well hello friends and welcome to ask
1:26
Zack hope you're doing well today today
1:28
we're going to talk about at tremolos
1:31
and we're going to drill down on what I
1:34
think are really the only two options
1:36
most guys will give you three options on
1:38
a strat tremolo they say you know you
1:40
float it deck it or uh or block it I
1:45
really think there's only two options
1:47
basically whether you uh you float it
1:51
and then I'm going to give you some uh
1:54
some little pointers on uh you know
1:57
helping you stay in tune when you're
1:58
floating
2:00
and to me the only other real option is
2:03
to completely deck it and not use the
2:05
tremolo arm which I don't think you
2:07
really need toh go all in and have a
2:10
block of wood stuck in there but I'm
2:13
going to talk about why on those and
2:16
again I'm going to give you some
2:17
pointers we're also going to return
2:20
we're going to have the triumphant
2:22
return of the booknook segment which you
2:24
haven't done in a while so we're going
2:25
to talk about Adam Levy's uh string
2:28
theories book of course it was also with
2:31
Ethan Sherman helped along with
2:33
that and also I'm going to talk about an
2:36
album that was uh influential to me and
2:40
that's by uh Paul Johnson and the
2:43
Packards guitar Heaven probably haven't
2:45
heard of this one this is kind of a uh
2:47
rare album but some of you if you're
2:49
into surf music you might know who Paul
2:51
J Johnson is because of uh Mr Moto and
2:55
the bell airs so that's what we're
2:57
goingon to do
2:58
today first off
3:00
I need to thank my patreon supporters
3:02
because they're what keeps the show
3:04
going if you'd like to find out more
3:07
there are links in the description all
3:09
right let's dive in as always I'm going
3:13
to give a little bit of background but
3:14
I'm going to keep it short uh my first
3:17
Strat was a Japanese made Squire that
3:20
had a locking tremolo that had fine
3:24
tuners and it had a locking mechanism
3:28
behind the nut and had a terrible time
3:31
with that and I uh I had Bob Clawson of
3:35
clawson's Music blocket where he
3:38
actually did take a uh a block of wood
3:42
and put it back here in between the body
3:45
and the spring so on this side and then
3:49
he removed the uh the locking mechanism
3:53
that was here and you couldn't just deck
3:56
it because it was not designed to do so
3:59
it had just two pivot
4:01
Points and if you tried to pull it back
4:03
it would actually pull away from the
4:05
pivot so we had to block it so I had a
4:08
bunch of uh bad experiences with
4:10
stratocasters and trying to get the
4:12
tremolo and again we're going to call it
4:13
a tremolo even though it's a vbr we're
4:16
going to stick with uh Fender's uh
4:19
misnomer there I just had a bunch of
4:22
really bad luck and it wasn't until I
4:26
started getting some good insight from
4:29
other players and reading books like
4:33
some of Dan Erin's setup books like make
4:36
this electric guitar play great some
4:38
other things that I started
4:40
learning some tricks for getting things
4:44
to stay in tune and through all of my
4:48
experimentation with strats I came to
4:50
the conclusion that for me there's
4:52
really only two options and that's
4:55
either you take the arm off put it
4:59
against the body and tighten these
5:03
Springs enough to where when you bend
5:07
strings the other doesn't go out of tune
5:10
and the way you check for that is you
5:11
just have your tuner on and you bend
5:15
other strings while it like you know you
5:17
bend like the low E string while you are
5:20
checking the high E string and that'll
5:23
tell you
5:24
uh real quick uh what's going on and
5:28
basically you just keep tighten it down
5:30
and of course the advantage of doing
5:32
that is you can still do all of your you
5:35
know all your bends where you're bending
5:38
one string against another string uh any
5:42
type of steel guitar Bend or anything
5:44
like that all those things work and
5:47
that's certainly a viable way of doing
5:49
things that's the way Eric Clapton and
5:53
uh Mark knofler and even uh Nashville's
5:57
great strp player of the 19 1980s Reggie
6:00
young used a uh decked Strat on all
6:05
sorts of hits uh for Merl Haggard like I
6:08
think I'll just stay here and drink
6:10
George Straits the fireman and the chair
6:13
and even uh Rose in Paradise for wh and
6:16
Jennings that was all Reggie playing a
6:17
57 Strat and it was decked and he was
6:21
using you know light gauge strings
6:22
probably N9 or nine and a
6:24
halfs and uh yeah and there's nothing
6:29
wrong with that however you have this
6:33
great mechanism on here and if you use
