Vibrato systems for guitar


A vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. It adds vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strings, typically at the bridge or tailpiece of an electric guitar using a controlling lever, which is alternately referred to as a whammy bar, vibrato bar, or tremolo arm. The lever enables the player to quickly and temporarily vary the tension and sometimes length of the strings, changing the pitch to create a vibrato, portamento, or pitch bend effect. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems.
The pitch-bending effects have become an important part of many styles, allowing creation of sounds that could not be played without the device, such as the 1980s-era shred guitar "dive bomb" effect.
The mechanical vibrato systems began as a device for more easily producing the vibrato effects that blues and jazz guitarists had achieved on arch top guitars by manipulating the tailpiece with their picking hand. Guitar makers have developed a variety of vibrato systems since the 1890s.
A vibrato-equipped guitar is typically more difficult to re-string and tune than a fixed-tailpiece guitar.
Since the regular appearance of mechanical vibrato systems in the 1950s, many guitarists have used them—from Chet Atkins to Duane Eddy and the surf music of The Ventures, The Shadows, and Dick Dale. In the 1960s and 1970s, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page, and Frank Zappa used vibrato arms for more pronounced effects. In the 1980s, shred guitarists Eddie Van Halen, Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and metal guitarists Kerry King, Ritchie Blackmore, Kirk Hammett, Terje Rypdal, Vernon Reid, David Torn and David Duhig used vibrato in a range of metal-influenced styles, many aided by the development of the double-locking design pioneered by Floyd Rose or the later Kahler, which eliminated many of the tuning issues associated with more basic designs and allowed guitarists to employ dramatic "dive bomb" effects freely throughout a performance.

Origin of names

Though a guitar's "tremolo arm" can produce variations of pitch, including vibrato, it cannot produce tremolo.
However it has become common practice for electric guitarists and manufacturers to use the terms vibrato and tremolo the other way round when referring to hardware devices and the effects they produce. This reversal of terminology is generally attributed to Leo Fender and the naming of his 1954 Stratocaster mechanical vibrato system as a "Tremolo Device for Stringed Instruments". Additionally, the 1956 Fender "Vibrolux" guitar amplifier, used electronically generated tremolo that Fender called "vibrato". Other classic guitar amplifiers contain electronic "vibrato units" that produce a tremolo effect via a tremolo circuit.
Doc Kauffman patent application for his "Vibrola" device spoke of "producing tremolo effects" in 1928.
Other widely used names for the device include "vibrato bar" and "whammy bar", the latter attributed to guitarist Lonnie Mack's aggressive, rapid manipulation of the pitch-bending device in his 1963 song "Wham!" It has also been called a "whang bar".

Designs

Most vibrato systems for guitar are based on one of four basic designs:
  1. Bigsby Vibrato Tailpiece, introduced in the late 1940s and used in close to original form on many guitars
  2. Fender Synchronized Tremolo or strat trem, introduced on the Fender Stratocaster, which inspired many designs, including:
  3. * Floyd Rose locking tremolo
  4. * G&L Dual-fulcrum Vibrato, designed by Leo Fender
  5. * Fender two-point synchronized tremolo
  6. Fender Floating Bridge, which has two main variants:
  7. * Fender Floating Tremolo or jag trem, introduced on the Fender Jazzmaster
  8. * Fender Dynamic Vibrato or stang trem, introduced on the Fender Mustang
  9. Cam-driven designs based on pedal steel guitar concepts, include:
  10. * Kahler Tremolo System
  11. * Washburn Wonderbar
  12. * Stetsbar tremolo
Many other designs exist in smaller numbers, notably several original designs marketed by Gibson under the Vibrola name, which they also used for some licensed Bigsby units.
In 2015 the FOMOfx company released a "Digital Whammy Bar System" called Virtual Jeff with a control lever mounted on the body of the guitar. The design won awards in Australia and the USA. An updated model, the Virtual Jeff Pro, was released in 2022.

