I was just thinking
about TonePros:
Here is the first time I tried to do this Tele-Bigsby
setup and I was thinking why Leo Fender never thought of this simple setup,
instead of the clumsy, awful solution with the terrible bridge he had.
Or maybe it was not Leo but CBS. Leo was much more practical.
This guitar has perfect tuning even with the hardest trem
abuse. It stays in tune as well as a fixed bridge guitar. Truly amazing.
I will share with you why this is. It hurts me to share anything but I
will make an exception this time, to point out the stupidity of TonePros.
While building this guitar I was thinking of TonePros
and not in a nice way.
You ever hear of TonePros hardware? Its Gibson replica hardware but they
added little lock screws to make their parts motionless by locking them
down to their posts. The claim is that you will get better tone with locked
down hardware. Its like all those "get rich quick" schemes.
I knew instantly this was very wrong. What a stupid idea
I thought. I mean, the only thing its good for is to stop the hardware
from falling off your guitar when you take all the strings off and forget
to remove the hardware. Other than that locked down hardware is seriously
awful for tuning stability and it offers absolutely no tonal advantages,
despite of what they claim. Its just a bunch of marketing to the stupid
guitar consumer, forum faggot, who eats it all up and then brags about
it to other idiots. In fact some guitar mass producers even use the TonePros
stuff on their guitars. They are always looking for gimmicks since all
the guitars you see for sale at music stores are the same. Take a look
at that boring shit hanging at your neighborhood music store. Regardless
of brand its the same disgusting plastic crap made by non players for
non players. They all come out of the same factories in Asia with only
different names put on them and they area all looking for a gimmick for
some differentiation. But you know this already so I will not go into
it again.
Hacks and Tinkerers, listen closely, its learning time.
Here is a little free education for you. Why is TonePros bull shit you
ask? How dare I say such a thing? You believe that anything advertised
in guitar magazines must be great? Are you up in arms yet?
This is because you area a fool, have no guitar
knowledge and could never build the guitar on this page.
With locked-down hardware, I could never keep this guitar in tune.
Here is your Education.
Everything in the string path must be moving unimpeded and unobstructed.
This is because strings are not motionless, they are constantly in motion.
Always moving, always stretching. They stretch all the time even from
normal playing and even with no tremolo use. This is how strings work,
its their nature. Since strings move naturally, constantly and considerably,
along their whole length, why would any idiot want to lock them down and
stop their motion? The worst thing you can do is to stop this free movement.
If you hinder string movement, you will instantly lose your tuning stability.
This is the most apparent with a tremolo guitars, like the Bigsby equipped
instrument on this page, but even with a guitar, which has a fixed bridge,
its important to allow the strings to slide back and forth. With locked-down
bridges they cannot move back and forth and only get stuck at the contact
points. If you don't allow for movement, your tuning stability will be
adversely effected. By locking down the bridge, so it cannot move with
the string, the string will struggle to move and bind in the saddles.
If a bridge is locked down It better have roller saddles on it. Although
roller saddles kill tone, which is a whole other discussion.
Back in the 50s, guitar designers knew what they were
doing and all those vintage bridges have built in looseness for a very
good reason. In fact they are very loose. The fit is actually sloppy and
some uninformed guitar enthusiasts would say the quality and tolerance
of these parts is inadequate. However these traditional parts are loose
for the very good reason I describe here. Decades ago they knew that the
two points at which the string is tensioned must move with the string
and offer very minimal friction so the string can slide back and forth
during normal playing as well as trem use. The two "break points"
of a string, being the bridge and the nut must not bind the string and
allow for perfect movement of the string.
Then someone uninformed and with a different agenda comes
along and tells you mindlessly to do the complete opposite, to lock down
your bridge. People who don't understand guitars technically will believe
this.
If you are still too slow to understand what I am saying,
you better learn your guitar history. Look at the vintage guitars with
tremolos like the Bigsby and other types of tremolos. Look at how on vintage
Gibson and other brands the whole Tunomatic and other types of bridges,
rock back and forth as the trem action is applied. Look at every Gretsch,
the same thing happens. Also consider what Gretsch and others have done
by even introducing roller saddles to help the strings roll freely over
the saddles unimpeded. The less friction the bridge puts on the string,
the better. If a strings cannot roll or slide across the saddles then
the whole bridge must move with the string. This cannot happen if its
locked down. Locking down a bridge will induce a lot of friction and make
the string struggle it its movement. The string will bind and will not
return to its regular position and operational length. Hence terrible
tuning stability.
Strings constantly stretch over the two break points,
the bridge and nut. Look at the original Fender Telecaster with the Bigsby
and take a look at the bridge used for this purpose. You may not even
know that the original Tele trem bridge, as bad as it is, stands on two
pointed posts, which rock as the strings move over the bridge and as the
tremolo is used. In fact the whole bridge moves with the strings. Its
the most apparent on the Tele how the whole bridge rocks back and forth
on two sharp pointed studs its positioned on. The opposite of TonePros,
which is designed not to move.
The only points on a string that needs to be perfectly
motionless and anchored, are the two end points of string attachment,
the two opposite ends or anchor points of the string. These being the
tailpiece and the tuners. Everything else on a guitar must be as "loose
as goose" and move freely with the strings and the motion induced
by the player.
No, you will not loose any tone if your bridge is not
screwed down and motionless like a rock. Take that BS right out of your
head. The marketers have brainwashed you. You are only told this so you
will buy the gimmick.
The moral of this story is that once you know guitars,
you will recognize bull shit marketing and guitar magazines will read
like comic books to you. You have to know your stuff first though. Here
is a start, you have just learned something, even if you admit it or not.
So if you lock down your bridge, I will instantly know
you are idiot.
