Bar string retainer on a non-trem guitar?

[WilliamAgain]

Hello. I am currently planning my new build and have a question. With all my other builds I have always used a Fender hardtail and your run-of-the-mill string trees/retainers for the 1st and 2nd strings. This time around I am utilizing a TOM and I would like to avoid those traditional 1st/2nd string trees - is it possible to utilize a bar string retainer with a non-trem/non-locking guitar? I can see it being feasible, but is there any downside or precautions that need to be taken?

Thanks for your time.

 

[Cagey]

Those traditional string trees are just that - "traditional". You don't need them these days unless you have a very poorly made nut.

Leo came up with them to put on his guitars back 100 years ago when production first started getting to be a large scale operation because they didn't have time to do a proper job with the nuts. So, production line people would just give 'em a lick and a promise, then put a 10 cent string tree on to hold the strings in place. Now everybody does a much better job of fabbing nuts, but the trees never went away. I never put them on anything, and never have any problem at all. Doesn't affect the tone, and gets rid of another source of tuning problems. Plus, the headstock looks cleaner.

 

[line6man]

No downsides; no precautions. It's a string retainer.

Though you should always be aware of why string retainers are bad to begin with. They act as a point of contact that creates friction with the strings, so the preference is to have as few as possible, in the interest of tuning stability.

You might consider staggered tuning posts, or a tilted headstock.

 

[LushTone]

There's no tuning issues from my GraphTech string trees. I have one for the high two strings on both my guitars with inline headstocks. By intuition, I wouldn't use a bar retainer.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

Hi. I used to have that on an old Tokai-strat I had. It was factory installed. It was not a very good solution because the strings got caught using the tremolo. I changed the metal bar of the string retainer to a modified*  Graphtech nut and that worked well.

I use ordinary graph tech string trees on the four light strings on all my Warmoths and have no tuning issues at all. I think that is a better solution than the modified string retainer bar.

*(using the graphtech nut instead of the metal bar)