How much do tremolos really bend the pitch?

[DSmolken]

OK, I rarely poke my head outside of the samples forum, but I could use some help with something I've been collecting data for for a few years. Trem/vibrato/whammy bar pitch bend depths!

Basically, if you have a guitar with a non-fixed bridge or tailpiece, a chromatic tuner and a couple of minutes, you can run a simple test. With the guitar in tune, push the bar far enough that the lowest string is a half-step flat - as close to 100 cents. Now, holding the bar in the same place, check how many cents the other strings have gone flat.

In general, small strings get bent a lot less - high E is 25-40 cents when low E is 100 cents, from what I've gathered. But wound strings seem to get bent less than plain strings of similar size, so whether the G is wound or plain makes a big difference. Exceptions appear to be the Mastery tailpiece, and (in theory, but not proven) the Steinberger Trans-Trem.

Some of what I've collected so far, plus a short video about the process, here:

https://shop.karoryfer.com/blog/karoryf ... r-tremolos

There's lots I don't have anything for yet: anything with more than 6 strings, Floyd Rose, Gibson sideways Vibrola (obviously doing the test with bending the pitch up, not down), Steinberger Trans-Trem, Mustang, Bass VI with a trem, Kahler roller bridge. And 60s oddities like the bridges on fancier Yamahas, Guyatones, or the Fury Fireball. Basically, lots of stuff I'll be very happy to get measurements of.

[lfm]

A common setup is to set floating tremolo such that thin E moved up 0.5 step, B moves full step and G move 1.5 step. This goes automatically.

A lot of licks and techniques build on this relationship.

Have not checked the other strings how much they are affected.

But a lot of slide emulating techniques, like Jeff Beck and Jennifer Batten - build on feel and hearing what you do, since dives can go down to zero Hz.

[DSmolken]

Thanks. High E half step, B full step and G one and a half steps is close to what I've been seeing consistently, as long as the G is plain. Very good point about dives - on the Danelectro where I tested the Strat-style trem, it'd bottom out with the high E string only 80 cents down. The Momose Jazzmaster can go a little over 100 cents down on high E, but not much more. The others I'm not sure about, but the bass Kahler could do 100 cents on its thinnest string without bottoming out.

Floyds, obviously, are a different story - but max depth would also be good data points to collect for cases where the range is more limited.

[nix808]

a non-extreme fingerbend on monofil steel strings is about a semitone I find,
I have the Floyd, I can check that np in the next coupla days

[DSmolken]

I'd appreciate it, I'm really curious if the ratios between strings will hold up with the deeper dives that a Floyd's capable of.

[nix808]

I just picked it up to see,
and it goes to 0 hz very easily.
It does hold a stern tune too, although I never use the trem(so I don't really know if a thrashing sends the tune out)
I'll find the ratio soon

[DSmolken]

Yeah, it'd be really cool to check how far the high E is down at the point where the low E bottoms out and doesn't want to vibrate anymore. If you can measure all the strings with the high E down 100 cents, 200 cents, 300 cents etc. until the low E just flops, that would be awesome.

[nix808]

okey doke
I'll see if there is a good computer tuner-
my synth rig has rad spectral imbalance at the nut

[DSmolken]

I use GTune, which is free. I know this stuff takes time and really appreciate your help.