6:35
it how it was designed which was it was
6:38
designed to float if you look at any of
6:41
the drawings the patent drawings or
6:44
anything you can see that Leo wanted it
6:48
to float so if you just go with it and
6:53
decide I'm going to make this a
6:55
different instrument I'm not going to
6:56
try to make this thing be a Telecaster
6:58
or or whatever else I think it's very
7:03
freeing and it makes you play
7:04
differently so with a floating tremolo
7:08
it's going to make me play differently I
7:10
can't play all the same stuff uh which
7:13
is a good thing it's good to be inspired
7:16
by that and to be challenged by that and
7:18
so I can't do those type of bends so
7:21
then I have to like Bend one string
7:23
release it and then hit the other string
7:25
otherwise it's going to be out of tune
7:27
now there are some little fun tricks
7:29
that you can do
7:30
like one thing I like to do is uh like
7:35
this kind of steel guitar inding lick
7:38
you know
7:39
[Music]
7:42
the it just went out of tune of course
7:44
as I bent that g string up everything
7:46
went flat so but what you can do if it's
7:50
floating and you got your old tremolo
7:52
arm nearby well you can do
7:56
[Music]
7:58
this and frankly it makes it sound more
8:00
like a steel guitar so there are you
8:03
know lots of fun things you can do with
8:05
that and uh and then again just having
8:08
the challenge
8:10
of you of it being floating and it
8:13
making you play differently now let's
8:14
get into some things that really help it
8:17
stay in
8:18
tune uh first off just overall to me
8:22
floating stays in tune better because
8:25
you have the strings working against the
8:29
Springs and so they tend to find a
8:31
better equilibrium say than the strings
8:35
fighting against the body and the
8:37
Springs pulling toward the body to me it
8:40
just doesn't have a good chance of
8:42
staying in tune if you're able to get
8:44
that to work good on you I think that's
8:47
fantastic the other thing uh when you're
8:51
when you're floating the
8:52
tremolo the friction points become oh so
8:56
amazingly important so the nut really
8:59
needs to be well cut and on top of that
9:02
you might need to use some type of lube
9:05
and that could be anything from pencil
9:08
lead that you just kind of grind up you
9:11
know you can just take your pencil and
9:13
hit it against a piece of paper you know
9:15
you can just keep across the paper a
9:17
bunch and you can end up with some
9:18
pencil lead that's you know ground up
9:21
and you can put it in there uh you can
9:23
also mix that up with some Vaseline and
9:25
you can put it in there and try not to
9:27
make a big old mess cser's also
9:28
manufactur that make all sorts of
9:31
different things some under the
9:32
wonderful name like nut sauce uh yeah so
9:35
you can put that in there I would be go
9:37
sparingly on it because you you don't
9:39
want to just have like a bunch of crud
9:42
that's all over the
9:43
place uh you also sometimes you'll need
9:46
to make sure that the string retainer
9:49
here does not have any Burrs on it and
9:52
it's not catching there and sometimes
9:54
I've had to uh have the string retainer
9:57
worked on and buffed and and sometimes
9:59
I've even put some uh some type of Lube
10:02
in there
10:03
also another thing that happens another
10:07
enemy of staying in tune with a floating
10:09
tremolo is break angle and so this has a
10:13
big old neck on it so this has quite a
10:15
bit of break angle and so what Nick
10:18
drussell showed me to do is the low E
10:23
and the low a are actually strung where
10:26
the windings go up instead of down and
10:29
what this does is it changes the brake
10:31
angle here and makes it less severe and
10:33
it helps these strings to stay in tune
10:36
better now he did another modification
10:40
but I just couldn't go with it and
10:41
that's where he put a spacer underneath
10:44
here and but it made it stick up a lot
10:47
higher and of course what that did was
10:50
it changed the brake angle here and made
10:52
it less severe well the problem was it
10:56
made it look like Cloud City now if
10:58
you're not familiar familar with Star
11:00
Wars this is what cloud city looks like
11:02
and so it looked like cloud city was
11:05
here on the on the headstock of my uh
11:08
old Strat so I decided against it even
11:11
though it was probably even though it
11:13
was the better way to go but uh yeah you
11:17
just end up really needing to make sure
11:19
that these slots are well cut and
11:22
everything is
11:24
clean another to me another major factor
11:28
in keeping a floating tremolo in
11:31
tune is string gauge I have tried over
11:36
