The new Floyd Rose Guitar - Check it out!!!

[Coolstu]

Has anyone seen the new Floyd Rose Guitar?

Check it out at:

* * * * * * * * * * * *www.floydrose.com

It is one mad, freaky looking thing. I wonder if any of the ideas will catch on?

[megawzrd]

Wow, thats alot of new technologies for guitar there. I'm interested.

[darren wilson]

I read about it quite a while back. The whole "convergent tuning" thing sounds like utter nonsense to me, unless they've found a way of manufacturing strings that have absolutely NO stretch in them at all.

[Jimi D]

Doesn't look like they've actually built the guitar yet - the web site's just some neat ideas and a mock up.

Does anyone remember that Lace Helix guitar with the twisted neck? That was a cool guitar too... Whatever became of that?

[nmanel]

It looks like it's a really stupid guitar to me...

All this stuff about easy tuning, easy pick-up replacements.......but no easy playability !
Look at the neck joint picture, it really looks like the old way to do it: a big piece of wood with, I bet, a big metal plate.

It seems more to be a toy for beginners who don't know how to replace strings, than a real mucis instrument.

[alienx]

Obi Van Kenobi's guitar or what?

[mecca777]

My two pennies:

Convergent Tuning, Convergent Tuning Strings, Lever Tuners - all sounded very similar to the Steinberger System. I'm sure I'm wrong.

Tremolo/Vibrato Plate
The Vibrato plate has been integrated into the pick guard. To use the plate, simply press it down with the tips of your fingers. This causes the pitch of the strings to go down. If you press on the bridge with the heal of your hand, the pitch of the strings goes up.

So, a totally different model for the vibrato arm to every other guitar for the last fifty years. I'm sure it will be a big hit.

One-Spring Easy Adjust Tremolo/Vibrato
The Floyd Rose Guitar uses a one-spring Vibrato System. The advantage of this feature is that you can adjust (through the rear strap button) the spring tension without removing any cover plates.

One-Spring Tensionable Vibrato? So, just like the Parker Fly, then.

Unobstructed Picking and Strumming Area
Floyd Rose Guitars have been designed specifically to remove any objects that could obstruct the picking and strumming area of the guitar. For example, the tremolo plate and pickup cover are flush with the radius guitar surface (i.e., slight outward curve). Also, the tuning knob, volume knob and pickup toggle switch are all conveniently located out of the strumming area.

Recessed pickups and controls on a curved top? So, just like the Ibanez FGM, then.

Replaceable Headstock
The Floyd Rose Headstocks can be replaced with after market Headstocks or your own custom design.

Separate headstocks? So, just like the Ibanez USRG, then. Plus this has to be the most useless feature on any guitar since the old "built-in-wah" of the Sixties.

Replacing Pickups
To replace the pickup, just remove one screw and unplug the pickup. There is no soldering or unsoldering required.

I will make no snide comment here. This is how all pickups should be connected. It will, however, be interesting to see if any of the big pickup companies support this system.

Pickup Positioning
Unlike most guitars the pickups on the Floyd Rose Guitar can be moved to obtain different tonal characteristics. Just slide the pickup movement knob to the desired position. The knob to the rear moves the bridge pickup and the forward knob moves the neck pickup.

Pickups that slide on rails? So, just like the Dan Armstrong Plexi, then.

Nut Height Adjustment and Action Adjustment sounds almost as if the man has gone completely insane. Again, this is a totally new system, which will require the learning of new skills and "tricks" for anyone who wants to set these guitars up properly, and which is unlikely to offer a huge leap in convenience over the traditional system. I will just add that adjustable nuts, one-bolt neck fixing, necks that can be removed and replaced with the strings on for storage and neck tilt adjustment have all been seen before.

Joking aside, this doesn't look like a massive winner. The styling of the guitar is grotesquely "Seventies", a feeling increased by the number of knobs and switches on the guitar, and it looks like every single thing about it was redesigned from first principles, without any consideration given to reasons why every company does it the other way.

