Never owned a guitar with a Floyd Rose……

guitarplayer

guitarplayer

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But man, the Charvel Satchel signature tiger print looks so great. Would I end up hating the FR? Pain in the ass to tune? Change strings? Never owned anything but hardtail guitars. I’m sure I’d use the whammy if I had it.
 
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There's a little more involved with maintenance for a floyd rose, but nothing that's any worse than other general aspects of maintenance. The part that most have trouble with is the initial setup and finding the right balance between springs & strings. There's a few tricks to help with that though. Tuning stability can be a pain with the cheap pot metal copies or low quality licensed ones.

Looking at the one on the Charvel, it's a 1000 model which is a high quality one so tuning stability won't be an issue. I don't see a recess cut out for it so it looks to be a low profile non floating one... set up to be dive only or maybe a slight pull up. That's more straight forward like a typical 2 point mount strat trem.

A couple of pointers when dealing with floyds in general. It's best to change strings one at a time. Meaning take only one string off, then put the new one on and bring it up to pitch, then move on to the next string. This keeps the balance of everything intact. And put a tiny dab of chapstick on the knife edges. This helps lubricate the pivot point so it falls right back in place after a heavy dive.

Aside from getting past the mentality that a floyd is this overly complicated contraption of a guitar bridge there's really nothing to it. The first time setting one up can be a little intimidating if you haven't done it before, but even that isn't hard once you've done it a couple of time. and if all else fails you can block it so it's like a hardtail. They even sell things specifically for that, I think it's called a tremol-no.

Overall if you like the guitar don't let the floyd scare you off and go for it.
 
Lots of good tips here. Coming from a heavy gigging background I won’t play a guitar live without one. Zero tuning issues is key…99% of hard tails including nice LPs, the G usually goes out after a few leads. Very few HTs in my experience are stable all night..Floyd’s for the win.
And, you can block them so they act as an HT, as was said previously.
 
Depends on your mechanical ability, it's not too complicated but it does take some general mechanical understanding. If it is floating, that makes it way more complicated.

As far as how it feels under your palm, that will take a while to get used to, but the tuning stability and the the fine tuners make it worth it.
 
Once you spend a little time with a FR, string changes, setup etc. becomes much easier. They are not difficult if you have a dose of mechanical sense. I wanted, but couldn't afford, a Kramer back in '84 when I was in high school. My solution? Ordered a FR and installed it myself in a POS Strat copy I had. I was 16 at the time.
 
Don't discount a Sophia trem. I like mine more than the gazillion Floyds I have owned.
 
mikey said:
Once you spend a little time with a FR, string changes, setup etc. becomes much easier. They are not difficult if you have a dose of mechanical sense. I wanted, but couldn't afford, a Kramer back in '84 when I was in high school. My solution? Ordered a FR and installed it myself in a POS Strat copy I had. I was 16 at the time.
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Weren't stand alone Floyds around $200 back then? That was a lot of money in 1984. I also threw one into my Hondo Strat copy then, which required some routing. I think I took that Floyd off my Kramer Focus 5000 when I got tired of that body style.
 
The feel of a nice floating floyd is really great. They can be tricky but once you get used to them and set them up properly they aren't too bad.

I actually prefer floyds not blocked. The feel is lighter and easier and I also like being able to bend up as well as down. Its funny because I don't use my floyds a ton, but when I play a guitar that doesn't have one I tend to miss it.
 
Floyds get a bad rep in terms of being a pain in the ass to deal with. Changing tunings takes more time as does changing setup but you would get the hang of it, just don’t do both at the same time in my opinion. String changes are very easy. Only downside is you can knock it out of tune with a heavy right hand. I love my charvel satch, great neck profile, radius and pickups. The color from my experience differs a bit from the photos in a good way.
 
I’ve never been a floyd rose guy myself. Last gig I did a few weekends ago was outside with heaters, and and chilly. Les Paul wasn’t happy. Jackson with the Floyd was in tune all night. Like everyone said, give a floyd a chance. You may like it!
 
To properly setup a floating floyd after stringing so it's flush with the body:

1. unlock the nut and detune your guitar until the strings are floppy
2. get a piece of wood or something that won't hurt the finish and place between floyd rose and body, positioning the trem so it is parallel with the body.
3. tune your guitar. If the floyd raises off the body, tighten the trem spring plate screws in the back and start over. do this until the floyd does not lift up from the piece of wood after tuning.
4. Once the guitar is tuned, lock the nut and remove the piece of wood. Your guitar strings will go slightly sharp. From here, slowly loosen the trem spring plate screws until your guitar goes back into tune. At this point you should be in tune and your trem should be parallel with the body.

