Any advantage in locking tuners for a tele?

[Spider]

Hi there,

I'm about to start my third Warmoth, this time a Thinline. Any thoughts as to the advantages of using locking tuners over normal ones. Standard tele bridge, no trem. I keep on bending the top two strings out of tune on my current tele. I'm happy to pay the extra if I'll gain more tuning stability! Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[Cagey]

Any time you have strings being stretched and relaxed you'll benefit from locking tuners. But, even if it weren't for tuning stability, they make changing the strings much easier.

 

[Disco Scottie]

Yep, what Cagey said. Absolutely no reason not to use locking tuners.

 

[swarfrat]

I'm contemplating a set of GFS locking tuners on my 12 string for that very reason. GFS because that's a lot of tuners.

 

[Jusatele]

Since getting my PRS, I am sold on locking tuners. Just to easy to swap strings

 

[AutoBat]

after putting locking Schallers on my strat, i'd put 'em on a hardtail without a second thought.

 

[Cagey]

Right. Even on a hardtail you're still bending strings, which means they're being stretched and relaxed. If you have several winds of string on a peg, recovery is going to be inconsistent. You don't have that with lockers, so the flaky tuning problem goes away. Plus the easy string replacement, of course. That alone is worth the price of admission, if you ask me. You're gonna pay $35+ for junkers anyway, so it's only a $25-$30 adder to make your life easier. In the grand scheme of things, on a $1,000+ guitar, it's a no-brainer.

 

[swarfrat]

And on a 12 string - not having 3 or 4 loops x 18:1 ratio x 12 strings  is quite appealing

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Locking tuners are not enough.

If it wasn't for Planet Waves auto trim tuners I would probably be playing Guitar Hero instead.

 

[back2thefutre]

I don't like locking tuners.

 

[NLD09]

Locking tuners are not enough.

If it wasn't for Planet Waves auto trim tuners I would probably be playing Guitar Hero instead.

+1-ish. I'd still play, but I'd change my strings a lot less (which isn't often enough to begin with.) I can't even count how many pairs of wire cutters I lost before I got planet waves tuners.

 

[swarfrat]

And call me crazy, hope it doesn't look too dorky but Im also contemplating mixing a set of chrome and black tuners for the 12, and put the 1st string of each course on chrome and the 2nd string of each course on black.

 

[AutoBat]

And call me crazy, hope it doesn't look too dorky but Im also contemplating mixing a set of chrome and black tuners for the 12, and put the 1st string of each course on chrome and the 2nd string of each course on black.

That usually looks good.

 

[Cagey]

I don't think chrome and black differentiation on courses of tuners for a 12 string would look dorky at all. In fact, I think it makes a great deal of sense. There's a lotta tuners up there; anything that would single one out more quickly for you after a brief glance has to be a Good Thing. Plus, a chrome/black mix is naturally complementary since there's no color involved. Can't clash with each other or anything else.

 

[Tonar8352]

I don't like locking tuners.

  I agree.

I can only speak from my personal experience but you all know I'm an old geezer and kind of a vintage accurate buff so forgive me but......
I did not like the additional weight they added to the neck, I felt they made the tone of the guitar darker, when I sold that neck and replaced it with a neck with Vintage Kluson’s the guitar came alive.  Granted that could have had a lot to do with the necks themselves but I would not use them again.  I did love them for ease of string changes.

I do not have trouble with strings going out of tune with Kluson tuners. A lot of that has to do with me finally learning how to correctly string Kluson tuners and I really stretch out a new set of stings before I get on stage with them because I prefer a set of stings with less than 20 minutes of playing time on them before I play.  One thing I do notice is that my guitars will go sharp from sound check to when a room fills up with people but that is because the temperature of the room changes and humidity increases with all the bodies.

 

[Spider]

Thanks for all your replies - I'm going for a very light weight Thinline - I hadn't really considered the extra weight. I do stretch my strings but still have problems... oh well

 

[Spider]

Hey, I've just looked up the weight of Gotoh vintage locking tuners against Gotoh vintage non-locking Locking tuners are 160.121 gms, non-locking are 161.028 gms.  :icon_scratch:

 

[anorakDan]

Hey, I've just looked up the weight of Gotoh vintage locking tuners against Gotoh vintage non-locking Locking tuners are 160.121 gms, non-locking are 161.028 gms.  :icon_scratch:

non-locking Locking tuners?

 

[Cagey]

Hey, I've just looked up the weight of Gotoh vintage locking tuners against Gotoh vintage non-locking Locking tuners are 160.121 gms, non-locking are 161.028 gms.  :icon_scratch:

non-locking Locking tuners?

Well, they're "vintage". Can't expect the bloody things to work worth a damn <grin>

 

[Cagey]

I can understand the desire to be "vintage accurate". It's an emotional thing that often can't be easily overcome.  Consciously or unconsciously, we want to connect to our roots or emulate our heros. That's fine, albeit impractical. But, if you're willing to fight the good fight, you can suffer as much as you used to or as much as your heros did/do.

I can't imagine the minor difference in weight between lockers and non-lockers would have that much influence on the character of the guitar, unless we're talking about acoustics. With those, vibaration is everything and anything that would change the moment of the neck is probably going to be noticeable to a trained ear. But on an electric? Fuhgeddaboudit. There's so much mass in an electric that a couple grams here and there have all the impact of pulling a bucket of water out of the ocean.

Never underestimate the power of suggestion, though. Depending on the subject matter and who's discussing it, as well as the weight of time and monetary investment, you can get incredible results out of things that make no actual difference at all.