cain
Hi guys
As some of you know, i was off playing guitar for a pretty long time ( bout 7 months ) as i had no amp, time and all that other stuff. Now that im back and working hard on it and trying to record i found something strange. my bending to pitch sucks. I thought this was a general problem that i just needed to work on, but yesterday i had a jam on my fender strat instead of my RGT prestige and played the recording back. My bending was actually fine, cept on the E String cos the 11's on the fender kills my hands. Now all i can place this to is, is the floating bridge on the Ibby. I need to find out the reason for this, will i for one get used to it? is it a setup problem? am i being a noob? and if its something i have to work on, how do i go about doing it?
Thanks for the help in advance, its driving me crazy!
Spyke
Practice makes perfect. For assisting with your bends on the E double up your fingers, ie: use two fingers to bend the string where possible. I found this helped me with some of my bends, it gave me more control of the bend.
DonovanB
Francis Viviers wrote
Now all i can place this to is, is the floating bridge on the Ibby. I need to find out the reason for this, will i for one get used to it? is it a setup problem? am i being a noob? and if its something i have to work on, how do i go about doing it?
I've heard of that. Which bridge is it?
Try this, fret note and play an open string, then bend the fretted note, without playing it, and see if the open string pitch changes. If it does then it would be your bridge.
I'm pretty sure you could get round it though.
cain
Spyke, its more like i can bend properly, it just goes wrong on the ibby ?
Dono, Its an Edge Pro bridge, ill go try that at home tonight!
pietersaayman
A great exercise for bending is to plug your guitar into a tuner and being precise in bending up a full tone. This will train your ears and fingers. Then all you have to do is play till your fingers bleed...
DonovanB
I've got the LO-TRS on my Ibanez. It has received really rubbish reviews but being my first Floyd Rose I find it ok. After a good dive you just need to pull it back up again to get in tune...
The Edge is really sweet. Ibanez have made some great improvements to their bridges.
cain
Had a quick word with arjun, its a setup problem. Its supposedly has something to do with how your strings are arranged. I can see the bridge slightly lifting when i bend so its goes a bit flat immediately. I need to adjust this, but man i HATE working with these bridges. My old ibanez i sold to norio was almost thrown against the wall last time i had too >☹
AlanRatcliffe
Bending on a Floyd or any other floating bridge is a bit different from a hardtail or non-floating trem. You have to bend further to compensate for the bridge pulling forward. If you are doing a doublestep and bending one note to the pitch of the other, they will always be flat when in unison with each other. Try it - play a note on one string then bend a note on another string (you don't have to play the note, just bend the string) and you will hear the pitch of the first note drop.
There is no setup "trick" to get around this - it's the nature of the beast. You can stiffen up the action on a Floyd and stabilise it a bit, but that affects the springyness that most people use a Floyd for. Unfortunately, if it's a big problem for you, then you shouldn't be playing a guitar with a FR. A Hipshot Trem Setter can stabilise things for you a bit, but it gives you the feel of a "notch" at the zero position that most guys don't like.
Learning to change from a hardtail guitar to a FR one and back again is like anything else, just practice. Using a tuner as Pieter suggested is one way to do it. I used to record a phrase using two fretted notes instead of the bend (start and finish notes of the bend), loop it and play along with it, practising getting the bent note in perfect unison with the fretted note (recording a phrase is also the only way to practice getting pitch right on a fretless guitar - you record the phrase on a fretted guitar first then play along with it, working to get the notes in tune).
cain
Ill go have a look tonight, it was never this bad on my old Ibanez ( the one norio has ). I checked some stuff online and my setup is also a bit wonky ...
cain
After the whole day of research, i get mixed responses on this subject. Ill go try bending further and harder tonight and see how it goes. Thanks guys
arjunmenon
Just to clarify what i spoke to Franky about...
What i said was that the tension created by strings at standard pitch needs to be equally offset by the tension created by the springs for the bridge to stay at dead (or close to) neutral.
True that it is the nature of the beast, especially when you're off doing double stop bends, playing bent and open/proper fretted notes etc.
However, i believe (based on the stuff detailed by the guy who detailed tech info & setup info on Jemsite and from having played only FR equipped guitars for close to 9 years) that, although a good setup will not eliminate the problem 100%, it can bring you very close to getting it right.
Also, i find it very unlikely that guys like Satch, Vai, Petrucci (when he was using Ibbies), and a lot of the guys who use FR equipped guitars are in some way overbending to compensate for something of this nature.
Gearhead
If you really struggle I suggest tightening the spring claw retainer screw until the bridge is no longer floating. If you remember the number of turns you can get back to the old, balanced setting. You will obviously need to retune, but this will only make the bridge seat more. Bending a single string will not cause the bridge to lift and none of the detuning will happen.
Now: do you get those perfect bends?
AlanRatcliffe
Arjun Menon wrote
What i said was that the tension created by strings at standard pitch needs to be equally offset by the tension created by the springs for the bridge to stay at dead (or close to) neutral.
Very true. Unfortunately any change in tension changes the balance and the bridge pulls forward. Bending a string changes the tension. So you end up having to bend a note further to get it to the right pitch. Not a train smash once you are used to it as the bends are softer for the same reason - you just have to bend further to get the same note.
Heavier/more springs set with the claw further out give the bridge some extra stability, but you lose some of the floppiness of the trems action and things like flutter are also affected, so it's always a bit of a compromise.
Gearhead wrote
I suggest tightening the spring claw retainer screw until the bridge is no longer floating.
Difficult on the IBZ as the bridge is deeply recessed, the action also goes a bit lower with the bridge pulled down and the intonation goes out.
Guys wanting the ability to hardtail a Floyd (for drop tunings or whatever other reason) usually end up going with the Tremol-no, which quickly locks the bridge in place at zero.
cain
Alan, problem is now solved .... When i started playing guitar i never liked old strings as they sounded funny to me. This time round, it really didn't sound bad, but since i figured to play around with the bridge a bit, the best thing to do it to put brand spanking new springs on. Well, i put them on and tuned everything to perfection. The oddity of the whole story is that, i tried some bends, recorded a solo etc and no problem, cept on the high e-string but that's more my technique on my guitars setup ( if it moved a little down it would buzz ), which is my preference. But that's no train smash.
I just want to know how the old and bit rusty strings could affect bending only ☹
DonovanB
approximately how old were those strings?
cain
Bout 4 weeks .... But i must say, it was raining allot in jozi so lots of humidity, i have sweaty hands and i dont put the guitar in a case after i play.
AlanRatcliffe
Glad you sorted it out. I also assumed your strings were OK - and I should really know better.
cain
I thought they where, there are reasons why i like elixers ☹
