One thing that really bothers me is the difficulty maintaining guitars that use floating bridges rather than fixed bridges. It’s really simple: depending on the type of strings used (light, medium, heavy) the bridge system may not balance out to allow the player full range of note bending–either up or down (sharp or flat).
The problem is that lighter gauge strings pull the bridge toward the nut with lower force than heavy gauge strings. Depending on the pulling force in the opposite direction provided by the springs behind the bridge, the bridge may be tilted way forward (strings provide more pull toward the neck). This means that the player can’t hit a note and then make it go lower by pushing forward on the tremolo arm, more commonly known as “dive bombing,” because the distance is limited since the bridge is already in the front position. Similarly, if the strings pull more toward the back of the guitar, the player will be unable to hit a note and then raise the pitch because there’s not enough travel left.
My PRS guitars don’t have as much range pitch-wise compared to my Steinbergers. And the bridges are very different…In the last song on my Urban Connections CD titled “Holdshalen,” I did a lot of pitch bending that my PRS guitar just could not physically be capable of doing. I’m not sure if the clip at amazon.com has the ending part of the song with all that wacky guitar playing, but that part was actually a first take recording that would be difficult to reproduce if a person were not using a trem system that allowed more range of motion.
