Let's talk about Floyd Rose systems today! These systems are favored by Prince, EVH, Alex Lifeson, Richie Sambora, and James “J.Y.” Young alson with numerous others! What makes them so special and what is their history, well for that lets start at the beginning! Working as a jeweler in 1976 Floyd D. Rose started experimenting on his 57 Fender strat, his goal was to keep his strings in tune while using his stock tremolo system. The first thing he did was look at the traditional design of the nut, he thought if i lock these in place maybe this will solve the issue. He got right on it, early floyd nuts were made of brass and had three U clamps, later on he changed the material from brass to a hardened steel. This did not solve his issue 100% so he set out to design a replacement bridge system. Rose hand-made the first bridges and nuts, which were quickly picked up by some influential guitarists at the time, such as Eddie Van Halen.[4] Other well-known guitarists who picked it up early were Neal Schon, who purportedly got serial number 3, Brad Gillis serial number 4, and Steve Vai.The first patent was awarded in 1979.Shortly afterward Rose made an agreement with Kramer Guitars because he couldn’t keep up with demand manufacturing the bridges by hand. Kramer's guitar models with the Floyd Rose bridge became hits! This led them to drop the earlier Rockinger vibrato in favor of the Floyd Rose between June 1982 and January 1983. The Floyd Rose design's popularity led to other companies making similar bridges violating his patent. The big one was the Kahler Tremolo System, this infringed on a few of Floyd Rose's patents. After a court case Floyd Rose was awarded a judgment in excess of $100 million against Gary Kahler. Rose continued to work with Kramer until they were bought by Fender in 1991, then the flood gates opened up. At this point the consumer could get Fender Floyd Rose-licensed vibrato systems, this move allowed Fender to offer a few models with the original Floyd Rose Tremolo, such as the Richie Sambora Signature Strat in 1991, the Floyd Rose Classic Stratocaster in 1992 and the Set-Neck Floyd Rose Strat in 1993.Floyd Rose collaborated with Fender to design a Fender Deluxe Locking Tremolo, introduced in 1991 on the Strat Plus Deluxe, the USA Contemporary Stratocaster, and the Strat Ultra. Fender used the Floyd Rose-designed locking vibrato system on certain humbucker-equipped American Deluxe and Showmaster models until 2007. In 2005, distribution of the Floyd Rose Original reverted to Floyd Rose, whereas the patented designs were licensed to other manufacturers to use.
Why Floyds? Well the main advantage of the Floyd Rose vibrato system is its double-locking design. This makes the guitar stay in tune through large pitch changes. By forcing the vibrato bar all the way down to the guitar body, or pulling up on the bar to raise the tone by as much as a fifth or even more. A typical bridge set-up has it floating so the player can both raise and lower the pitch with the vibrato bar. On the downside if a string breaks the balance is out of whack leaving the bridge out of position and pulling the guitar out of tune. Since the tension of one string affects the tension of all the others, it can take several tries through the tuning process before the instrument is tuned. Some players, including Eddie Van Halen, prefer to instead have a half-floating bridge, which allows only downwards motion acting more like a traditional tremolo system.