When the player hits the bar, the inertia block pulls on the springs, the strings loosen and drop in pitch, and then the assembly is pulled back into position by the springs in back when released.

Jimi Hendrix - While others may have used the vibrato quite a bit, including Pete Townshend, the guy who REALLY Put the Stratocaster whammy on the map was Jimi Hendrix. Here comes this blues-rocker during the psychadelic era, and he's got a right-handed Stratocaster, strung and played upside-down, and he's hammering on that vibrato bar like a lunatic - and staying in tune.

Ritchie Blackmore - Another guy who put the Strat's vibrato unit on the map, was Ritchie Blackmore of Deep Purple and Rainbow fame. He was almost as nuts as Hendrix with the vibrato and put it through it's paces quite a bit.

Edward Van-Halen - Probably the most notable vibrato user was Edward Van-Halen on his original "Frankenstrat", in it's early black and white and very early Red/Black/White incarnations up until about 1981 or 1982 when he met Floyd Rose. This guitar was a Lynn Ellsworth (Warmoth) factory second Ash body, with a succession of various Strat necks on it, a revolving door of Humbuckers, custom and stock, and of course, a 1958 Fender Stratocaster vibrato unit. And of course, Ed kept this thing in tune. His method was the most involved and esoteric of the lot!

Ed would first, set the vibrato up decked, with 2 springs and the claw cranked up. The guitar was strung with Fender Bullet .009-.042 or .009-.040 strings and then those strings went over a brass nut, into the machine heads. The strings were wound UPWARD - instead of down, to lessen the breakover angle over the nut, and allow them to slide more smoothly, in addition to using 3'in'1 oil on the nut to allow the strings to slip and slide even more. He also says he would turn the strings a little bit, as he wound them onto the guitar.

George lynch - George Lynch, is probably one of the few 80's guys left still flying the original Strat Trem flag on some of his guitars (he uses Floyd Rose trems too).

But another vital piece, not necessarily unique to the Strat vibrato, is that periodically, you might need to pull on a string, or pull up on the bar, to re-center things. This also applies to Strats. He said "playing with a vibrato bar is like playing wiht 2 instruments at the same time" according to one interview I read - there's a whole second discipline to playing with a vibrato unit.

I'd say the #1 problem I find is User-Error. IE, strings are wound all fucky at the headstock, they did not make sure the ball ends seated into the inertia block all the way, they did not adjust the springs or add/remove them to match the string gauge they are using, or they don't even know the concept of what "string gauges" even are. Also not stretching them out properly and getting them to the right equalibrium messes up tuning quite a bit too. And I don't fault them. I took me a very long time to realize there are guitarists who are just players, and guitarists who are geeked out gearheads like myself.

The second part of it is the instrument itself. Especially copy guitars. If the nut is cut too skinny for the string gauge used being a huge one, or the string guides causing strings to hang up on them. Dirty nut slots or dirty bridge saddles will do it to (and sometimes even contribute to string breakage), as well as the string guides.

Another common problem unique to the Six Screw style is that there's too many points of friction there with six screws. When Leo designed this thing, it was designed to work like a Bigsby - light warbles only - but due to the fact the release-arc of the strings is VERY high on a Strat-type trem, this allows full slack of the strings, and means it's VERY responsive. However, this also means six screws = six points of friction, so a lot of us do different things to work around this. I tend to just use the outer two screws and the middle four are either removed or turned up higher - some guys put the middle two down as well. Some companies, like Peavey, made a "4-screw" variety on their guitars that worked excellently.

And lastly, a common tuning problem hangup point is the point of pivot itself. IE, some really poorly put together copies have the springs scraping against the rear rout, the inertia block is too far forward to properly clear or square off against the through-body rout. I've seen cases where they don't even make the route a clear, square, hole through the body, rather they make it a strange tetris-like mess of ridges and edges everywhere and then the bar can't go back to it's "zero" position properly, because something is rubbing, blocking, or causing a problem.

1. the tuners at the headstock (assuming you strung it up wrong)
2. the nut itself (strings need to slide through easily)
3. the pivot screws (best to reduce to 2 or 4 points of friction rather than full six)
4. the bridge saddles themselves (the string surface should be glossy, free of burrs, and clean)
5. the inertia block itself (sometimes the string has to ride over the edge of it's hole in the tailplate/inertia block and this can slide a little on it's own as well)
6. The string ball ends (hence why I'm a big fan of Fender Bullet end strings)

Other points of concern is the neck pocket depth or neck angle. A lot of strat copies have problems with too-deep a neck pocket, sometimes to the point that you can let the saddles all the way down and it still can't get action low enough to be fast without a neck shim. Problem is, if you're like me, and a bit of a easily annoyed perfectionist with the classic six screw tremolo who wangs on it like I'm in a Pantera cover band, you don't like those screws digging into the meat of your hand when palm muting.

