This 6 vs. 2 point tremolo talk..

[Cagey]

Check this out (just one example):

http://www.skguitar.com/SKGS/sk/CapTest/CapTest.htm

By his own measurements, he's using caps of different values. Then, he's not feeding them a consistent signal. It's not a scientific test, as there are too many variables. The results are predictable without even doing the test: If you use different value components, with different signals, then surprise! You will get results that don't resemble each other. No mystery there. At least this guy was honest enough to say the differences were imperceptible in most cases, which is what would be expected unless a cap in a test group was way off the others.

That's not the only test out there that tries to put paid to the dreaded capacitor argument. Search long enough, and you'll find others. I know because I've seen them. Unfortunately, they all suffer the same failings. Some are worse than others, but the underlying failure point is always in not controlling variables, so the results are useless.

One of these days, somebody will run a proper test and we'll see that math, science, and physics all work as usual. I'm not going to hold my breath while I wait, though. Liable to suffocate, and I live to tell that that's no fun at all <girn>

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

Someone posted this a while back.  The video itself instigated curiousity and controversy, at least to me.  Still don't know if I buy it, but what do the ears say?  If the up and down movement of the vintage 6 hole play a role in the different intervals for use, I don't see how the 2 point pivoting equally on a knife edge could do this.  Still don't understand how this guy is doing it.  Also, this is the bottom of the line, couldn't spend any less money, and still have it say Fender, Strat.  Does he have a "tone" problem?

FYI, I don't often use a trem, but when I do, I prefer a 2-point.

[youtube=425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iy-F7iSIopA&p=5F1D0F10E9BBF6A2&playnext=1&index=3[/youtube]  

 

[Cagey]

The guy is confused about why he's getting the results he does. He's correlating differences in the spring tension of springs connected to a common inflexible base to differing intervals of of movement on his strings, and that's simply not true. You could take his guitar and straighten or even reverse that claw angle when he's not looking, or knock it back to one spring or bump it up to 5, and he'd get the exact same response. But, if it makes him happy, let him have it. He's not selling anything, so it doesn't hurt anybody outside of spreading misinformation that will eventually make his believers look foolish for passing it along.

 

[stubhead]

Ummm, I'm pretty sure you can't "look foolish for spreading misinformation" anymore.
Give that man a RAISE... he be soundin' authoritative.

 

[Cagey]

Ummm, I'm pretty sure you can't "look foolish for spreading misinformation" anymore.
Give that man a RAISE... he be soundin' authoritative.

He does sound credible, I'll give you that. He's not screaming for acceptance like Ron Popeil, Vince Shlomi, Billy Mays or any of those other late-night infomercial guys. But, he's wrong, nonetheless.

In any event, you can still look foolish for accepting misinformation and spreading it. It just depends on who's doing the looking. Your grandmother or a public school kid might think you're a genius, but anybody who's ever taken high-school physics and happened to have paid attention during class is going to at least snicker behind their hand if they don't just laugh out loud.

 

[Superlizard]

Carl Verheyen's trem system works really good - I have it on my 6 holer strat.

Those of you shouldn't knock it until you try it... another rule of thumb with "little guitar tone/tech secrets".

Seriously, try it.  Do it...  Do it.

 

[Cagey]

Carl Verheyen's trem system works really good - I have it on my 6 holer strat.

Those of you shouldn't knock it until you try it... another rule of thumb with "little guitar tone/tech secrets".

Seriously, try it.  Do it...  Do it.

That's not a "system". It's a claw mounted cock-eyed because he doesn't understand how things work and believes he's making a difference. I don't doubt you get the same results doing the same thing, because it's a pointless and ineffectual setup point.

 

[Superlizard]

Carl Verheyen's trem system works really good - I have it on my 6 holer strat.

Those of you shouldn't knock it until you try it... another rule of thumb with "little guitar tone/tech secrets".

Seriously, try it.  Do it...  Do it.

That's not a "system". It's a claw mounted cock-eyed because he doesn't understand how things work and believes he's making a difference. I don't doubt you get the same results doing the same thing, because it's a pointless and ineffectual setup point.

Who gives a flying f**k what the correct terminology is, the correct way things work or how he's doing it - it works.

I pull up or depress the bar, it stays in tune - no bullsh!t.

 

[Cagey]

I pull up or depress the bar, it stays in tune - no bullsh!t.

I believe you. My guitars are the same way. But, unlike Mr. Verheyen, I didn't feel the need to make up some ludicrous reason for it.

 

[Mattias Svensson]

I guess you got to have the right spring tension to get the bridge in the right angle, but if the angle of the springs got so much with re result to do I don't know. If you have it all set up t will work in either way, and why have to know the bridge just will end up in that exact note, you got ears just like when you bend, just stop press the whammybar when you reach the note you want

 

[mayfly]

I pull up or depress the bar, it stays in tune - no bullsh!t.

I believe you. My guitars are the same way. But, unlike Mr. Verheyen, I didn't feel the need to make up some ludicrous reason for it.

So after all that I was curious and I looked at the video.  Now to me the guy's reasoning seemed a bit suspect, but after thinking about it for a bit I think I know the reason why he can get a 1/2 step on the E, a whole step on the B, and 1.5 steps on the G: it is the action height.  With a fender style bridge, increasing the action will move the string point further from the fulcrum point, which will increase the string movement given a certain amount of bar movement.  So once the springs are set and you get a 1/2 step pulling up on the E, all you need to do is  tweak up your action so that you achieve the correct movement for the B and G strings to get those pulls in tune.  Pretty simple actually.

