Do locking nuts rob tone?

[Madison]

I have a Fernandes from the 80s. I am doing a little maintenance on it for a pal.(along with his Jugg Box amp)
It has a Floyd Rose..............well, a copy.It says "Head Crasher" on the bridge with a locking nut.It's a F. Rose.
Crikey! This thing stays in tune.
It also has active PUPs (unfortunately).
The rest of the guitar is excellent.I believe.....maybe it is two solid piece of maple;heavy.
Make me want to scrap my Standard Strat.
Digressing.

Anyways.
Any views on locking nuts and tone issues?

[G._Hoffman]

Not that I've ever noticed, but since you always have them combined with a Floyd Rose or Kahler trem, I'm not sure that you could ever really tell, as neither of those are particularly great for tone.  But if you want either of them to be as good as possible for staying in tune, you need the locking nut. 


Gabriel

[Ritchie200]

Madison,
WOW, that is a perdy guitar!  Beautiful wood.  I've got a MIJ Ritchie Blackmore Strat from 1998 with a graphite nut and a 6 screw wang.  It's set up with 12's and four springs.  I can not get it to go out of tune even with the most creative bar gymnastics.  Acoustically it is just beautiful.  I've got a Oscar Schmidt Strat copy with a bucker and two singles all EMG.  It has a Floyd Rose and locking nut. Acoustically it sounds great too.  I also have a MIJ Strat copy from the 70's that has a Kahler and locking nut.  It is heavy as a brick made out of thick maple and it sounds the worst out of the three acoustically, but it did with the old bridge too.  However, it sounds great with the no-name pickups that came with it.  I don't know....  I wonder if it really boils down to the basics - the wood?  I have played a few guitars with the Wilkinson wang and was not impressed.  What do you think Gabriel?

Jim

[G._Hoffman]

I like Wilkinson trems, personally.  They are not going to be as bullet proof, tuning wise, as a Floyd or a Kahler, but they are easier to deal with and more reliable than the old vintage trems.  They certainly don't sound LIKE the old ones, but that doesn't mean they don't sound as good - just different.  I like it.

But in truth, there are so many variables from one guitar to the next that it is very difficult to quantify what is doing what.  And, then of course there is the Elvis Costello quote, "talking about sound is like dancing about architecture."  But the thing about cheap stuff is that it has really low consistency, so some of them are awful (well, many of them), but every now and then something magic will happen and it just goes really right. 


Gabriel

[Madison]

>>I wonder if it really boils down to the basics - the wood?
I tend to think so anymore.
As much as I like some of the newer guitars, I worry about newer "green" wood.
I usually end up/have axes over 20 years old for my personal use;dry and set.

>>I like Wilkinson trems, personally.
That's what's on my Std. Strat.

>>but they are easier to deal with
Totally.

Thanks for the input.

[thermion]

i think the design of the floyd-style bridge itself robs more tone/ sustain than the locking nut. little contact with the body, low quality metal sustain block, so many tiny little parts slapped together with who-knows-what tolerance... workable but compromised.

[G._Hoffman]

i think the design of the floyd-style bridge itself robs more tone/ sustain than the locking nut. little contact with the body, low quality metal sustain block, so many tiny little parts slapped together with who-knows-what tolerance... workable but compromised.

EVERYTHING in guitar design is a set of compromises.  The question is always, which set of compromises is right for the particular situation/player/production line/etc.  If you are doing Eddie Van Halen/Steve Vai type whammy bar gymnastics, you really need the stability of a Floyd Rose (unless your name is Jeff Beck, of course!).  Its all a matter of what you are after.  If you only use the trem for some light wiggle, well, then a Strat trem, or even a Bigsby might be the right thing for you.  As in most things, context is the most important thing.


Gabriel

[bigdaddy]

This has been one of my pet peeves since those setups were invented.

When you are doing certain forms of music the question is do you have a true guitar tone in the first place. IMO many of the guitar players who are great not only technically but just overall amazing players do not have a true guitar tone, it boarders on a synthetic almost keyboard sound. Even the great EVH's guitar sounded more and more synthetic with his transition into stardom. Thus all his followers took it a step further and the true guitar tone was lost IMO during the big hair days. EVH's lead break in that Michael Jackson song Beat it, very keyboard kind of tone/sound.

Getting back to the nut, well IMO yes it does rob the guitar of a lot of tone. If I needed a lock on it I would be more inclined to use locking tuners now. But even those have an effect. It is a compromise, if you do not need it on your guitar don't use it.