Sure, some things (like the removable pickups) are excellent ideas which, in a just world, would be the norm. However, the "vibrato plate" idea is just stupid. Guitarists do not normally want a keyboard-style interface on their instrument (see: Bond, Roland, Casio, Yamaha, Stepp, Synthaxe, and the rest). The point of the vibrato arm is that you can feel the tension and have minute control because of the leverage you can exert. It's tactile - you pull the bar and the strings go up in pitch. You push the bar and get vicious swooping noises.

I predict that this guitar is not going to be the reason that we'll all remember Floyd Rose in twenty years time.

[darren wilson]

Heh. Good commentary!

For what it's worth, Yamaha has had height adjustment built into the locking nuts they've used for all their locking trem guitars since the original RGX series. It strikes me as a good idea for those times where you need to raise or lower the nut just a hair if you're having some buzzing on lower frets that can't be corrected by adjusting neck relief with the truss rod.

EMG also uses a plug-and-play harness system for their pickups, and Ernie Ball/MusicMan have a quick-snap system for their Silhouette guitars, where you can swap out entire pickup/switching configs just by changing pickguards. I'm all in favour of more companies adopting universal solder-free connectors. Swapping out pickups shouldn't be anywhere near as difficult as it is.

It seems that the better ideas in the Floyd Rose guitar have already been done, and the stupid ideas aren't worth doing.

Better luck next time, Floyd.

[mecca777]

Darren, another revolutionary guitar design (one I like better than the Floyd Rose guitar) is the Teuffel Birdfish, which is another guitar with quick-change pickups.

I've often thought that if big guitar shops built a "test-bed" Strat - just a Standard Strat with the side of the body and pickguard cut away, quick-lock connectors for the pickups and a system that would lock the pickups into place quickly - the investment would repay itself quickly, because they'd sell a lot more replacement pickups and have more satisfied customers. Imagine being able to test a Duncan JB against a DiMarzio PAF Pro, or try out all of the major "noiseless single coil" contenders, on the same guitar, through the same amp, within minutes. That would absolutely rule.

[darren wilson]

Yeah, those Teuffel guitars are pretty wild. I love the LSR tuners on those babies. (The same ones Jackson uses on their Roswell Rhoads.) I'd love to try 'em out.

[Kevan]

I owned an RGX-880 with the height adjustable nut. *I think that's the only reason I owned it so long. *:biggrin: *The action on that guitar was nothing short of PERFECT. *A *VERY* useful feature (hint Ibanez hint). *
If I could, I would replace ALL my LoPro nuts with the height-adjustable ones from Yamaha. *(they don't make a 7-string one...yet).

[gitarrero]

mecca777, darren,

Teuffel guitars rule. I know Uli Teuffel personally, his workshop is located in my home town. From time to time, I get to visit him for repairs or just a chat, and I have to say he's really cool, a very nice guy and an incredibly skilled luthier. It's too bad he doesn't make custom guitars anymore.

Oliver

[Scott 74]

Some good ideas but that guitar is butt ugly!! and please God save us from the Vibrato Plate!!!! *LOL*

[wulpul]

That is one ugly Guitar. No matter how ingenious it is I would not be seen dead playing it.

[hamand]

Errr....calm down you two. That's only a Photoshop mock up guitar; if you're that easily fooled, do you want to buy my 30th Anniversary Jem, which may look like an old Washburn but really it isn't ??

I suggest those of you who care consult magazines from around 1980 where a young fiery star appeared in the Western sky called Eddie Van Halen and people were criticising his brand new trem system, developed by his friend Floyd.

They laughed at Einstein you know! Well, no - they laughed at me actually and they still do, but I'll prove 'em all wrong....in the end.

Gitarrero, next time you go there please steal a Birdfish for me. Teuffel guitars are actually beautiful to look at - not out of place in an art gallery.
If any of y'all haven't seen them please check out:

http://www.teuffelguitars.de/index.html