and over and over again to use light
11:38
gauge strings and they just don't work
11:40
for me if you can get it to work
11:42
fantastic and show me what you've done
11:45
but the only way I can get the strings
11:47
and Springs to be working together well
11:50
is to use a minimum of a 10 gauge so 10
11:54
through 46 now I'm just going to tell
11:57
you right now that is not not my string
11:59
gauge of choice I like the step below
12:02
that I like the 9 and2 through uh 44 by
12:05
Daario that's my favorite set the nyxl
12:08
that's on all my telecasters that's what
12:10
I use all the time however on a strat uh
12:15
and I think this is a good thing because
12:16
this is something that also helps me you
12:18
know play a little different uh on a
12:20
little bit heavier strings and but it
12:24
just really helps them work together so
12:27
by having minimum tends and then by you
12:31
know having the five Springs I think
12:33
they they tend to come back to an
12:35
equilibrium a lot better and as much as
12:38
I would like for it to work with n and a
12:40
halfs or nines so that's a another
12:44
really really really important factor
12:48
and it's okay for it to make you play
12:52
differently that's that should be a
12:54
strength I shouldn't be trying to make
12:56
this guitar be just like a telecast
12:59
which you know I have a bunch of
13:00
telecasters so let this you know 50 strp
13:04
be what it is and yeah make it make you
13:07
play differently that's a good thing and
13:10
you know what if I really you know get
13:13
into a situation where I really need to
13:14
use this in the same way that IID use a
13:16
Telly well guess what I can come right
13:19
back here I can tighten these down you
13:22
know with a Philips head screwdriver and
13:24
you know of course retune it and all of
13:27
a sudden you know I can do all those
13:30
crazy you know double string bins and it
13:32
will stay in tune so those are kind of
13:36
my uh my my pointers on this and uh yeah
13:41
I think the uh yeah used 10s and I use
13:45
the
13:46
nyxl
13:47
darios uh and then uh use these raw
13:50
vintage Springs I think they make all
13:52
the difference in the world I don't have
13:55
an endorsement with the
13:57
Exotic uh
13:59
but I think the this is an inexpensive
14:01
change that really makes a big
14:03
difference in the feel of the tremolo it
14:06
really uh it just adds uh a smoothness
14:11
when you use the tremolo that's not
14:13
there with the really high tension
14:15
Springs and so these are real low
14:17
tension Springs which is why you have to
14:19
use five of them even with a set of
14:21
tens and uh I think it uh it also if you
14:26
think of this as a Reverb chamber which
14:28
kind of
14:30
[Music]
14:31
is more Springs are nice and so instead
14:34
of using three you get to use five and
14:37
uh these just so you know these Springs
14:40
I kind of aged them some with some
14:41
etching solution so that it would match
14:43
with the rest of the guitar so it
14:44
wouldn't be you know these crazy shiny
14:47
springs on the back but uh yeah they
14:49
don't come that way so yeah so I like to
14:54
use 10 use the raw vintage Springs float
14:58
it and I don't do a severe float I mean
15:01
if you uh if you look here you can see
15:04
that it's just barely above the body and
15:07
so of course if I popped a string it
15:10
would all go out of tune but I could
15:13
kind of get it back in and frankly I
15:15
would hopefully have another guitar with
15:16
me I'd switch to that and then I would
15:18
just rering the one string that broke
15:21
and I'd get it back up and going so
15:24
there are a lot of proponents of a much
15:26
more severe float
15:29
I am not uh I mean I don't think it's
15:31
wrong but I just I like having just a
15:34
slight float because I don't want to do
15:36
you know crazy up bends but I do want to
15:38
have some up action because to me it
15:42
doesn't really feel right unless it can
15:44
go both up and down in Pitch that's
15:46
another thing about where having the
15:48
tremolo where it has a nice kind of
15:50
dreamy sound to it I think you really
15:53
have to float it and I tried to
15:56
exemplify that in the opening tune that
15:58
I did did Little tune that I wrote just
16:01
to use some tremolo bar and get a little
16:04
uh a little surfy twangy and such so
16:09
yeah look at look at your brake angle
16:12
here see if maybe it would behoove you
16:14
to uh wind up instead of down especially
16:17
on these two low strings make sure you
16:19
don't have any friction points you know
16:21
that are you have problems here at the
16:24
either the string tree or the nut and of
16:26
course you could have Burrs here make