Rock on.

Having said that, personally I've always thought that all the routing required to accommodate a trem really messes with the resonance of the guitar in a way I don't like at all. I think you absolutely trade tone for whammy bar shenanigans. Also, floating floyds make playing quite a bit more challening. Bending a string brings all of the others out of tune, and that's something you'll just have to work around. If you're used to a hardtail and don't have experience with a floyd, you really have no idea how much impact this will have on your playing (a whole lot). Having said THAT, everybody should own at least one floyd guitar, they're hilarious fun... but it should never be their only guitar.

Or, you could just go for the much easier to live with all-arounder route and get a guitar with a decked floyd, like how EVH does their trems, so that the floyd won't go sharp. This means no more "balancing" required and you can just have fun doing divebombs without worrying too much about it. You can also tighten the trem springs so that you can even bend strings without the others going out of tune but still do divebombs if you press the bar hard.
 
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John4021 said:
What guitar did you put it in? Any mods needed to swap where a Floyd was?
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Hey John.
My guitar was built with it. It swaps right in for a Floyd. Great Trem. It looks odd at first but it's very comfortable and adjustable. I cannot say for sure but my guitar has a lot of sustain and is loud acoustically; more than a Floyd but it could be the guitar.
 
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Rick Lee said:
Weren't stand alone Floyds around $200 back then? That was a lot of money in 1984. I also threw one into my Hondo Strat copy then, which required some routing. I think I took that Floyd off my Kramer Focus 5000 when I got tired of that body style.
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I bought a black one for $134. It was a lot of cash, but I couldn't swing the $6-700 Kramers were going for. I still have it, it's in a Charvel model 2 since the late 80s.
 
Once you learn them, Floyds aren’t really difficult.

Some points about the Satchel:

The neck profile is the Charvel “speed neck”. It is a decent neck. It is thin. Not Dinky or Wizard thin, but it is thin.

The tuners on the Satchel are typical mid-tier tuners. They don’t have great gear ratios. They work fine. I slapped a pair of pinned Schallers I had laying around on mine and was pleased with the result.

The neck and frets on the Satchel are “meh”. IMO the entire neck on the Satchel needs work right out of the box. It has an oiled neck and the finish is not great, but this was easily fixed with some 0000 steel wool that worked with the grain in one direction only (Don’t scrub back and forth). About 5 minutes with the steel wool got the back of the neck to a wonderful satiny finish that rivals my Custom Shop Dinkys.

I checked the frets on my Satchel and there were issues. For a shredder, the string height was fairly high. Some frets were not fully pressed. The frets were not level. Some frets were poorly polished. I reseated/glued the frets, then did a level, crown, polish, and set the string height/relief to my personal preference. It really improved the guitar

The Floyd on Satchels is top mounted not recessed. Top mounting positions the base of the bridge above the body of the guitar. This requires the neck pocket have a different neck angle… which I personally like. All of my custom shops Jacksons have top mounted Floyds.

The Floyd on the Satchel is not a German Floyd. It is a mid-tiered version. I personally swapped mine out with a German OFR I had laying around. The stock Floyd on the Satchel works well. Some of the parts will just wear more quickly.

For me personally Fishman Fluence pickups used on the Satchel are HORRIBLE! There was a sizzle in them that I did not like.

I have tried the Sophia trem. It is a good tremolo. It is not revolutionary as the marketing would lead you to believe. It is still a floating trem and physics dictates the problems that any floating tremolo will have.

The Sophia has an (optional for more $$$) integrated trem block, but pretty much all of the solutions to floating tremolo problems offered by the Sophia have also been solved on the Floyd… albeit as add ons. An OFR with all the aftermarket “mitigations” is still a fraction of the cost of a Sophia.

For the price of a Sophia, I decided to go with Titanium Floyds instead. The reason? Titanium Floyds solve a problem that even the Sophia did not solve for: the tendency for bridges to develop gunk, rust, and corrosion. My Titanium Floyds do not tarnish, rust, or gunk up.

I also could not handle the tiger print finish. I tried. Ended up sending mine off and refinishing it in metallic tangerine pearl. Will take a bath on that guitar when I sell it.
 
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For those that have never had a Floyd before I might recommend the frx.

I just installed one on an ltd sparrowhawk and found it much easier to set up than a standard Floyd. After proper stretching and tuning it is as stabile as can be and sounds great.
 
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