what's up gear mortals trey xavier here
today i'm going to show you my favorite
floyd rose tips and tricks today we're
using a floyd rose equipped paul reed
smith dusty wearing signature ce24 tip
number one is about how to tune your
guitar when you have a floyd rose on
there the floyd rose system is all about
balance when you get it set up the tech
has to balance the string tension with
the spring tension of the springs that
are in the back of the floyd rose and so
also when you tune your guitar you have
to keep the tension reasonably balanced
across the fretboard if you try and tune
it like a typical hardtail bridge you're
going to run into some trouble because
if you tune one string at a time going
all the way across
then you've put too much tension on one
side of the bridge and it's going to
pull up a little bit and then these
strings are going to go loose and then
you're going to tighten those and then
these are going to become loose and it's
just a bit of a nightmare it's really
easy to avoid this problem all you have
to do is tune your strings in this order
sixth string first then your first
string then your fifth string then your
second string then your fourth string
and then your third string and that's
going to keep the tension across the
strings
balanced enough that it's not going to
go wildly out of tune as you're tuning
it
otherwise what happens is you wind up
going through and tuning all the strings
and then you go back to the beginning
and the first string that you tuned
isn't in tune anymore and you definitely
want to avoid that here's number two one
of my favorite and possibly the most
common thing that especially metal dudes
will do with the floyd rose is called a
dive bomb and what you do is you either
hit a note or
more likely a natural open string
harmonic and then you depress the bar
all the way down until the note
basically disappears thusly
you can also wiggle the bar on the way
down for a little bit of added stank
number three is the reverse dive bomb
it's exactly what it sounds like it's
the polar opposite of the thing that we
just did so what you're going to do is
push the whammy bar down first and then
hit a harmonic and slowly bring the bar
back up and then put a little stank on
it
you can of course combine the two of
those in any combination you like start
low and then go high and go back down
start high and go low and then up again
whatever you like number four is just a
nice slow vibrato it's something that
you can kind of do with your fingers
except there's one very key difference
and that is anytime you're doing vibrato
with your fingers you can only make the
pitch go up you can't actually make it
go down below the note that you're
fretting but with the whammy bar you can
make it go below the pitch and above it
it's something that i like to do at the
end of a phrase on a sustained note um
just give it a little bit of whoo this
one's for the ladies it's kind of like
vibrato that you would do with your
fingers it's just a little bit more
expressive check it out
[Music]
and you can be as subtle or as
outrageous with it as you want
[Music]
number five is one that i made up it's
called a flutter bomb and all you gotta
do is do a dive bomb and then at the end
you flick the bar
for a nice little flutter check it out
number six is a tip that's going to help
you keep your guitar from being too
noisy as a result of the springs that
are the engine that make the floyd rose
go the springs in the back of the floyd
rose are there to provide a
counterbalance of tension from the
strings on the front of the neck because
otherwise the strings would have no
tension on them and they would just pull
the bridge right out of course the
springs serve a very important function
but because they're made of metal and
they vibrate the sound of them can be
picked up by the pickups even on the
other side of the guitar
i'll demonstrate that for you
[Music]
[Applause]
if you don't have your springs muted
somehow anytime you play a note these
are going to vibrate and there's nothing
that you can do to stop them so what you
do is you take something like for
instance tissue paper like i've got here
and you sort of stuff it between the
springs and the back of the guitar and
that works totally great it's uh it
costs you
as close to nothing as makes any
difference and it's incredibly effective
you'll hear a super night and day
difference when you're playing with and
without the muting
it can stop feedback and all kinds of
other problems that you might be having
so if you've got a noisy guitar that
could be why the best part about it is
that it takes you literally two minutes
per guitar to do it and then you just
leave it in there effectively forever
and it's set it and forget it and it's
gonna clean up your signal so much
number seven is my very favorite thing
to do with the floyd rose ever it's the
most fun uh the coolest sounding and the
easiest to do it's called a flutter all
you're gonna do to make the whammy bar
flutter is to hit a note and then you're
going to kind of flick it in the
direction that the bar is already going
so you kind of just flick off the end of
it
you can actually kind of whack it pretty
good and hard to get a whole lot of
vibration out of it like this
[Applause]
[Music]