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--- In , "ipongrac" <ipongrac@g...>
wrote:
>
> I've got three Strats with vintage trems, and they all work equally
> well, without special strings and special setups,
That's not what you said, you said:
>>> I had a good tech, who knew how to cut the nut
>>> (ouch!) properly,
and certainly with
> no "nursemaiding" (I rarely give it a second's thought). And I
> believe I've made some good music with the use of this "cantankerous
> hunks of junk". Just what the hell do you do with your tremolos??
>
By your own admission, even you can't get the stock Fender to work
without additional special mods.
Maybe you are not very aggressive with the trem. I have my Wilkinson
trem setup to be floating, I do trem effects by pulling it sharp as
well as occasional divebombs and feedback wiggles. While it's not
Van Halen or Vai-type abuse, the stock Fender trem can't handle it.
Try this: put your fave strings on, tune it up, then grab the trem
and push it to the body until the strings are almost flopping, then
agitate the slack strings with your fret hand. Then pop it back and
tell me if your stock Fender is still in tune. I do this to get a
cool rumble/crash effect with distortion on, and yes, my Strat comes
back to tune.
I never said the stock Fender unit didn't _sound_ good. To my ears,
it sounds okay. Just don't ever count on it to stay in tune
reliably. The stock Fender unit is junk, and that's just a well-
known fact: it needs supporting mods and a weak touch in order to
behave. If you baby it, you likely won't have big problems, but if
you're aggressive with it, you'll be disappointed. I'm not gonna
baby my trem, it needs to handle whatever I'm going to throw at it.
