Joelman

IvanPWell, there's Dick Dale. It seems to have worked pretty well for him....

Ivan

Ah,,, isn't Dick Dales bridge on his guitar a tremlo bridge?
He doesn't have the wammy bar on the guitar, but from everything I have seen, it is a tremlo bridge.

Joel, this is how Mel defined the "hard-tail" bridge at the beginning of this thread: "For those that aren't sure what hard tail is, it's where you block the whole tremolo assembly inside the guitar, usually with something high tech. Like a block of wood."
Strictly speaking, no, that's not how most people define a hard-tail - that's just a blocked trem. A hard-tail of course is a non-trem bridge bolted straight to the wood. But Mel's concept applies to exactly what DD does with the Beast.

Ivan

PS Buddy Holly played a hard-tail Strat? Really? In a sense of a bridge bolted straight to the wood without a trem mechanism? I always thought it was a normal Strat with a regular trem.

Ivan
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They've made hardtail Strats from day-one up until the present (I think the "Robert Cray" Strat is hardtail, isn't it?).

The thing about a hardtail is it's never going to sound exactly like a Strat with a trem because it doesn't have that huge hole in the back with the springs. One of the really cool things about the Strat is that you have that big chamber that's sort of like a semi-hollowbody! You get a weird resonance from the springs too...

Hardtails are cool (I'd like to get one someday) but they're pretty-much a Telecaster with different pickups and bridge saddles.

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His leads are fantastic. Some of the best early rock and roll playing that I've heard.

Kawentzmann
I think Buddy Holly was influential for early Surf guitarists. He used a hard tail strat.

Apparently, Holly used four or five Strats through his short career, and at very least his final one was a regular tremolo model, not a hard-tail: http://www.buddyhollyonline.com/guitar.html

I could find no evidence that any of his Strats were hard-tails.

Ivan

Ivan
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I Bought a natural wood finish hardtail strat in about 1978 so they were making them then. I don't have it now unfortunately - seeing as how people seem to think that '70s Fenders are somehow a collectable vintage these days. God knows why though, as it wasn't a good time for them.

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Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery.

The digital emulation works okay as long as you're not listening too closely, but if you're doing a LOT of work with vibrato dips, it's going to become apparent that it all sounds a bit fake and mechanical.

You've got that right! I've experimented with it and while it can be done digitally, to a point, it just doesn't quite sound right when things get busy.

Luckily the songs I pen, and the ones that we cover use the Trem vary sparingly and more of just a dip than full on vibrato.

Mel

Yup. To illustrate the point, here's a crappy clip I did before I installed my Bigsby.

Thanks VERY much for the sample!

First off, I don't think the sample is crappy at all! It's meant to be a sample of a stompbox, effect or technique and I appreciate the fact that it's not a "polished" version. Too many times the sound is edited beyond anything I find useful but yours illustrates the concept and the sound perfectly to me.

Secondly, I had wondered what a Boss PS-5 would sound like, there aren't any in the stores here so it's not like I can try one. The other samples I have heard on the net seem too "polished" to me and no one plays an older style so getting a sound check is difficult.

Sleepwalk is one song we just can't get through. Not that it's impossible to play, it's just that usually by the 8th bar someone in the band is making snoring noises and that pretty much makes playing the rest of it while doubled over in laughter, short of impossible. We call it, "the song that must not be named"...:-)

Again, thanks for taking the time to do the clip and share the link. I appreciate it!

Mel

IvanP

Kawentzmann
I think Buddy Holly was influential for early Surf guitarists. He used a hard tail strat.

Apparently, Holly used four or five Strats through his short career, and at very least his final one was a regular tremolo model, not a hard-tail: http://www.buddyhollyonline.com/guitar.html

I could find no evidence that any of his Strats were hard-tails.

Ivan

You’re right. I couldn’t find any evidence now that you said that. I think I read that once in a guitar mag and since there’s not vibrato arm visible in any of the pics I have of Buddy, I always believed it. But on some pics you can see the extra bit near the volume control where the arm otherwise would be. The hardtails don’t have those. A hardtail strat goes well with a poor-boy image and a guy who never uses the trem, I guess.

The Exotic Guitar of Kahuna Kawentzmann

You can get the boy out of the Keynes era, but you can’t get the Keynes era out of the boy.

For my old strat copy that I’ve been playing over the years, I’ve had all 5 springs in the tremolo. To keep the trem pressed against the body. Preventing the floating, in an effort to keep the thing in tune longer. For strings I’ve been using 10’s. Inspired by all you guys here on surfguitar101.com, I decided to try some heavier strings. I put in some 12’s the other day. With the heavier strings, the trem now floats, even with all 5 springs in there. And you know what? The guitar seems to have much more ring and sustain. The floating trem sounds pretty different versus having the trem pressed against the body. So far I like it much better. The difference is more pronounced when playing the guitar unplugged. It sounds more like an acoustic guitar than before. But you can also hear the difference a little through the amp. It’s interesting to me, at least.

Using the trem also sounds better now, with the ability to bend it slightly up as well as down. So far I’m preferring the floating trem.

As an aside, I’m wondering if a big part of the differences in sounds between a Strat and a Tele has to do with a trem versus a hard tail.

These 12’s strings may be a bit much for my wimpy fingers. I may try some 11’s next.