Vintage Style Trem. Floating or Flush?

[Sixx]

Just curious on others thoughts on this issue.

I have always preferred to have just a bit of float. It seems to make the guitar play a bit slinkier. I have heard that keeping the trem flush improves tone/sustain.

Thoughts???

[killerburst]

It does change the tone. You'd have to try it to see if the change is an improvement to your ears. All you need is 30 minutes and a screwdriver to see for yourself.

[joe1962]

I find advantages to both floating and non-floating.

With non-floating you can do double-stop licks and not have the unbent string go flat, and if you break a string the guitar doesn't go out of tune. You can also drop the low E down to D without having to retune the rest of the guitar (great if you use that tuning live).

Floating gives a smoother vibrato on chords and allows for some of the flutter trem tricks.

There is a slight difference in tone between the two as well, and you really have to just try it both ways with your guitar to see which you prefer. One thing I've noticed about floating setups is that I can usually hit a sweet spot in the trem claw setup where the guitar seems to be a little livelier.