16:28
sure this is all smooth and uh yeah you
16:31
should be on the road to
16:34
happiness uh yeah let's uh I'm going to
16:38
do a quick kind of album thing before I
16:42
go into the uh into the booknook segment
16:46
uh I want to talk about Paul Johnson and
16:47
the Packards guitar Heaven I uh in a
16:52
nutshell I grew up in a pretty
16:54
conservative uh and you know religious
16:57
family and I wasn't really allowed to
16:59
listen to a lot of uh contemporary music
17:04
and so I was kind of uh uh in a position
17:07
of only being able to listen to uh
17:09
gospel music Christian music and then my
17:13
parents would let me listen to a little
17:14
bit of instrumental music so I could
17:16
listen to The Ventures or ched Atkins
17:19
and Les Paul some other things like that
17:22
and uh somehow in there I also got to
17:24
listen to early Beatles like pr66
17:27
Beatles when it was you know I want to
17:28
hold your hand and stuff like that and
17:32
in a number of conversations I've had
17:34
with some different players that I've
17:36
interviewed they've all said something
17:38
to the same point of what you hear when
17:41
you're 13 14 years old really have a
17:44
huge impact on what you think is good
17:47
guitar tone and I have to come back over
17:51
and over again that uh those early
17:54
Beetle records and the uh the ventures
17:58
are just a huge influence on me along
18:00
with those would be this album and uh
18:04
this was uh Paul Johnson who was a
18:06
member of the B airs and had a hit with
18:09
uh Mr Moto in
18:10
1962 later on made a instrumental album
18:14
for a gospel record label called
18:17
Frontline and so one one day when I was
18:20
in the gospel you know in the Christian
18:23
Bookstore in Corpus Christie Texas I
18:25
think it was called the love note uh I
18:28
saw this album and it just blew my mind
18:30
because here what what is this it says
18:32
guitar Heaven it has a big red Strater
18:35
on the front and on the back it had this
18:37
bald Bes speckled guy with a a 60s Strat
18:41
and he had a wide panel Tweed Fender and
18:43
here these other guys with Fender
18:45
guitars and drummer with a strange hat
18:48
on and uh and a note and a liner note by
18:52
Dan Fort who was at the time an editor
18:54
at Guitar Player
18:56
magazine I uh I picked it up and this
18:59
album was hugely influential in what
19:03
instrumentals should sound like and in
19:05
what guitars should sound like and this
19:07
is all old strats or Tokai and you know
19:11
Fender amps and it's uh it's great tones
19:13
and you can find this on Spotify or
19:15
apple music and it's a it's a fun listen
19:18
so highly recommend uh checking out Paul
19:21
Johnson and the Packards guitar heaven
19:25
now for our Book Nook segment which is
19:27
back after a hiatus
19:29
string theories by Adam Levy and Ethan
19:33
Sherman so this book is based
19:36
on the uh wonderful YouTube series that
19:40
Adam has called guitar tips and what
19:43
this is is a condensed little segments
19:48
to inspire you and to get you out of
19:51
your ruts so I highly recommend that you
19:53
pick this book up because this is
19:55
wonderful for helping you in that those
19:58
are are is cuz I'm really bad about it
20:00
where I will I will be good about
20:02
learning songs and things like that when
20:04
I have a gig and then I'll get into this
20:06
lazy thing where I play the same thing
20:08
over and over again when I pick up a
20:10
guitar and so what this book has is has
20:13
a bunch of little simple exercises and
20:15
none of them are you know going to make
20:17
you put your fingers into a pretzel or
20:20
anything like that they're just going to
20:22
challenge you in a way that makes you
20:24
think and it even talks about things
20:27
like
20:28
memorizing songs instead of being
20:30
dependent on uh on charts or uh you know
20:34
or not looking at the guitar just just a
20:37
lot of little exercises or playing a uh
20:41
you know one of the early little
20:43
segments talks about playing Blues where
20:45
you only play two notes at a time and
20:48
you only change those per bar and so
20:53
those you know really limit things and
20:55
make you really think about your choices
20:57
so highly recommend this book and I'll
21:00
put a link to uh Amazon or uh you know
21:05
where where you can pick this up I
21:06
highly recommend that you pick up string
21:08
string theories all right guys well I
21:11
hope you've enjoyed today's episode
21:14
talking about Strat tremolos and uh hope
21:18
you uh get it figured out get it all
21:21
balanced out and uh find
21:24
equilibrium all right guys we'll see you
21:26
next time bye-bye