floyd hassles--string bending

I recently picked up an Ibanez JS-1000 and I'm totally irritated with the floyd bridge. How can I keep other strings from going flat when I bend? I was thinking of blocking the pullback and making the springs super-tight, but that seems extreme. I'm not a tremolo expert, but I know that my old Kahler never had this problem. I don't see why everyone says floyds are the best. Help me understand? Surely there's a solution--I can't believe that everyone who plays a floyd bends only 1 string at a time with all other strings silent.

Related questions:
- The spring claw will hold 5 springs, but the tremolo body only seems to hold 3 (there are only 3 holes under the locking plate). Can I not add additional springs?
- Are heavier gauge springs available, or can I only tighten the anchor screws to increase tension?
- Will changing the tension affect intonation even if the bridge body ends up in the same spot (parallel to the guitar body) after I'm finished?

Thanks. Btw, other than that, I love the guitar.
-JQ

I'm sorry that no-one has seen fit to answer your questions. I'm not a tremolo user. I replaced the trem on my '62 re-issue Jap-strat with a solid brass block. And a piece of machinery like the Floyd Rose trems are very much outside my experience.

As long as the bridge body remains in the same place, I think the intonation will be OK.

For the rest of your questions, I suggest you use the search button at the upper right corner of the page. Enter Floyd Rose as the keword. There have been a lot of threads posted by frustrated Floyd Rose owners, and there's a lot of useful information in here about how to adjust and maintain them.

I don't know that much about F.R. tremelos but I have played guitars with them . The best solution that I can think of is adjust your F.R. so that it can't raise the pitch of the strings... and tighten it up just enough so that when you bend a string to the extreme, the tremelo does not move. I even adjust my standard strat tremelo like that. I screw it down so that you cant pull up on the bar. the tremelo is tight against the body of the guitar. This will also help with sustain. Good luck!

Thanks all for the posts.

I ended up putting 2 extra springs in for a total of 5 (I had to ditch the spring lock plate and use the 2 screw holes for the extra springs. Most floyds apparently do not have such a plate). Anyway, the bridge is blocked tight against the body now so I can't use the bar to raise pitch, and the other strings only go flat by about 1Hz when I bend a whole step, which is tolerable. I can still tighten the trem screws a little bit too if that 1Hz gets annoying.

Thanks again,
-JQ

Other strings going flat when you bend one of them is very normal with FR ... I don't think that Extra springs or anything will solve the problem unless you find a way to block the bridge (but it won't be a tremolo anymore , you should have got a fixed bridge guitar instead).

Anyway , what I do to overcome the problem is bending the other string slightly and the string that should be bended a little more ... Sounds hard and complicated but it's not .

i.e. a unison bend like this

e----
b-7--
g-9b-

What I'd do here is bending the 9th a little more and slightly bend the 7th , so that you get them sound normaly in tune.

http://www.stewmac.com/cgi-bin/hazel.cgi?action=SERVE&ITEM=catalog/sku.html&S1=Bridges,tailpieces&SS1=Guitar,_tremolo&sku=0159

Try this. This was made to try and help remedy the exact problem you are having.



[Edited by hairbndrckr on 03-23-2003 at 04:29 PM]

Question: WHY is it a problem? i mean - i have been playing floyd rose tremolos for years now, and i never realy found it annoying, for most time when i bend ,the other strings do not sound at all - and when i do unison bends and stuff like that, i just bend untill it sounds right.. so wheres the problem??