I have a box in a closet some where in my house and it has a bunch of whammy bars in it. :lol: The guitars I have with traditional trems, I tighten the springs down and don't use them. My Strat has five springs in it. I did have a guitar with a Floyd Rose once upon a time. An Ibanez Radius, now known as the Joe Satriani model. It was a beautiful guitar, would stay in tune for ever but except for playing around I didn't really use the bar. :cry: I traded it because I didn't play it. I love whammy bars but I guess only to hear other people use them. :?
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
To me, finger vibrato and "real" vibrato are two different things.
I found this definition of vibrato, which is what I've always understood vibrato to be:
"the deliberate pitch movement of a tone around a central pitch."
Finger vibrato raises the pitch and returns it to the original pitch. You're only getting half of the vibrato, so to speak, i.e. the upward modulation of tone.
The vibrato mechanism gives you "real" vibrato, both upward modulation and downward modulation, around the central pitch (which is the note, that you're playing).
I started with nothing - and I've still got most of it left.
Did you know that the word "gullible" is not in any dictionary?
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Slide vibrato and vocal vibrato are pretty much always down from the "target" pitch and back up to it. Finger vibrato on the guitar requires bending a string up from its unbent pitch, but I suspect if you analyze the frequencies during the vibrato it's the same, slacking off the bend a bit and pushing back up to it, because that's what "sounds right." The only vibrato I can think of that always goes equally up and down is the Leslie rotating speaker, and it's got a distinctive, recognizable sound. Hammond tried to make their organs sound like Leslies by using a whirling capacitative contact sequentially tapping into a delay line to lower the frequency variably by phase shifting, giving a down-and-back-up vibrato like the singers, slide guitarists and violinists use. They even came up with a stereo system on the later ones with one side going down while the other side was going back up, but it didn't fool folks used to Leslies because the Leslie went equally sharp and flat of the average pitch. The Leslie was intended to emulate the effect of pipe organs with multiple pipes of slightly different frequencies beating together, and with that you get both sum and difference frequencies so you hear the pitch rising above and falling below average.
But it sounds weird on a guitar if you do vibrato above the pitch.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Slide vibrato and vocal vibrato are pretty much always down from the "target" pitch and back up to it. Finger vibrato on the guitar requires bending a string up from its unbent pitch, but I suspect if you analyze the frequencies during the vibrato it's the same, slacking off the bend a bit and pushing back up to it, because that's what "sounds right." The only vibrato I can think of that always goes equally up and down is the Leslie rotating speaker, and it's got a distinctive, recognizable sound. Hammond tried to make their organs sound like Leslies by using a whirling capacitative contact sequentially tapping into a delay line to lower the frequency variably by phase shifting, giving a down-and-back-up vibrato like the singers, slide guitarists and violinists use. They even came up with a stereo system on the later ones with one side going down while the other side was going back up, but it didn't fool folks used to Leslies because the Leslie went equally sharp and flat of the average pitch. The Leslie was intended to emulate the effect of pipe organs with multiple pipes of slightly different frequencies beating together, and with that you get both sum and difference frequencies so you hear the pitch rising above and falling below average.
But it sounds weird on a guitar if you do vibrato above the pitch.
Yeah, a Leslie is a Doppler device (as I'm sure you know, Ric). Think Angus Young might be capable of the same?
Alan Holdsworth has complained about up bending aspect of guitar vibrato, explaining that he used a trem for some years to avoid the problem. Eventually, he gave up and went back to finger vibrato.
If militant about this, one could try pre-bending all ones notes up from a lower note and work a symmetrical or pitch down finger vibrato from there. I'll watch. And now that I think about it, there's got to be some zealot with no life who will master this.
And strangely enough: Last night a very good friend gave me a Godin fretless Glissentar. That problem solved.
-=tension & release=-
If militant about this, one could try pre-bending all ones notes up from a lower note and work a symmetrical or pitch down finger vibrato from there. I'll watch. And now that I think about it, there's got to be some zealot with no life who will master this.
LOL!
You're right. It's quite easy to do that experiment with a slide. I don't like the symmetrical vibrato sound and always do the down and back up sort, except of course when I sloppily overshoot. The fretless will work the same. :D
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Got to agree on slide. When I play slide, I tend to do up bends slowly and always to notes a whole step or greater. For "vocal" effect, I do quick or moderate down slides (sort of a dip), but only a semi or quarter tone, never more. I do use symmetrical vibrato, but always less than a quarter tone in each direction. More sounds way overdone.
-=tension & release=-
I agree, vibrato's usually best kept subtle.
"A cheerful heart is good medicine."
Here's in my opinion some of the best usage of a trem system on a guitar 8)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo1TW1Bhl1E&feature=related
Ken
"The man who has begun to live more seriously within
begins to live more simply without"
-Ernest Hemingway
"A genuine individual is an outright nuisance in a factory"
-Orson Welles
As far as I know, Jimi was out of tune a lot.... was an 'in tune' freak and frequently tuned his guitar WHILE playing.
(He also had impecable timing)
Yea Jimi was out of tune, but not just because of whammy bar use, but because of the fact he was playing a right handed guitar and the fact he just abused his strings with bends as well. He was an "in tune" freak like you said, and did tune while playing...and a lot of the time went right back into being in tune. Pretty insane.
I think the whammy bar's a great thing, and use it when needed.
Here's in my opinion some of the best usage of a trem system on a guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo1TW1Bh ... re=related
Ken
That was great, loved the tone of that guitar. :D
This song gets my vote for great trem work:
If you know something better than Rock and Roll, I'd like to hear it - Jerry Lee Lewis
This song gets my vote for great trem work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Zz_4N6p3f8
Absolutely. 8)
Hershel makes that guitar sing.
I wrapped a newspaper ’round my head
So I looked like I was deep
I bought my first electric guitar with a whammy bar last week. I'll receive it in a couple of weeks.
Mine have locking tuners so I guess I'll have less problem with the trem.
A good finger vibrato is the best way to get that sound, I'm agree with that, but there's other things you can do with a whammy bar. Some of my favorite guitarist are using it.
Example:
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=7RUEVPdOrwI
I guess it's a matter of taste and type of playing :wink:
" First time I heard the music
I thought it was my own
I could feel it in my heartbeat
I could feel it in my bones
... Blame it on the love of Rock'n'Roll! "
No idea if it has been mentioned, but people like Gilmour make heavy use of the whammy for vibrato, espescially on bended notes.
Huge HUGE HUGE Floyd fan here, I listen to Pulse, DSOTM, or Animals nearly every day. I have the Pulse tour DVD in the DVD player all the time. Very rarely do I see David Gilmour use the whammy bar for vibrato, even on bended notes. I always see him use vibrato on the strings except very occasionally.
I watch a lot of youtube videos of Gilmour and Floyd as well.
My favorite band and favorite guitarist by a long shot. The only one that comes close to being a favorite is Jimmy Page. Though, I do think Page is a better guitarist, just not my absolute favorite.
