Floyd Rose – Still Breaking New Ground

A lifelong musician who has played with the bands C.O.R.E. and Q5 and is lately writing country songs, guitarist and technological guru Floyd D. Rose developed the locking tremolo for guitar in the late '70s, ushering in a musical innovation embraced by the likes of Eddie Van Halen, Neal Schon, and Joe Satriani. His latest breakthrough, the FRX Tremolo System, designed for Les Paul, SG, and Flying V-style guitars, is a direct swap for the Tune-O-Matic and stopbar type bridge system. It has a locking nut that can simply be mounted in place of the truss rod cover. Rose spoke with MMR about his latest invention.

Over how many years was the FRX Tremolo System in the making?

Floyd Rose: Since the Kramer days I've always wanted to have one that you could install on a Gibson guitar, like a Les Paul, where you didn't have to route it. Back then I had talked to Helmut Challer about maybe making one of these, and he took it upon himself to make the one that you will find on the web that sits on top of it and is form fitted to the top. It didn't work very well for a few reasons, mostly because you couldn't get enough spring pressure and some other technical reasons. It never worked to my standards. There were a few of them sent out, and then we discontinued it pretty quickly. A few years after he did that one, I decided to try to do it the way he did it only make it a little bit bigger so you get more springs on it. I did that with one prototype and still wasn't satisfied with it because it was pretty big and heavy and wasn't aesthetically very cool, so I much dropped it until I started thinking about it again recently. I think I started a year and a half or two years ago. The spring problem came up again, and I realized that you only have about 3/4" to work in and how are you going to get a strong enough spring to work in that kind of room. You can't, and that's when I started thinking about putting the spring in back, and the key invention is what I call the transfer rod, which transfers the spring pressure to the base plate.

Do you find that time is a main factor in figuring out problems like this?

Yeah, when I start thinking about what the problem is then I just try to imagine mechanisms that will accomplish what I need. Obviously in the original Floyd the problem was friction – when you released the tension on the strings, the strings would move over the bridge saddles and the nut, and when the springs returned the bridge back to its original position the strings would drag and not come right back into tune. That was a problem, so my idea was how do you get the least amount of friction? Well, if there's no movement, there's no friction. That's where the clamping came from, to keep the strings from moving over the nut and the bridge.

The FRX features a new function called "assisted floating," which offers better tuning stability. Could you talk more about that?

That has been an issue from the beginning that people have had with my bridges because they are so delicately balanced on the knife-edges. Just a slight touch on the bridge would make you go sharp if you had to rest your hand on the bridge. So you would have to do what Eddie Van Halen does and put a block under it so when you rest your hand on it, it doesn't move. But then you can only push down or just have to learn to play [it the way it is]. I never had that problem because I never rested my hand on the bridge really heavily. I had two versions – one thing I called a spring-loaded stop back in the Kramer days, and it basically did what this new trem assist post and spring does on the new bridge. But on this bridge it's very small and very simple and works perfectly. The good thing about this bridge is that all of the adjustments are done right from the top of the guitar. You don't have to take a plate off the back and mess with anything in the back.

How have people responded so far to the FRX Tremolo System?

The response has been great so far. We've had a couple of issues because of the space issue. I put it on three different Gibsons: an old flat top, a brand-new Gibson, and a brand-new SG. They were pretty close on my old flat top to not getting the action high enough, but it worked on all of them. Now that we've gone out in the field, apparently the neck angle on the Gibsons changes slightly, and a slight change in the neck will affect it, so we've addressed that now. A couple of guitars that went out had a little thing that protrudes below the base plate and would hit the face of the guitar, so we shortened that.

Every new generation of bands tends to have its own styles and sounds. What concerns or requests have younger players come to you with in terms of guitar technology?

It's never happened. I seem to be the only one that wants to move it forward. People complain about things in the bridge, for instance, like the floating and the fact that there are clamps and you have to cut the ball off the string. It's something I'd rather not do, too, but you have to decide what's more important, perfect tuning while you use the tremolo or not, or the trouble you have to go to to string it. Back in 2004, we came out with the SpeedLoader bridge. We had to stop making them because of a [patent] lawsuit, so that's why you haven't seen many of them. We made these springs and are about to start making them again – there's a bullet on each end and the strings are made so accurately that when you put them into the bridge it comes back to the previous strings' tuning. That way you don't have to cut off the balls, and it's a really simple bridge to restring because there are no clamps.

Are there any new projects on the horizon at Floyd Rose?

Right now the only thing we're working hard on is getting the SpeedLoader strings back in production, now that we're allowed to make them again, for the people who bought those guitars with them. They love them, but we haven't been able to make the strings, so we are gearing up to do that again. We're going to decide if we're going to start manufacturing the SpeedLoader and putting them on guitars again.

Which guitarists have you liked in terms of their tremolo technique?

Jimi Hendrix was the first one that I went, “Whoa, what was that!” And Ritchie Blackmore was the guy I played the most like and liked his style, and I thought the way he used the whammy bar was great. Interestingly enough, once I invented it [locking vibrato] and was able to stay in tune myself, I had a bigger repertoire of whammy bar licks than anyone for a year or two until they caught up. It was kind of nice for a while. I had the jump on everybody there. You couldn't do the tricks on a regular Strat tremolo that I was doing. You certainly couldn't do that and come back in tune.