floating bridge (Albert Lee HH) - does this look right to you?

[Junta]

Hello,

First post here...

I recently bought an (used) Albert Lee signature model HH. The purchase comes with a free set up. I already have a hard tail bridge electric (Les Paul), so the idea behind this purchase was to get a guitar with a good quality vibrato/tremolo arm - tuning stability being more important than other factors.

I asked the guitar tech to 'float the bridge', and told him that I drop tune to D occasionally. Well, I got tuning stability alright... Heavy duty tremolo arm use (dive and pull up), digging in with cowboy chords, and heavy duty bending... And I still cannot get this guitar to go out of tune. Despite temperature changes during a 24 hour cycle (due to open window), it still stays in perfect tune. I am not used to this kind of stability with my Les Paul.

My dilemma is this: the tremolo arm is set too loose - it is too sensitive. For lack of a better description, I want it to have a certain degree of resistance. The bridge looks like this:

Do these look right to you? Is the bridge supposed to be angled like that? Or is it supposed to be parallel to the body? How should I describe what I want to the tech (they do follow up adjustments for free within a one month period luckily) if I want the arm to be less sensitive.

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[DrKev]

Welcome to the forum!

Nothing wrong with that at all. I have mine angled a little more so I get more "up pull" (see photo) but what ever you're happy with will work great. If you want the overall feel to be stiffer, try adding springs.

 

[xjbebop]

The angle is correct. If you want more resistance you'll need to add springs (assuming it's using 3-4 now rather than 5), then re-adjust the claw to get back to that angle.
btw- use your ears, not your eyes...

 

[Fro]

If your going to be changing your tuning I would suggest decking the trem. It will make changing to drop d and back much easier.

 

[TripHazard]

That looks exactly how my HH is set up. Works well for me

 

[Dead-Eye]

That's fine. If it were parallel to the body it wouldn't be floating.

There's a small allen screw on the back of the bridge (next to the intonation screws, about where the trem arm attaches). That's for adjusting the trem arm resistance and you can easily to that yourself.

 

[Spudmurphy]

Resistance? Now I presume that you mean the resistance felt when you depress or pull up on the trem arm?

well to be honest I can't get my head around this concept - Maybe DrK can explain in layman's terms the physics behind this?

As I see it ... ... ... so the trem plate pivots at two places.

- If you have say 3 springs that exceed the pull of the strings(to a great extent) then the trem plate will be hard to the deck.

- If you reduce the pulling power of the springs say by taking one spring off then the plate will start to lift, and to set that lift at the desired height (in DR K's 1/8 inch example) you would adjust the Trem claw, to set the tension of the Springs versus Strings, thereby arriving at the 1/8".

- now here's where my brain starts to get addled!! - If for whatever reason you wanted only 2 springs because you thought that it would make the trem arm more sensitive, you would (by removing one spring) now have to screw the trem plate inwards to allow for the loss of one spring AND to retain the 1/8".

- so how would 2 springs with a trem claw screwed in tight be different to 3 springs with the trem claw out - surely these two applications, whilst both achieving the 1/8" height would be exerting the same tension, making the trem arm feel the same? or does a 2 spring application actually feel lighter?

- and on a separate issue if the OP is referring to "swing" of the Trem arm ... either sloppily spinning around or staying in the one desired position, then the allen key under the trem plate (as already stated) will do that - and we can all sleep easily without trying to understand the complexities of Springs/Strings/trem claws = tensions !!!

 

[bhull]

Bridge looks perfectly floated as you requested.

Some people prefer to have it sitting on the body of the guitar. I for one feel that I get a better tone out of my strat with it sitting on the deck, but I loose the ability to go sharp with the trem, I can only dive it.

- and on a separate issue if the OP is referring to "swing" of the Trem arm ... either sloppily spinning around or staying in the one desired position, then the allen key under the trem plate (as already stated) will do that - and we can all sleep easily without trying to understand the complexities of Springs/Strings/trem claws = tensions !!!

After re-reading the post, it certainly could be interpreted both ways.

OP - please clarify if you are referring to the resistance of the bridge or the rotation resistance of the arm that plugs into it.

 

[CHill]

String tension and tremolo spring tension need to balance to float the tremolo. Using Ernie Ball RPS 10 strings and 3 springs for the tremolo adds that tremolo resistance compared to using thinner 9s. I just had to tighten the 3 tremolo spring claw screws about 1 to 2 turns to compensate for the 10s.

 

[steevo]

I went to hybrid 9's, mainly to get a little more string tension.
Check how many springs you have on the trem, sounds like it may be set up with just two.

Sent from my HTC One_M8 using Tapatalk

 

[robochimp]

How do you adjust the trem arm tension on your Silhouette? my trem arm is loose, and I can't find any place for an allen key?

 

[Tollywood]

Great choice going with the Albert Lee. It has a nice full neck and killer Axis pickups. I float my tremolo exactly like that, too.

However, I would think that trying to drop it to Drop D would mess up the tuning on the other strings. I use an Axis with a Floyd Rose and a D-Tuna for dropping down to Drop D. Especially when time is a factor, like when playing out.