The great floyd rose debate

[Slobrain]

Hey Folks,

I thought I would start a thread on the Mighty Floyd Rose tremolos and discuss all the plus and minus of the import models and how they stack up against the original Floyd Rose tremolo

My first Floyd Rose tremolo was bought in Houston Texas at Rockin Robbins in 1985 and installed on one of those Fuju Gen Gakki made Fender Squier strats that were built as an exact copy of a 1969 CBS strat. What a cool combination of a guitar. The strat was cream white (basswood) with a black pickguard and one humbucker ala EVH that I installed. That was my stage guitar at that time. I still have the Floyd Rose but that guitar is looooong gone.... The one problem with that guitar was a vintage radius on the fretboard. It would have been better with either a 12 or 16 inch radius… oh well….

Anyway in 1987 I bought a Kramer Focus 2000 at Rockin Robins and it had a Floyd rose on it. In 1990 I bought a Charvel Fusion custom that had the Charvel Schaller copy tremolo that for the first year was ok till the baseplate screw holes that held the saddles down stripped. I wound up getting the tremolo route enlarged in the rear and put on my trusty Floyd Rose from 85. I used that guitar till 1995 in clubs.

Fast forward to 2012. I just bought a Floyd Rose Special from MF and installed it on my old 1990 Charvel. My first impression is that the baseplate is a bit bigger on the side behind where the trem arm is. Reason I know this is that I tried to install it on my San Dimas copy first and it rubbed against the trem recessed route so I moved it over to my 90 Charvel. The trem recessed route was larger on the old Charvel so it did not rub.

I can tell the saddles are not steel as they have a bit softer feel. The zinc block was horrible sounding right off the start so I had to remove it and install a regular brass 32mm block which brought the guitar back to sounding fuller in tone.
The saddles on the FRS are exactly like the 1990 Charvel Schaller copy trem. I actually cracked one of those back in 91 so you cannot gorilla grip the rear screws on those saddles but they do work well as long as you don’t over tighten them.
I will need to do some testing this weekend to see how the guitar sounds stacked up to my other guitars with the real deal Floyd.

I can say after doing extensive searching on EBay I would definitely stay away from any FR tremolo being sold from Hong Kong... upon close looking at those I would say they are knockoffs that are made inferior to the Korean made FRS.

Anyone have any input please tell us your stories. Some using Gotoh or Ping FR trems please chime in on your experience.

Thanks

Slo

[soundguruman]

If you are gonna use San Dimas method, the neck angle is 0 degrees to body, it's flat.
If it's not flat, there may conceivably be problems.
We were just talking about this...funny, there is NO flat pickup rings for Gibson Humbucker.
You either need to use flat metal ring which has different body-to-ring screw spacing, (move screw holes from stock Gibson spacing)
or sand down the pre angled stock pickup rings (so they become flat), or...hahahaha

[Steve A.]

I got a Floyd Rose licensed tremelo built by Kahler in the late 80's to put on my Casio/Ibanez MIDI strat. Kahler made great castings- probably the best metal you'd find on a FR. But what was really cool was that I had gotten the option which would lock the bridge in place when the bar was hanging loose. You could bend the top strings as much as you wanted and the low E would stay in tune (just like a Les Paul.) Bring the bar up to playing position and the bridge was free floating. I am not that much into trems (isn't that what our fingers are for? ) but no one I've talked has seen a Floyd Rose like that.

Steve Ahola

P.S. I am very suspicious of Chinese bridges sold on eBay, et al. I need to get a replacement for a PRS SE wraparound bridge and used ones go for $70 to $125- ouch! There are companies in China and Hong Kong selling them for about $15 including shipping but I have a hunch that they would not fit right, or last very long. However with so many parts being made in China these days I would not be as suspicious of an item made in China being sold by an established music firm here in the US. For one thing you could probably call them up and have them give you exact measurements and maybe even the weight. And if there was a problem it would be much easier to deal with.

[Slobrain]

I got a Floyd Rose licensed tremelo built by Kahler in the late 80's to put on my Casio/Ibanez MIDI strat. Kahler made great castings- probably the best metal you'd find on a FR. But what was really cool was that I had gotten the option which would lock the bridge in place when the bar was hanging loose. You could bend the top strings as much as you wanted and the low E would stay in tune (just like a Les Paul.) Bring the bar up to playing position and the bridge was free floating. I am not that much into trems (isn't that what our fingers are for? ) but no one I've talked has seen a Floyd Rose like that.

Steve Ahola

P.S. I am very suspicious of Chinese bridges sold on eBay, et al. I need to get a replacement for a PRS SE wraparound bridge and used ones go for $70 to $125- ouch! There are companies in China and Hong Kong selling them for about $15 including shipping but I have a hunch that they would not fit right, or last very long. However with so many parts being made in China these days I would not be as suspicious of an item made in China being sold by an established music firm here in the US. For one thing you could probably call them up and have them give you exact measurements and maybe even the weight. And if there was a problem it would be much easier to deal with.

Hey Steve,

My gosh, I havent seen you posting in years. I sure hope all is going well with you. Man, seeing you post brings back Ampage memories of the good ol dayz when we all used to post constantly at the old Amapage site.

Note to T-boy, bring back AMPAGE.....lol.


Hey Steve, the FR special trem I bought was only $49.00 off ebay. It was going on a old Kramer Focus 4000 sharkfin Vee Im fixing up for my nephews Christmas gift. I usually buy Floyd Rose new from Warmoth as to get the good bridge when building or rebuilding a guitar but this one I bought was a budget thing...

Yes, you have to be carefull about buying cheap China stuff, sometimes you can get something cheap and it works and sometimes you get junk. I always try to buy from someone in the states but sometimes I cant find the right part so the Cheap stuff has to be bought...
I like to get stuff from GFS as they usually have good parts but thats probably China stuff too or Korean made. Jay Abend runs this company and I think he maybe posted at Ampage in the old days.

Anyway I hope all is well with you, are you still building amps?

Take care

Slobrain

[David Schwab]

In 1990 I bought a Charvel Fusion custom that had the Charvel Schaller copy tremolo that for the first year was ok till the baseplate screw holes that held the saddles down stripped.

Did you know that Schaller made the original Floyd Rose bridges for Floyd Rose? Not counting the ones he made in his garage of course. But all the units that Kramer was distributing were made by Schaller. That doesn't mean that the Schaller named versions were made the same however.

One you lock down your saddles for intonation there should be no need to tighten those screws any more. I have heard of people saying they stripped.

I have a WSC Korean made licensed Floyd and it's held up fine.

[David Schwab]

I got a Floyd Rose licensed tremelo built by Kahler in the late 80's to put on my Casio/Ibanez MIDI strat. Kahler made great castings- probably the best metal you'd find on a FR. But what was really cool was that I had gotten the option which would lock the bridge in place when the bar was hanging loose. You could bend the top strings as much as you wanted and the low E would stay in tune (just like a Les Paul.) Bring the bar up to playing position and the bridge was free floating. I am not that much into trems (isn't that what our fingers are for? ) but no one I've talked has seen a Floyd Rose like that.

The Kahler Floyds were very cool.

I installed the very first one (prototype) on an American Showster guitar for a photo shoot for Playboy magazine in 1987. After the guitar came back we had to return it to Kahler.

Here it is. I don't think it had the fine tuners on the back, or at least it was different from the production model. You can see it was very sleek.