My trem equipped guitars get a lot more play than my LP or tele.

I would say you’re not going to get close to Van Halen territory with a squire generally, especially one that hasn’t had a ton of attention paid to the nut, but my S type with a Gotoh 510 and Jazzmaster with the stock Fender system and a Graphtech XL nut and a Mastery bridge both stay in tune no matter how much shoegazing I do. Not VH dive bombs sure, but I’m not precious about it by any means.

I think if you’re looking for crazy dive bombs you’re going to be disappointed by most non locking systems, but for real just try some subtle warbling now and then, it’s fun.

I would go for a hard tail so you have both. The hardtail will give you options for changing tuning faster. If you regret it later you can install a Bigsby style. And if you love it you there are products to block the floating bridge later too.

I have a Floyd and absolutely love it, but it has pros and cons.

Cons:

Massive hassle to change setup; tuning changes or string guage changes are non-trivial. Once you get familiar with how it works it’s not too hard, but there’s a learning curve and it’s time consuming.

Changing strings is a hassle. You need wire cutters and Allen wrenches. If you stick with the same string guage it’s not too bad, but it’s definitely more work than a standard guitar.

Bridge itself is sensitive to touch. If you rest your hand on the bridge, it’ll throw the guitar out of tune.

Pros:

Dive bombs. Warbly weirdness. Wiggle sticks are great.

Insane tuning stability. This one reason is why I love the Floyd so much… it front loads all the hassle of tuning to the setup. When I pick up the guitar, it’s at most a pip or so off perfect, a quick tweak of the fine-tuners and I’m good to go for the night. I almost never have to re-tune while playing.

Floyds are pretty divisive, so weigh the benefits and drawbacks before you get one.

I used to have a tremelo and I hated fighting it to stay in tune. My current guitar has a hard tail and I’ve never been happier. There are a few songs that I miss having it, but it’s just not worth it.

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A tremolo can give a lot of versatility. Or you might never use it. It depends on your play and what you like.

Both of my electrics have tremolo bridges. I’m definitely in the market for a stop tail, though. Just for different stuff.

I have twontrem equipped guitars: a PRS SE Custom 24 and a Vintage V6. Both stay in tune when I use the trem, the Vintage especially so. Having well lubed nuts and bridges really helps.

Squire without a tremolo is like a tuxedo without pants. There is some really good information out there on how to keep your Strat in tune, even with heavy dive bombing on the tone arm. Such as: https://myguitarlair.com/stratocaster-tremolo-setup/

Thanks for all the answers! I have tried to reply to a few but been unable to over several days. I’ll keep trying.

I love my trem…when I use it. I’m trying to incorporate it more now with just some subtle movement.

I have a Floyd rose too, but I don’t ever dive bomb, the guitar was a hand me down. I could see it being a hassle, but I just play in e standard, and I’m no shredder. I don’t really play this guitar at all.

Maybe you need to get it set up to fix the issues, I dunno, IANALuthier.

I agree you should maybe get a different style than you already have, unless you really love it and wanna upgrade.

If you invest in a good quality trem and take the time to set it up properly, it should be pretty stable. I use mine sparingly but I’m glad to have it and it’s problem free for me.

My other advice if you don’t find yourself using your trem very much is to take some time to experiment with it and try to learn how to seamlessly integrate it into your playing.

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.

Jeff Beck

I’m late to the party, but my views on the subject tend to differ from most people so I’ll offer them.

The way I see it, a tremolo system can easily become a hardtail, but a hardtail can not easily become a tremolo system. You can install something like a Dusenberg system or a Bigsby on a guitar with a stop bar, but then you’re just getting that little bit of warble instead of the range of a good floating tremolo system.

You own a guitar with a trem, but if it’s just the 6-screw Squier trem, it’s more like a knock your guitar out of tune device than a functional tremolo system. Certainly you can do a lot to help it, but it’s really never going to perform as well as a proper 2-point floating trem.

I used to largely be a hardtail guy, but always ran into the problem that, when I do want a trem on occasion, my dedicated tremolo-equipped guitar hasn’t been maintained in a while, the trem may not be performing as well as it should, the strings may be old and corroded, the setup may be out of whack, so then I just wouldn’t use it when I wanted to because I didn’t want to go through the process of a setup just for that. That, and that trem guitar always had different pickups, so I’m tweaking stuff to try to get the sound similar to what I’m used to.

Nowadays I don’t own any hardtails. Everything has a 2-point floating trem. My main guitar is equipped with a Gotoh 510 and a Tremol-no, it can transition from a hardtail to a fully floating trem in a moment. Don’t have to worry about difficulties with alternate tunings and double stops. Don’t have to worry about a string snapping and throwing the entire system out of tune. Because it stays blocked about 90% of the time, but when I do have a need for a trem, it’s right there. I can turn two thumbscrews on the Tremol-no, and it’s back to floating. The trem is always in perfect working order, I don’t have to worry about the setup being off or inconsistencies in tone, and I don’t even have to swap guitars. Rock solid trem system when I want it, rock solid hardtail when I don’t.

Certainly get whatever you feel is right for you, but I’d encourage anybody to explore a similar setup if they are undecided or only need a trem a small portion of the time. Or even if they don’t think they’ll ever need a trem tbh, because people change their minds constantly.

Hardtail advantages:

• quick access to alternate tunings
• easier string gauge experimentation
• usually better tuning stability (unless comparing to double locking)
• marginally faster string changes

Trem advantages:

• A plethora of wild effects
• Much more authentic covers of other trem players (surf, hard rock, metal, fusion)
• tuning stability with premium double locking terms