On Tuesday night I helped my father-in-law fix a leaky cold water pipe in my basement. I always learn a lot from him and I one day hope to be able to do these things on my own. Hand me a guitar and I know just what to do. Hand me a wrench… and well…that can get ugly. It took me 16 hours to put hanging bars and shelves in an empty closet! But I digress..

As we worked on the pipe I learned that a wet pipe is hard to solder. The heat draws in the water which in turn cools the pipe and thus it will not draw the solder. So the next step was to try to counter draw the water by hooking up my shop vac to the faucet (nope, I am not kidding). That still didn’t work, so when all else fails, get a bigger torch!

So as we worked on fixing this leak, i could help but think about Floyd Rose Tremolos. You see, I started to realize as I was holding the vacuum to the faucet, that a plumbing system when it is set up properly is almost bullet proof but that set up is a delicate process, just like setting up a Floyd Rose.

I just purchased my first Floyd equipped guitar, a Washburn Dime 333 Dimebolt, in August from eBay. I have worked on Floyd systems before, and struggled with them but never owned one. I am super excited to have this new guitar and I will be writing more about it and it’s customization in future posts, but I am still dreading the Floyd.

You see a Floyd Rose Tremolo is a bullet proof system. You can beat the tar out of it and it stays in tune. Crazy dive bombs, strings flapping against your pickups, yank it sharp, and it still comes back for more. Try to change your strings however, and you could have a few days of tweaking on your hands. This amazing tremolo system relies on a delicate balance between the string tension and the tension of 3-5 springs (depending on your set-up). Once this balance is interrupted, it takes a while to get it back.  I have heard and tried various approaches. I have tried changing one string at a time, alternating the bass and treble strings. I have tried blocking the trem, and I have tried a combination of all of the above. No matter what I do, I know I can always count on about a 3 day adjustment period.

So, as it comes time to make this new guitar my own, I look forward to and dread at the same time working on the Floyd system. If anyone out there has any tips for me on setting this this thing up, I am ALL ears! Drop me a line at aaron@signaltonoise.fm if you would like to share your tips and tricks.

Signing off for now, until next time…Make Some Noise!

The above comic strip is actually a true story. I did study for and pass my test on “The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner” by listening to the Iron Maiden song of the same name. It was my favorite Maiden song because of the bass guitar part Steve Harris plays in the middle. I had never heard anyone play a bass so melodically, it just sang. So when i found out the song was based on a poem i was intrigued to learn more. As we read and discussed the poem in class, Iron Maiden’s song kept going through my head. It acted like a “Cliff’s Notes” for me and really helped me to wrap my head around it. So when Test time came, I sang that song over and over again in my head and passed!

So why am I telling this story? Because my buddy John over at Iron City Rocks invited me into going to see them this summer with another of our friends from High School. I was a huge maiden fan in High School. I am a bass player, so Steve Harris was my idol. I learned every song I could and had every album I could get my hands on, especially “Live After Death”.  That album was one of the greatest live albums I had ever heard, I had the double LP set that came with the tour book in it. I poured over that book studying every picture and reading every word trying to imagine what it was like to be there.

Now, fast forward to July 14th 2010. I am in the car with my buddies and that same excitement was pouring over. I had never seen Iron Maiden live and I was PUMPED for this show! I was also nervous. John had sent out the set list to it once it was posted on Blabbermouth (gotta love the internet!). Looking over the set I realized that there were only three songs from the classic “Live After Death” era that I grew up with.  Would I enjoy the show? Would it be torture? I had lost touch with Iron Maiden after Bruce Dickinson left the band in the early 90′s and never really picked back up with them. I really had no idea what to expect.

Not wanting to have a bad time at this show, I took the set list and purchased all the songs from iTunes and built my own play list of the show. I started listening to the new songs and realized that the band had not lost their edge. They had continued to put out great material long after I had stopped following them. So now I was ready.

The whole show was just amazing! I sang along with the rest of the crowd on every song at the top of my lungs. The Band played great and put on a great. As we walked back to the car that night, I got to thinking about bands that have had two vocalists or more and what happened to them. This is a subject I will explore in my next post.