I have played basically the same guitar with and without, side by side and the tonal difference was night and day. As the amp distortion and volume increased the guitar with the big bridge and locking nut actually sounded a bit better, fatter and more harmonically thick but less organic. By organic I mean more musical, like a human voice. I have always tried to make my guitar sound like a human voice, which IMO the closest thing is s saxophone. Freddie King said he wanted to make his guitar sound like a saxophone, like Luis Jordan and that's what I have tried to do also. So If you need it then use it, if you do not need a locking nut don't because it will help your tone without one, unless you are using high gain high distortion amps.

[G._Hoffman]

What, exactly, is a "true guitar tone?"  And what if I disagree with you on what it is?

Everyone wants something different, and everyone's ears work differently.  And for most people, there are a lot of different ways to get there from here.  Fortunately, every guitar sounds different, so with a little effort you can find the one for you.  My dad likes to say it's like a marriage - you have to find one with a personality that complements yours.  Everyone will have different needs and wants, and that is a good thing.  Can you imagine how boring the world would be if every guitar player sounded the same?  Blech!  Heck, I'd get bored with sounding the same on every song.

Find a guitar YOU like.  Play it.  Except for perhaps pickups, none of the various things you can do to modify an electric guitar are going to change the basic character, so if you don't like it, buy a different guitar.  If your guitar has a locking nut, ask yourself if you like the guitar, not the nut.


Gabriel

[bigdaddy]

A true guitar tone is something that is some what subjective. If I have to explain it then the person doesn't understand what it is. I feel if they did they would recognize the statement immediately. But I will explain. Sound, a sound, a complex sound, the difference between the noise of a piece of man-made forged steel being hit with a hammer or the sound of a hollowed out log being hit with a wood stick. The wood is a more natural sound from nature were as the sound of metal is totally man-made and more in my opinion noise. The sounds of the noisy city as opposed to the sound of the country were you hear animals and babbling brooks not babbling babes.

Take a recording for instance, one done with many peaks and valleys and open space so that every instrument can be heard. Then the recording by an engineer who thinks it sounds best with all the faders pinned into the red and compressors squashing everything. The second one is more noise then a pure sound of the instruments and vocals. All the frequencies canceling out each other and creating audio chaos that the human ear perceives as noise. Noise can be used to make music but there is a fine line. How that applies to guitar is pretty simple, IMO. Once you past a certain point of compression and the attempt to use every frequency in the hearing range of the human ear your guitar no longer sounds natural or a true guitar tone. Tone is not what frequencies you produce as much as it is which ones are attenuated. I always leave my guitar kind of on the treble side because I am leaving a space for a good old style Fender bass player.

[bigdaddy]

Lets go a little deeper into this if you would indulge me. Any acoustic guitar would fit into my true guitar tone, add a pickup and it's still there as long as you are amplifying the true tone of the guitar and not trying to make it sound like something else far out of the box. My attempt to make my guitar sound like a saxophone is because the saxophone is supposedly the closest instrument to sound like the human voice. So I am taking a different avenue but still trying to emulate the sound of the most natural thing there is, the human voice. Plus I am not leaving all the acoustic quality out, it's there, like the twang of the strings.

Even though Jimi Hendrix did so many things with his guitar making it sound like everything but a guitar, yet if you really listen to his music so many of his solos were with a fairly clean natural sound, even close to a country twang. So he lived in both worlds and used each to make music. But thrashing your guitar while the amps feedback is not a true guitar tone, just noise. Although that noise may be part of the music, but not a true guitar tone. Most of our guitar hero's of the past lived on the edge of that many times going back and forth to make a musical statement. But they mostly lived in the true guitar tone world. That started to change with the advent of everybody trying to sound different, IMO mostly because they lacked the technique to play like an Eric Clapton or Jimmy Page and needed something to help them. So they turned to electronic devices and no longer had a true guitar tone they had a synthesizer. Some had the technique but for some reason liked the sound they had although IMO it was NOT a true guitar tone. Not having a true guitar tone does not take away from the players ability, it just makes them sound poorly and again that's my opinion. There are many great guitar players with terrible tone. I have heard many great players just get a horrible tone due to many reasons, some out of their control, like SRV using some terrible sounding Marshall halfstack on TV, he sounded like an electric razor and not his usual fat natural guitar sound.

[Ritchie200]

"like SRV using some terrible sounding Marshall halfstack on TV, he sounded like an electric razor and not his usual fat natural guitar sound."
Ummm, that would be my amp!

