Tremolo Arm, Tremolo Arm

Instruments without this device are called hard-tail . The term vibrola is also used by some guitar makers to describe their particular tremolo arm designs. The tremolo arm began as a mechanical device for more easily producing the vibrato effects that blues and jazz guitarists had long produced on arch top guitars by manipulating the tailpiece with their picking hand. However, it has also made many sounds possible that could not be produced by the old technique, such as the 1980s-era shred guitar "dive bombing" effect.

The tailpiece consists of a solid block of metal, mounted behind the tremolo plate and secured to it by three machine screws, and passing right through the guitar body. In a chamber routed into the back of the guitar are up to five (normally three) long coil springs which connect to the back of the tailpiece block, and whose tension balances that of the strings. The tremolo arm also passes through the tremolo plate and tailpiece block, providing direct and rigid connection. Ignoring the bridge adjustments, this mechanism has only two moving parts, one of them the arm itself, the same as the Bigsby. But unlike the Bigsby, the synchronized tremolo moves the bridge as well as the tailpiece, varying both the length and tension of the strings.

Throughout the 1960s, the premium Fender guitars were the Jaguar range, equipped with the floating tremolo . By the early 1970s, it was obvious that most guitarists preferred the cheaper Stratocaster, regardless of price and supposed quality and prestige, and particularly liked its tremolo arm design. The Jaguar and indeed all other Fender guitars using any tremolo design other than the synchronised tremolo were for a time withdrawn, to return to the catalog as classic or retro models in the 1990s.

A larger, heavier and more complex mechanism than the synchronised tremolo, and promoted over it by Fender as their premium tremolo arm mechanism, it never achieved the same popularity, though if properly set up according to Fender's recommendations, it held tune as well or better than the synchronized vibrato unit.

It is the knife plate that is moved when the tremolo arm is operated. Unlike the synchronized tremolo , the bridge is not moved directly by the mechanism, but only by the movement of the strings, and is allowed to tilt to accommodate this movement. This is called a floating bridge.

It features a floating bridge similar to that of the floating tremolo , but the bridge is integral with the tremolo unit, unlike that of the floating tremolo which is mounted separately. The strings are controlled by a tailpiece bar to which the tremolo arm is visibly connected, similar to the Bigsby, and the mechanism is installed from the top of the instrument, similar to the floating tremolo . It combines some features of all three basic designs.

Its tremolo arm and all subsequent designs used the action adopted by Bigsby and Fender. As the Deluxe Gibson Vibrola a short version of it was fitted as standard to the 1967 reissue Gibson Flying V. Two other long tailpiece designs, superficially similar to the Deluxe Gibson Vibrato , are the Lyre Vibrola which was being fitted to Gibson ES-335s as an option by 1964 and is engraved with a lyre motif, and the Maestro Vibrola which was an option on the ES-335 by 1967.

They have almost always been offered as extra cost options on guitars which sold better in non-tremolo versions. As a result, some versions are rare and command high prices from restorers and collectors. Gibson encourages this trend by refusing to sell reissue units as parts, offering them only on complete guitars (a policy similar to most guitar manufacturers). As of 2006 Gibson was continuing to offer Vibrola units as options on many models, but also offered a few Fender-inspired tremolo arms such as the Floyd Rose on some Gibson branded guitars (Nighthawk, M3), and a wider variety through their Kramer and Epiphone brands. Kramer have always fitted Floyd Rose trems as standard and this association continues. See also rivalry between Fender and Gibson.

This was simply known as the Fender vibrato tailpiece , or sometimes the Fender steel vibrato . It was again designed by Leo Fender although he had sold the company by the time it appeared. Basically a synchronized tremolo simplified to reduce cost, it had little popularity, and as of 2005 was the only Leo Fender tremolo arm design not available on any current Fender model.

Rose. The locking trem became highly popular among 1980s heavy metal guitarists due to its extremely wide range of variation and tuning stability.The original Floyd Rose system was similar to the Fender synchronized tremolo , but with a number of extra mechanisms. The first to be added and most obvious is a locking plate on the head nut, tightened with a hex key to fix the strings at this point after tuning. This provides extra tuning stability, particularly during use of the tremolo arm, but as an unwanted side effect it also prevents further adjustment of the pitch using the machine heads.

Source: Wikipedia > Tremolo Arm