this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
30 points (100.0% liked)

guitars

3908 readers
2 users here now

Welcome to /c/guitars! Let's show off our new guitar pics, ask questions about playing, theory, luthier-ship, and more!

Please bring all positive vibes to the community and leave the toxic stuff elsewhere.

Banner credit

Rules:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
ArtVandelay
30
Tremolo or hardtail? (self.guitars)
submitted 2 years ago by Crisps to c/guitars
28 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

I’m considering a second guitar and thinking of going for a hardtail. I have a squire with a tremolo currently, but never use it because it goes out of tune, and honestly in a few years of playing haven’t come across anything I’ve tried to play that requires it. I haven’t seen one used in a single tutorial video.

If you aren’t playing Van Halen, do they ever really get much use?

I would buy a decent Floyd Rose, but don’t know if the tuning would be a hassle. Or if I went hardtail would I regret it later?

Other than some rock, where are these really used?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Guitars aren't complicated machines, and there's no special reason that a Squier shouldn't stay reasonably in tune, as long as it's set up properly. However, factory-produced guitars almost never come properly set up or with a well cut nut. The nut in particular is important to tuning stability, especially when using a vibrato system.

There's a lot of difference between Bigsby, strat, Floyd Rose, and Jazzmaster systems, but none of them is indispensable. Many people go their whole lives without ever owning a guitar with a "tremelo"/vibrato.

There are some techniques you can't implement without one. On the other hand, on a hard tail you can do other things like bending one string in a double stop and not have the other go out of tune. If you break a string you can keep playing until the end of the song without being completely out of tune. You'll probably find that you have longer sustain. Palm muting is easier.

tl;dr go ahead and buy a hard tail, you won't regret it.

[–] Crisps 1 points 2 years ago

I never considered the palm muting aspect.