The two point tremolo removes the issue with the screws from the six screw. It also adds a capability to have some wobble by lifting the bridge up slightly on it's pivot posts - which reduces the bridge saddles to the role of getting the curvature right to the neck if you want to go with a "floating" setup. You can also float the six screw - which is the original intent (it's supposed to leave a gap on the body and pivot on the corner edge of the tailplate), but it tends to not always be stable, and you lose some travel.

Usually I start setup on a Strat using the old strings to see how low everything goes on that guitar, once you've done this a few times, you can do it without even having to look at it much. There are a epic TON of guitars out there with this trem unit, and they all have different neck pocket depths, some pockets are angled, some are flat, some even dip in deeper at the body end (really bad cheap guitars), and all of these can affect setup in a negative way. You also want to check for any shims - but don't just assume it's a bad setup either - it could be there for a reason, like to level a reverse angled neck pocket, or to raise the end of the neck up so the bridge saddles can sit higher and not dig into the player's muting hand.

The next part is to do all the usual stuff - check the neck for upbow/backbow, and adjust the Truss Rod accordingly. Ideally is a perfectly straight neck with even frets all the way up and down. I find with cheaper stratocaster copies, I have to level and recrown the frets, and even re-dress them because the factory saves money by not doing a proper level, crown, and polish on these necks before they leave the factory. It's passable and still better than most acoustics that way to start, but still not as great as something that's been professionally leveled, dressed, and setup. Once all that is sorted, we need to look at the neck pocket.

The standard Fender Stratocaster neck pocket depth is around 5/8" deep. However, I've seen them as shallow as 1/2" - like the Hondo Paul Dean guitars, which was done on those to accomodate a taller Leo Quan style wraparound bridge, while some are as deep as 3/4" deep, and then the fretboard and pickups are really low, but the bridge saddles have long adjustment screws sticking out. Another problem is the different variations of copycat Strat trems out there, some of them have screws that are too long (to compensate for things like that Paul Dean product line, like maybe a Hondo Paul Dean III might be like) or too short (assuming the maker is using a deep neck pocket). Sometimes the whole setup is perfect without a shim. You have to use your own judgement. Personally, I tend to shim the neck if needed to get the saddles high enough to make all adjustment below the saddle height, so it's comfortable, but not shim it so high that getting above the "buzzing" point is impossible.

Getting good action is a game of angles, so making sure the nut is cut right (about a business card thickness between the 1st fret and the low E string, and just slightly less for the high E). With a perfectly straight neck, level frets, perfect nut depth all the way across, the strings can stay relatively straight, the action stays relatively low all the way from the 1st fret onward, the guitar buzzes little or not at all (little enough not to go through the amplifier), notes sound thick, full, loud, and very much in tune (if you're "darn near perfect pitch" like I am - seriously, we'll talk guitar tuning in another article), and honestly, if you're a player, you're really not going to want to put it down (points to self: hey, how the hell do you think I own so many guitars as a non-rock star and can't come to sell most of em'.....because of this fact alone, lol).

Now we get to the main event - keeping this thing in tune. This all starts with doing all of the above correctly, including installing quality strings. Personally, I use Ernie Ball Paradigm and Fender Bullet strings on these types of tremolos. However, I also reccommend Dunlop if you're on a budget. Make sure to wrap them NEATLY on the capstans, and wind them toward the headstock (Though I don't refute Edward Van-Halen's method either - of winding them upwards, as it does indeed reduce friction at the nut by removing the breakover angle, but some players might not want that for sonic or stability reasons depending on the guitar we are talking about, and it is possible to get that end working the traditional way). You might also want to consider putting graphite in the nut - something I've been doing since forever. The idea of graphite is to fill in the microscopic pores in the material...or fill any teensy weensy tiny gaps or scratches in the nut, to let the strings slide through. The purpose is similiar to that of the crosshatching in the cylinders in your car engine, lets lubrication work it's magic with the metal-on-whatever contact.

One other bit of restringing is to make sure you have the string pulled all the way into the inertia block. I've seen this too where the string suddenly "releases". I find this to be a real problem with some import blocks or people who are scared of pulling their strings harder than if they can barely lift a can of green beans with their hand like it's going to rip a metal guitar string in half...I have news for you, some Cheese slicers use a high E string to cut cheese and some meats....if it's good enough to setup a Charcuterie board, then it's not going to break just because you make sure to pull it taught in the intertia block of a strat tremolo. No, you don't need to literally yank it till you have a red line in your hand, just a decent enough tug to seat the ball end right.

Once I have all the strings installed, The next thing I look at, is the initial action. I often try to pre-compensate everything "close enough" so I don't have to do a lot of adjustment. More adjustment = more strain on the strings, especially with flat intonation or action that's lower than it should be.

It's at this point I work in this order - action, spring tension, intonation, and then stretching out the strings.

I can spend a really long time setting saddle heights, because I like to find the "sweet spot" on each string, where each string sounds loud, alive, in tune, and buzzes the least, but is really easy to play. Got to remember, I'm a hard-rock LEAD guitarist by trade, so I tend to prefer guitars with low, fast action more than I do high action and lots of sustain. The reason I do action adjustments FIRST - is because it can affect how the guitar intonates - remember, ANGLES.