This is an interesting discussion.  I've watched someone tap-tune a guitar top and while it made the guitar ultimately come alive, I think it accomplished what you are talking about.  It's not the frequencies you produce, it's the ones you attenuate.  All my electrics sound very pleasing to my ear acoustically.  I've played the same models side-by-side where one sounds good and the other not so much.  Acoustically they were good and bad too.  However, pleasing to me may not be pleasing to you.  Like you said, EVH sounded raw and cool in the beginning (MHO!).  The Eventide Harmonized stuff of later years was not as exciting to me.  However, I'm sure you could find many people who disagree with me and you.  I can't stand the JCM800 mash of the 80's.  However, I have always been a HUGE fan of Boston.  I think the melodies and harmonies and phrasing and tone are unreal.  My wife thinks it all sounds thin and tinny, worse than bumblebees.  And after the second album, there was not a tube to be found in the signal chain - blasphemy!  I think the 80's sounded like bumblebees...  I think Black Sabbath's Tony Iomi sounds fat, heavy, and full bodied (anyone disagreeing has never heard them live...).  My wife thinks he sounds worse than Boston, thin and tinny.  I am also a big fan of bands like Alter Bridge, a good example of what I call the Mesa mush.  But holy cow, what a great variety of tone!  My favorite?  Just listen to Deep Purple, Made in Japan.  That is guitar nirvana for me.  But guess what my all time favorite is...  Andres Segovia sitting on stage, no mic, in Powell Hall, where the St. Louis Symphony plays.  THAT tone was unbelievable.  You certainly can not compare ANY of the above as they are apples and oranges.  Maybe I have musical ADD, but I really think it has to do with what moves you inside.  It takes all kinds to make the world go round, otherwise we would not be suffering with cRAP blasting at every sporting event.  Somebody must like it.  I'm starting to sound like my dad!

Jim

ps, you need to ignite something while you are thrashing your guitar and feedbacking.  THAT is where the tone comes from! (This is where 'Nit comes in and calls me a degenerate!)

[Frankenamp]

Quoth Jim: "ps, you need to ignite something while you are thrashing your guitar and feedbacking.  THAT is where the tone comes from! wink (This is where 'Nit comes in and calls me a degenerate!)"

Wasn't that how Great White got in trouble?

[bigdaddy]

You also have to understand how they mastered vinyl as opposed to CDs. A lot of what you hear from the past is not only the guitar and amp but the whole chain, tube mic, tube compressor and excellent SS Neve boards or the older tube boards. I think the early Van Halen stuff was recorded on old refurbished boards from the days of the beach boys. My memory isn't that clear about all the stuff I read.

To truly understand the whole guitar tone thing you have to study the whole recording history of what equipment they used and how it was recorded. Unless your memory is that good and you remember the time at the Filmore east or west. But they say if you remember the 1960's that means you weren't there....

I'm 54 and caught the end of those great days, too young to really get all the nuisances. I had to listen to records and live albums to piece everything together. Especially living in New York City were anything not commercial was quickly forgotten and discarded. Very trendy place and I had no way as a teen to go down to your local bar to see some great American music, roots music, my local bar was playing disco from the juke box or had some white cats doing play that music white boy....or something like that.

[zendragon63]

Great topic--locking nuts or otherwise. 1+ with Gabriel. I have only had one guitar with a locking nut thing and it was a MIJ Strat; there were enough other differences 'tween it and the American made Strats that it was only conclusive to say that it stayed in tune better than the bone nuts. Even when it was replaced it with a fancy graphite nut. Consider that all of the best tone you can muster seems pretty useless if you can't keep 'em in tune.

That said, my unsolicited $.02: provided that you have a good guitar to begin with, less is more. If you can't clearly hear the difference between (even similar) guitars, you probably medicating the signal too much. Just an opinion. Regards

dennis

[bigdaddy]

I like that, medicating the signal.

Back to locking nuts, yes the guitar must stay in tune to a degree, very important and one reason I always had at least 2 guitars at a gig. I think that by locking the strings down at that point for some reason it was a choke point, like a Vulcan pinch. I don't have experience with the locking tuners too much and wonder if they have the same affect. The few I did play did not have the Vulcan tone pinch like locking nuts do.

I'll even go on to say that the material of the nut and saddle changes tone. Which is weird since it should only do that on open strings at the nut. But for some reason it has an effect. Another issue is weight on the headstock. The more weight the worst the tone and the more the guitar can go out of tune, fulcrum causes the weight to act like a lever. Also mass and density does not add sustain but actually takes sustain away which you would think it would be the opposite. On bridges it's a whole other story and it depends on how the mass, weight or density is transfered to the wood.

Nothing sounds like a strat with the proper tremolo bridge. That mass of steel does so much for the sound/tone of the guitar. I had an American Strat and when I put a Callaham block on it I was like WOW!!!, I added some Frailin blues special pups and took off most of the finish from the body. What a sound from that guitar. I even took some pieces of mahogany and filled those holes in the body. Some strats those days had the swimming pool rout, mine didn't but it was pretty big and had these holes in the body. So I used some mahogany plugs. That guitar had a sound that would be difficult to duplicate.