Does Anyone Use A Floyd Rose Guitar Without Locking The Nut?

[TonyFlyingSquirrel]

The Tremol-No is perfect for detuning one or two strings, but if you’re looking to transpose the entire guitar, the Digitech Drop pedal is your best friend.

 

[ZeroS1gnol]

Chiming in on the Tremol-no: avoid it. It's a nice idea, but it will not be as stable as a hardtail when in locked mode and unlocked you basically have a loose screw in your guitar that you can lose. Speaking from experience, I have a guitar with one installed. If you want a Floyd and also play in different tunings, I would simply suggest to get different guitars for different tunings, if budget allows.

 

[Marked Man]

Graphtech now makes a nut designed specifically to replace Floyd locking nuts. It's likely your best option. Apparently it has "triple the lubricity" of their normally Tusq XL nuts, which sounds great on paper anyway.



A Floyd-equipped guitar without the locking nut, but with a properly-cut, good-quality material like a Graphtech nut is a completely different animal than just running a Floyd nut with the locking nut, but with the locks removed.

For years and years, Carvin sold Floyd-equipped guitars without the locking nut, with the nut as an optional extra. It's automatically included now, though. But it was quite bafffeling for a lot of people, for a long time, and was a line in the sand for many people itching to pull the trigger on an in-stock that was perfect, but for the lack of locking nut.
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All of those Carvins (well....at least DC400s for sure) came with Sperzel locking tuners. I have DC400 with this combo and it stays in tune very well. I guess if someone constantly pummeled their wang bar, it may not be as good as with a locking nut, but then you'd go blind anyway so......

 

[Omzig]

I'm not too keen on the D-Tuna. It would limit the Floyd range of motion upwards, which isn't what I'm after. Something like a Tremol-No makes more sense to me because it would be temporary and as needed.

Yep if you do a lot of pull up's D-tuna's without a routed slot can be a bit limiting,

Have you tried turning the Low E up to pitch with the fine tunner almost all the way in, Locking the nut down and then backing out the Fine tunner fully to drop to D, i used to do this a few years ago and managed to get the tone drop within the limit of the fine tuner, worth a try.

 

[Pingu]

I'm not a really heavy whammy bar guy so I have the locks off on the nut on almost all my Floyds. From my experience even with gentle use (maybe one dive/pull in a song at most), I feel like a regular nut would be better than the Floyd. Someone posted some old Carvins, I think that's what the closest formula is. A well cut and lubed nut, coupled with a straight string pull into locking tuners.

 

[trem licking]

I'm willing to bet the floyd nut without locking pads would work better than a regular nut anyway, as there will be far less friction. I would try it yourself before modifying. Regular nuts are a pain in the ass compared to a floyd nut

 

[bigswifty]

I'm willing to bet the floyd nut without locking pads would work better than a regular nut anyway, as there will be far less friction. I would try it yourself before modifying. Regular nuts are a pain in the ass compared to a floyd nut

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet, do some experimentation and report back..
Surprisingly, there is not a lot of information out there on this topic that I could find! I would have thought there would be more..

I appreciate all the feedback here though - lots to consider.

 

[nightsprinter]

Maybe I just need to bite the bullet, do some experimentation and report back..
Surprisingly, there is not a lot of information out there on this topic that I could find! I would have thought there would be more..

I appreciate all the feedback here though - lots to consider.

Since there is no graphtec unlock for a 7, I'd be curious to see if a machine shop can take measurements of the 6 string iteration and transpose it into a 7 made of brass. Brass won't have the slipperyness of graphite impregnated plastic or whatever tusq is, but I wonder if it would work. With a metal nut, one could feasibly make it a 2 piece design like the Warwick adjustable brass nuts so you could raise or lower the nut with the threaded screws. This sounds like a recipe for inconsistent tuning, but I'm curious nonetheless.

(This would take too much time money and effort but I'm tossing it out in case any machinist guitar players want to give it a go)

 

[tedtan]

It would be convenient to have the unlock nut, but you can just go with a regular graphtech nut. It won’t cover the footprint of the Floyd nut, but that’s just cosmetic.