Next is spring tension, I tend to find action also affects this a bit too, because, yet again, angles. It changes the departure angle from the intertia block to the bridge saddle, and this can have a slight "lever effect" on the bridge where more or less counter-tension is needed by the springs in the back. The more releif and "leverage" the strings have (ie further out saddles) - can have an easier time pulling up the trem. I find the position of the "G" saddle can tell this story well, since not all guitars with a Strat trem have it positioned in exactly the same spot, some are a little forward, some are a little back, some tailplates are longer or shorter, sometimes the attachment method differs and alters the pivot arc and thusly distance of saddles from the string holes, etc). Intonation can have an effect a little bit as well, so I usually recheck this after intonation as well, though it seems to have less or zero effect on it comparitively.

On most of my guitars strung with .009s I use 2 springs for a softer feel, and crank the claw way back. Most people prefer 3 which offers a stiffer feel. For .011's I've used 4 springs, and I've gone as high as .014-.060 (yes, in e-standard) - which had five springs in my Kramer and the claw only cranked back about 3/4ths of the way. It's much the same as a Floyd Rose setup (though I find the Floyd Rose a little more forgiving). For myself, I tend to prefer my stratocaster trems DECKED. Meaning, when at rest, it's sitting firm, flat, against the body, which gives better coupling to the body, better sustain, and can have mild effects on the tone overall, usually making it thicker because now the bridge is "talking to" that huge chunk of wood on the bottom of the guitar, and absorbing some of the high frequencies through it. We're not talking "tone wood" here, we're literally just talking the dampening effects of a heavier material coupled to a softer material. This is why I have owned/played a lot of Strats I setup, and they all sound surprisingly big despite having single coils - because coupling that trem to the body really helps sustain and gives the body a minimal, though noticeable to the trained ear, say in the tone of the guitar.

After checking the action and intonation and springs again. Then - on Six Screw trems, I usually loosen the inner 4 screws, and the outer two are cranked down just enough to allow the trem to drop flat on the body easily. The idea is to make the whole system work together as a team to keep that thing in tune. The big problem with the six screw are those outer two screws - you need them JUST high enough to allow the guitar to drop back at the same point repeatedly (or close enough, I give SOME tolerance to this because this is a very crude and rudmentary system TBH, so a few semitones off is fine), but the screws need to be low enough to allow it to set at the same point as well, because if they sit too high, the tremolo can drop back at a different height, which will REALLY fuxxor your tuning. 2-point units don't have this problem. Something that MIGHT help this is using a countersink drill bit to turn the inside of those holes themselves into a knife edge - which really helps because there's less friction due to less surface area, and Strat tremolos are pretty cheap TBH, especially the import ones. At $16 a pop new from China, I ain't complaining.

More recently, I've been using digital tuners and checking how well my guitars stay in tune with a tremolo unit, and the brutal truth is almost none of them, not even a Floyd or Jaguar/Jazzmaster, drop back 100% in perfect tune. Ditto with the Stratocaster tremolo. It's almost impossible. It's a man-made machine, there needs to be some tolerance. While this does annoy people who have perfect pitch (sometimes even me to a surprising degree), the real talent here is to learn how to WORK with that issue.

I know I'm referencing Edward Van-Halen a lot here, but c'mon, the guy literally INVENTED the modern use of a whammy bar system. One thing that stuck with me a lot regarding trem use, is how Edward said "It's like a second instrument" - it basically is. Sometimes there's little goofey things you need to do - just like turning your machine head just the right amount mid song to make tuning adjustments on the fly, sometimes pulling the bar back or pushing the bar forward a little after using the tremolo is needed. That's the old school way of doing it, and a way I still do things to this day with these kinds of systems.

The goal with routing a guitar for a trem, is for the body to interfere with the tremolo unit not at all. The trem unit - in the case of a Strat - should sit FLAT against the body, and have nothing hitting either side of the inertia block, springs, or blocking the block from sitting almost a perfect 90-degrees perpendicular to the body at rest.

I blame some of the problems with tremolos on these guitars with their quasi-modular "parts bucket" approach. Most of these companies make certain necks, bodies, and use certain scale lengths for them, and then mix and match all their "parts bucket" for various models. So say, the company only uses one neck, a 25.5" scale 21 fret neck, but base their strat body on a 25.5" scale 22 fret neck guitar without an overhang - and then use a Strat trem with the standard Fender-style eight or 11 hole strat pickguard with routing that makes it look good. Then they have to shift the bridge back by 1/8" inch because of the shorter 21 fret neck. Samick did this in the 80's on the Memphis 302 series - because the neck heel on the Memphis necks were shorter than the Kramer or Harmony necks (KS400 and H80T necks) - and it meant shifting the bridge back by 1/8", which left a nice gap between the pickguard and the bridge, but also meant that the cutting of the opening would stop any other bridge from working correctly.