I wonder if he secretly knows this and he's just talking about the claw angle to defect people from the real reason so he can make some bucks doing setups. 

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

When it was initially posted in a Tonar thread, I reasoned that the trem just feels the total tension from the strings and the total from the springs.  They have to equal one another for it to float, so side to side wouldn't matter because the thing doesn't flex.  It's not possible for one side to pull more than the other - it acts as one.  That is why I don't buy it.  The intervals he's getting, I haven't used a trem enough to test those intervals with a trem setup any way, let alone his way and a straight claw way.  I imagine his string gauge of choice plays as much of role as anything.  The gauge differences string to string that different brands use would effect it as much as anything.  A smaller gauge would have to stretch more to go to a higher pitch.  So .008s would not give those same intervals as .011s, or a D'Addario set of .010s might have slightly different gauges for the other strings than Ernie Ball, etc. etc.  But, his demeanor is hard to argue with, as well as he's not selling anyone anything.  That leaves his reasoning, which no one has setup a trem otherwise to get those intervals.  Do that, and this myth is busted.

 

[Cagey]

Mayfly and STDC have got it. The bridge saddles don't move through the same arc on all strings, and the various-gauged strings require different amounts of tension change to move an interval. The springs or claw angle have nothing to do with it.

 

[stubhead]

There's a whole slew of these studio guys out there now who kinda wish they were rock and roll stars, but it paid well enough to stay in LA and provide the guitar on truck & beer ads. Steve Lukather's only epitaph will be that he played on a million records you never heard of but he was the star guitarist from TOTO, which doesn't quite have the ring of, say, Van Halen, the Rolling Stones, Guns 'n' Roses etc. "Rosanna, Rosana, da da da da da...." Yeah dude, you rock. This guys claim to fame is he's the shoo-in guitarist for Supertramp. This isn't him, but it's weird enough to post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BruEmB7_1ok

Why are all those people clapping backwards? Who are all those weird... oh never mind.

 

[Cagey]

Geez. That had to be an expensive show to put on/film/record.

Incidentally, the "backwards clapping" is an artifact of Flash and Youtube. Sound and video are often out of sync, sometimes as much as 250ms by my eye.

 

[hyperion]

There are basically 2 types of people:

1. Those who believe that however things were done 40-60 years ago was the only right way of doing things and any refinements/changes/improvements done since are tone destroying abominations. The fact that many of the design choices from back then were either random choices or made for reasons other than tone (economics, availability, ease of manufacture) escapes them.

2. People who understand that some changes are an improvement and have no effect on tone, other improvements result in slightly different tone (but not necessarily better or worse), and some changes are, gasp, for the better in every way.

The above sentence is totally stupid : consider for example violin design, which hasn't evolved since ages ! It's not that violin design is perfect, it's just that a violin is a violin as long as it is designed like a violin.

So if someone want a real Strat, there are some design details such as the tremolo system that have to be designed like a strat.

Modernizing a design is not bad, it can even sound better, have better sustain and tuning stability : yet it's not an original Stratocaster anymore, and it won't sound in the way a real Strat should sound. This is specific to instruments that have become real standards : the Strat is a standard.

Keyboard players have learned that innovation can be true bullshite in the early eighties with D50 and DX7.

Personally I enjoy to play modern and reliable guitars (with 2 points tremolo), but I prefer the real thing, with the mojo, the buzz, the tuning fighting, etc... like it has to be.

JP

 

[drewfx]

So if someone want a real Strat, there are some design details such as the tremolo system that have to be designed like a strat.

Modernizing a design is not bad, it can even sound better, have better sustain and tuning stability : yet it's not an original Stratocaster anymore, and it won't sound in the way a real Strat should sound. This is specific to instruments that have become real standards : the Strat is a standard.

You are very specifically defining what a "real Strat" is to suit your argument. But the Strat has undergone a myriad of changes over it's long history.

If you want to start a big argument, just ask exactly what qualities are necessary and sufficient for a guitar to be called a "real Strat" and see how much agreement you get.

 

[tfarny]

the shape, the headstock, three strat-type singles, and a strat-type trem. 25.5 scale, that's about it really. A strat is not a violin by a long, long stretch. The only thing I'd argue with Cagey about (except that arguing is just fun) is that things don't just "improve" tone - they change tone, and people either like or don't like the new tone. Saying that the two-point bridge "improves" tone is as silly as saying that the three uncompensated brass saddle tele bridge gives a "bad" tone - it just IS the characteristic tone, and you decide that you like it or you don't.

 

[hyperion]

If you want to start a big argument, just ask exactly what qualities are necessary and sufficient for a guitar to be called a "real Strat" and see how much agreement you get.

Yes, I understand what you mean, and I agree with you... there are many variables, so it's not easy : body wood, fingerboard, etc..

Anyway, woods appart, maybe we can consider that the original design, which was nearly unmodified between 1954 and 1978, could be a way to define what we can call a "real" strat design ...

JP

 

[Mor Paul]

Haha, this may just be the worst place to argue what a real strat is  :laughing7:

Welcome to the forum, though!