstock then you should never realy have to do too much tuning - only minor adjustments to the fine tuners. As far as using the trem system goes, there are a number of techniques but the ones that I get the best use out of are natural harmonic dives. You get these by placing your finger tip lightly on the string above the fretwire (not centre fret), picking then taking your finger off - just as you do for tuning up off the 5th and 7th fret harmonics. Try using the 3rd, 5th, 7th, 9th, 12th and same spacings on above to the 24th. You also get a really cool effect by picking two strings together, when you dive both go out of tune at different rates so the tone will 'warble' giving that screaming effect. Also, try picking an open low E string, then start the dive and after about dropping a semitone or tone, lightly touch the fret fret harmonic and keep on diving. This gives that really cool low end rumble to scream transition - great for ending a solo or song. THat's a fairly basic and easy but very entertaining into to using the whammy bar, actually dipping in and out of notes mid run is a lot more tricky. Given your difficulties, specialising in the whammy bar would help you to stand out and a lot players never use it. Hope that helps.

Yeah that helps alot and actually sounds pretty fun to do! I can't wait to try that stuff out