How to restring a Floyd Rose Tremelo

Hi Guys

I wonder how many of you have used a Floyd Rose tremelo system on your guitar. They are common on Ibanez Guitar and Jacksons as well as many others.

Satriani and Vai use these systems as well as many others.

basically the bridge pivots on 2 pins which allows you to use the whammy bar in both directions. The bridge stays in position via a fine balance between the springs on the back and the tension of the strings.

The first time I tried to string up one of these I had a nightmare. As soon as you manage to get something in tune it puts another string out. I spent hours trying to do it. Very frustrating indeed.

These days It takes me about 10 minutes to totally restring a guitar and have it in perfect tune - and stays in perfect tune.

Here is how I do this.

The first important step is to put something under the Floyd Rose bridge to stop is moving back once you have loosened the strings. I usually use a folded piece of card or even my empty string packet to do this.

Now remove all the strings and fit the new ones to the bridge. Tighten all the strings so they feel tensioned.

Now remove whatever you had holding the bridge up. Hopefully the bridge should now be sitting in pretty much it's normal place.

Check that no strings are excessively tensioned. ~If they are there must be another string that is excessively loose. Tighten the loose one first then take the tension off the the tight string.

Now here is the important part - before tuning you want to stretch the strings otherwise they be constantly going out of tune. To do this rest the palm of your hand on the string by the bridge. Put your index finger under the string and lift the string up. Hold for 5 seconds and release. It's important not to overstretch the string here so don't pull on it too hard.

Go through each of the strings and do this. Once done you will want to bring your guitar pretty much in tune. This should be quite easy now. Don't accurately tune any strings, just get them all so they are within one or 2 notes of being tuned. You will find as you adjust some others will go out of tune. This is normal.

Once this is done you need to go though the stretching procedure once more on each of the strings.

Now tune your guitar so it is accurately in tune. Again, do not concentrate on one string. bring them all to pretty much in tune then tune them individually.

Finally one last stretch of the strings. Hopefully by now you will only have some of the stings ever so slightly out of tune. Tune those back up and and you are done. Perfect.

Any questions then fire away.