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?

  • @[email protected]
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    11 year ago

    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.

    • @CrispsOP
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      11 year ago

      I never considered the palm muting aspect.