Remove floyd rose locking nut

[coco2ligne]

Hey everyone,
I’m looking for a new guitar to buy, but i’m stuck at some point : I’d like to have a tremolo bar, but most of them are floyd rose, however I play both standart and Drop D tuning, floyd rose is obviously a bad idea for the tuning swap. I was wondering if it was possible to remove the locking nut of a floyd rose, so I can still use the trem bar (obviously not for crazy dives) but it also let me change tuning easily.
Thx for your answers

 

[idssdi]

If you don’t want to crazy dive bombs and stuff like that you could look into a bigsby or a strat like tremolo (I think they sell strats with HH configuration too)

 

[coco2ligne]

The fact is that i already have a guitar in mind ;D , and depending on the answers on this thread i’d go for the hardtail, or floyd rose model.
The guitar is the Charvel Pro Mod DK24, which is not available with a strat like tremolo.
I’m not tremolo dependent, so if the answer is no, i’ll jsut go for the hard tail model, however the tremolo is sort of a little bonus.

 

[idssdi]

The locking nut is actually not the only thing that makes detuning annoying. Detuning changes the tension in the strings and therefore the tension in the springs that keep the floyd rose in place will not be right anymore. If you want to detune I would get the hardtail

 

[coco2ligne]

Yeah, that’s what i thought, thanks for your answers man, I’ll probably go for the hardtail then.

 

[Alan Celis]

you could also block the floyd to be dive only, i recently did it with my guitar and now i can change tunings and it has even better tuning stability when i do crazy dives, even with rusted strings hahaha.
I rarely even pulled up with the floyd so you should also look into that

 

[Rad Synner]

Well I know Van Halen uses a little thing called the D-tuna. Though it disables some tremolo options, it makes the switch between standard and tuning even faster than any other guitar with a more ”normal” bridge. Here is a link and try to find out more about it as its been a while since I looked it up
http://www.dtuna.com/index.php

 

[Ed Seith]

In order to use that without going out of tune, you need a Tremsetter (zero-stop mod) or block it to dive only.

 

[coco2ligne]

I’ve heard about the TreomlNo, but i have no idea how this works, or if it is similar to the other options you suggest.
What would happen if i remove the locking nut, without adding any of the tools you quoted ?
I suppose the tuning stability will be awful. Does locking the bridge to dive only help to increase the tuning stability ?
What is the impact of the tools you suggested ?

 

[idssdi]

Tremolno blocks the bar so you can’t do dive bombs or anything you would use your tremolo for. It is practiCarly the same as a hardtail

 

[Ed Seith]

Removing the locking nut only reduces tuning stability. It’s not a contributing factor when changing tunings. At all. Changing tunings is changing the overall tension on the top side of the bridge – the springs on the bottom WILL compensate.
Tremsetter works like a restaurant kitchen door. It’s not perfect and changes the feel, but it’s a solid solution. I have them on my Floyd-equipped guitars.
Tremsetter

 

[coco2ligne]

There is something i’m missing i think:
How hard is it to change tuning on floyd rose WITH the locking nut ?
I’ve read that if the locking nut is removed, when changing tuning, the springs needs to be re-setup. Is it true ?
I checked the Tremsetter, this seems hard to install, did you install them on your own ? Also i don’t really see how this helps for tuning :/
Thx for your answers and your time so far ;D

 

[Alan Celis]

i blocked off my trem this way

but i dont see why you would want to remove the locking nut, i mean you can actually remove it if you want but then you would have to add a nut to the guitar and for that you will have to take it to a luthier or try to do it by yourself. but theres no point to that, the locking nut clamps can be tightened and untightened by hand and they help with the tuning.
you will just need to untighten when you want to change tuning
and for the blocking of the trem, you just block it while your on E standard and you’re set for the lower tunings, just make sure that the bridge is leveled, because that is going to be your zero point. The floyd rose will be in the same position even if you are in drop C, but if you want to tune higher than E standard then you are going to have tuning issues because the tension on the strings will be higher than the one on the springs and it will move the bridge forward, in the other hand when you are in a low tuning the tension on the springs will be higher than on the strings but since the tremolo is blocked off that doesnt matter and the floyd will stay on the zero point and it will stay on tune and you will still be able to divebomb

 

[coco2ligne]

Ok that’s where i was wrong then,
I wanted to remove the locking nut because i thought that it was what would prevent me from changing tuning easily. I also thought that the locking nut was just a kind of srcews blocking the strings, but if removed there was still a standart nut, apparently that’s totally wrong.
So the goal of dive only, and the Tremsetter ed talk about, is to keep the bridge at the Zero point so that the springs are at the good tension for any tunning, right ?
I think i get it now, thx for the detailed answer Alan