Ibanez Destroyer DT520 Black:

Good suggestions....I think my biggest concern is having to alter my playing style, which involves lots of heavy palm muting and double stop bends....
 
Palm muting doesn't require pressure. Using a floating trem might be good training to get more precise with it. Your palm only needs to touch the strings, rather than press down on them. But with the tremol-no with it set to down only this is not so much of an issue anyway. EVH used to have his Floyds mounted flat so they couldn't go up
 
Got up early thinking about this. Its so difficult for me to find all the features I like in a production guitar....but based on what I have learned from my struggle witg my Gibson SG and Les Paul, I can put together a picture of my ideal guitar:

Six keys in a row with straight pull through the nut.

10 degree headstock tilt so no string trees are needed.

24.7" scale length 12" radius

21mm thick at first fret

24.5mm thick at 12th fret

1.695" nut width

2.250" neck width at heel

Dunlop 6230 fretwire leveled to .027"

Aluminum Tailpiece

TOM bridge brass construction

Full EMI shielding

Bridge passive humbucker of 15-16k ala Suhr Doug Aldrich q

3 pickups like the old Black Beauties

Highly polished black finish

Body and neck fully bound

All high quality gold hardware

Abalone paralleogram inlay

Vintage PIO tone capacitors .033uf bridge .015uf neck

Something that rests comfortably on the leg while seated

Something that has a unique appearance

The Destroyer has some, but not all if these features. No production guitar I know of has all of these.

So, it makes sense then to simply build one from scratch.

Alex the Luthier told me the Ibanez Destroyer II blueprints are easy to obtain and the guitar could be built over roughly 30 days.

This may be the only way to get all the features I want on one guitar and simultaneously reclaim my 1984 Ibanez DT555 that wzs stolen from me in 1988.
 
Dave Sloven said:
Palm muting doesn't require pressure. Using a floating trem might be good training to get more precise with it. Your palm only needs to touch the strings, rather than press down on them. But with the tremol-no with it set to down only this is not so much of an issue anyway. EVH used to have his Floyds mounted flat so they couldn't go up
Click to expand...

I just remember driving all my palm muted notes sharp with my heavy handed style...
 
A little palm pressure applied to the trem while bending can work to stop the trem floating upwards. Takes a little practise to get it just so, but no harder than learning any other technique on a guitar. Or spring the trem hard. Makes the trem need a lot more applied pressure to dive, but resists the upward float when bending better. Cheers
 
ivan H said:
A little palm pressure applied to the trem while bending can work to stop the trem floating upwards. Takes a little practise to get it just so, but no harder than learning any other technique on a guitar. Or spring the trem hard. Makes the trem need a lot more applied pressure to dive, but resists the upward float when bending better. Cheers
Click to expand...

Man, my brain isn't that fast anymore!!!!! LOL!!!!
 
A Kahler is still a better idea for you, if you still want a trem. It requires much less routing than a Floyd Rose.

It has less range than a Floyd Rose tremolo, but it will be less affected by your playing style, which you say is heavy-handed.

The stop tail is the most robust, though.
 
V_1 said:
A Kahler is still a better idea for you, if you still want a trem. It requires much less routing than a Floyd Rose.

It has less range than a Floyd Rose tremolo, but it will be less affected by your playing style, which you say is heavy-handed.

The stop tail is the most robust, though.
Click to expand...

Hardtail (stopbar and tune - o - matic) is still on the table...
 
eSGEe said:
why do the other strings go flat?????

Do the other strings go flat on ALL tremelo equipped guitars when bending a given string?

NOT being a dick---just trying to learn......
Click to expand...

It only happens if you apply enough pressure to overcome the spring tension on the strings. Floating tremolos are balanced in a way that makes it easy to do because spring, and string tension are matched. So when you bend a string, you increase the load on the springs, and the others go flat. "Decking" a strat tremolo, for example can make it near impossible to overcome the spring tension. My Stetsbar guitars have an adjustment for spring tension, and an adjustable stop point for upward travel of the trem...that makes it easy to "deck" them so that I can drop tune without all the other strings going sharp.


Robert Herndon said:
Yes.

The Floyd "floats" so the tension of the spring balanced the tension of the springs.

If you bend any string, the others go flat...if you break a string...the others go flat...
Click to expand...

Just for clarity.
If you break a string on a floating tremolo equipped guitar, the five remaining strings will be pulled "sharp" by the spring tension that is balanced against the force of six strings.
For instance, if you open the lock at the nut, and drop tune the low E string to D, you will find that the A through high E will have gone sharp to make up for the tension given away by the now "low D" string.

That's the biggest reason that I will not be likely to go back to a floating trem for live performance use again. I drop tune on the fly often enough to despise the inconvenience of effectively having to change guitars from this song to that.
:cheers:
 
Thatbastarddon said:
It only happens if you apply enough pressure to overcome the spring tension on the strings. Floating tremolos are balanced in a way that makes it easy to do because spring, and string tension are matched. So when you bend a string, you increase the load on the springs, and the others go flat. "Decking" a strat tremolo, for example can make it near impossible to overcome the spring tension. My Stetsbar guitars have an adjustment for spring tension, and an adjustable stop point for upward travel of the trem...that makes it easy to "deck" them so that I can drop tune without all the other strings going sharp.




Just for clarity.
If you break a string on a floating tremolo equipped guitar, the five remaining strings will be pulled "sharp" by the spring tension that is balanced against the force of six strings.
For instance, if you open the lock at the nut, and drop tune the low E string to D, you will find that the A through high E will have gone sharp to make up for the tension given away by the now "low D" string.

That's the biggest reason that I will not be likely to go back to a floating trem for live performance use again. I drop tune on the fly often enough to despise the inconvenience of effectively having to change guitars from this song to that.
:cheers:
Click to expand...

Yes! Sharp! Not flat...good catch.

Good points, too, Don. I am really torn. I love the ruggedness of a fixed bridge, but some songs require tremolo, or at least you have the option.

I've had some bad tremolo experiences in years past, but maybe its time to try a Floyd Rose again.
 
Senior year 1983 - watching MTV late one night and saw this video. I had the first DT555 around.

True, it was cool, but it also didn't look so tiny on me, like a Les Paul...and the middle pickup had some interesting tones...

 
Really good tone here...

Keep in mind the DT555 had (3) 16.2k V2 humbuckers - a hot pickup even by today's standards.

Note he appears to be playing the middle pickup.

 
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