Kauffman Vibrola

The world's first patented mechanical vibrato unit was created and designed by Doc Kauffman. The initial patent was filed in August 1929 and was officially published in 1932 under the title, Apparatus for producing tremolo effects. Between 1920 and 1980 Kauffman collaborated with many pioneering guitar manufacturers including Rickenbacker, Gibson and Fender. In the late 1930s Rickenbacker produced the first commercial batch of electric Spanish guitars, utilizing the Kauffman "Vib-rol-a" as a stock option, thus setting precedence for electric guitars produced by Fender and Gibson.
The Epiphone guitar company first offered the Vibrola as an option on some archtop guitars from 1935 to 1937. Epiphone sold the Vibrola as an aftermarket option as well. This Vibrola was also used on some Rickenbacker lap steel guitars at around the same time and was introduced on their six string 'Electro Spanish' guitars beginning about 1937.
Some early Vibrolas on Rickenbacker guitars were not operated by hand, but rather moved with an electrical mechanism developed by Doc Kauffman to simulate the pitch manipulation available with steel guitars. The Vibrola distributed as an option with Rickenbacker Electro Spanish guitars was hand operated like the earliest Epiphone Vibrolas. A later unit was created and used on Rickenbacker's Capri line of guitars in the 1950s, such as John Lennon's 1958 Rickenbacker 325. It was a side-to-side action vibrato unit that was notorious for throwing the guitar out of tune, hence Lennon's replacing his with a Bigsby B5 unit.

Bigsby

The first commercially successful vibrato system for guitar was the Bigsby vibrato tailpiece, often just called a Bigsby, invented by Paul Bigsby. The exact date of its first availability is uncertain, as Bigsby kept few records, but it was on Bigsby-built guitars photographed in 1952, in what became its standard form.
In several interviews, the late Merle Travis, for whom Bigsby designed his first vibrato, recalled the prototype as being built for him in the "late '40s". The design uses a spring-loaded arm that rotates a cylindrical bar in the tailpiece, varying the string tension to create vibrato and other pitch variations. The string tension is balanced against a single, short helical compression spring, positioned under the arm pivot.
Blues-rock guitar pioneer Lonnie Mack, who considered Travis one of his three most significant guitar inspirations, was known for using a Bigsby on his 1958 Gibson Flying V electric guitar.
The Bigsby remains popular, especially on hollow-body guitars. It's available as a factory-fitted option on top-line models both hollow and solid-bodied from many makers, and as an aftermarket addition. It remains the only widely used design whose mechanism is entirely above the belly of the guitar body, making it particularly suitable for acoustic and semi-acoustic guitars.

Fender designs

After the Bigsby, the next major development was Leo Fender's synchronized tremolo, the device that introduced the term tremolo arm. First released in 1954 on Fender's Stratocaster, the simple but effective design offers a greater range of pitch change than the Bigsby, and a better capability for up-bends. Fender incorrectly labeled the arm as a "tremolo arm" rather than a "vibrato arm", conversely referring to the tremolo circuit on his amplifiers as "vibrato".
Vibrato systems send a guitar out of tune when friction inhibits the vibrating length of string from returning to its original tension after a pitch bend. Fender's design is 'synchronized' in the way that the bridge saddles and string ends move together as one rigid unit, mostly eliminating sliding between string and saddle.
The unit attaches to the guitar's body with six steel wood screws. So the bridge can pivot smoothly about the screws, the upper portion of each one is unthreaded, they are not tightened all the way, and they pass through slightly oversized holes in the plate at the center of the design.
Six bridge saddles are held against this plate by string tension, individually adjustable both for height and intonation. Another of the components which make up the tailpiece consists of a solid block of metal, commonly made of zinc, but aftermarket products can be made out of materials such as titanium or brass. The different compositions, as well as its mass, helps to determine the quality of the sound of the guitar. The block is secured to the base plate by three machine screws and resides in a cavity routed all the way through the guitar's body. In this cavity, up to five coil springs tether the end of the bridge block to the body, counteracting the pull of the strings, should this be the setup choice for the guitarist. There can even be differing sizes of tremolo arms in thickness depending on the date and country of manufacture.
The number and length of springs may be adjusted to set the neutral position of the bridge, determining the range of upward and downward pitch bending available. A bridge set to 'float' off the guitar lets the guitarist raise the pitch until the bridge presses against the body. Pitch bends are accomplished by pulling up or down on an arm screwed into the tailpiece block, usually free to swing.
The Fender synchronized tremolo is the most widely copied vibrato system. The original design is still in production virtually unchanged today.
The synchronized tremolo may have been the reason for the popularity of the Stratocaster among rock musicians in the late '60s and '70s. Owing to its superiority in aggressive use, all Fender guitars using any other vibrato system other than the synchronized tremolo were for a time withdrawn, to return to the catalog as classic or retro models in the '90s.