Are OFR Arms + Couplers Still a Crapshoot After the 2022 Redesign?

[groverj3]

Question in the title.

I see that the Original Floyd Rose has undergone some minor redesigns in the past couple years. I've noticed that the locking nuts are much more consistent and less likely to produce "sitar" noises due to rough metal where strings leave the nut, plus the markings are different on the buttom now.

Lo and behold the website details using more modern CNC, changes to markings on the baseplate and nuts. But buried in the website is also that the arm coupler has been redesigned: https://www.floydrose.com/products/frtachwsp

I'd been moving to the push-in arm when I have a coupler with poor fit. I also tried the Sophia tremolo arm + coupler and it's better than a bad stock arm but still not as solid as the push-in arm.

However, are these any better now after this redesign?

 

[Emperoff]

Who cares? Just replace it with the push-in arm either way

 

[MetalDestroyer]

Red bishop magik arm is better

 

[SamSam]

Red bishop magik arm is better

Red Bishop arms are indeed excellent!

 

[Grindspine]

Red bishop magik arm is better

I just received the one that I ordered and plan on installing it this weekend to compare to my Lo-Pro with the Ibanez UTA20 ultra-lite push in arm, my ESP with a Floyd Original, my guitars with Gotoh 1996t, and my guitars with the Edge Zero 2 arm. If the Red Bishop is as nice as the Edge Zero 2 arm (push-in with a torque adjust nut), then it will be a definite win!

 

[MetalDestroyer]

I just received the one that I ordered and plan on installing it this weekend to compare to my Lo-Pro with the Ibanez UTA20 ultra-lite push in arm, my ESP with a Floyd Original, my guitars with Gotoh 1996t, and my guitars with the Edge Zero 2 arm. If the Red Bishop is as nice as the Edge Zero 2 arm (push-in with a torque adjust nut), then it will be a definite win!

I dunno about Ibanez, but last summer I took two identical ESP Standard Horizon NT-II’s and installed an OFR push-in arm in one and a magik arm in the other. The OFR push-in arm is barely an upgrade. I just wanna wiggle without the arm clicking back and forth in its socket, and only the magik arm eliminates the slop. If you don’t wiggle, I’d say the stock bar is fine and if you wiggle you need the red bishop. Not sure who the in-between would realistically be aimed at aside from people who don’t know the red bishop arm exists.

 

[groverj3]

So, nobody knows. I like the push-in bar, but maybe order one of these to see for myself.

 

[Grindspine]

I dunno about Ibanez, but last summer I took two identical ESP Standard Horizon NT-II’s and installed an OFR push-in arm in one and a magik arm in the other. The OFR push-in arm is barely an upgrade. I just wanna wiggle without the arm clicking back and forth in its socket, and only the magik arm eliminates the slop. If you don’t wiggle, I’d say the stock bar is fine and if you wiggle you need the red bishop. Not sure who the in-between would realistically be aimed at aside from people who don’t know the red bishop arm exists.

I posted on this thread already; while doing some guitar maintenance, I installed the Majik arm, but realized how loose the original Edge bar holder was. After some tightening, the original Edge bar feels just like the Majik arm.

Ibanez Edge series trem arm question

BTW here's Jemsite on the bar around the time it came out. they have their biases, but generally the tecnical info is good, and this is WAY lighter, 1/3 the weight of the regular. It's not just a sleeve around a regular bar. https://www.jemsite.com/threads/carbon-fiber-tremolo-bar.127000/...

www.sevenstring.org

I have a Floyd push-in arm with collar on my E-II Arrow 7. So far, I am not a huge fan of that design. It definitely has the clunky, loose feeling of the bar having play in it.

 

[JediMasterThrash]

I see that the Original Floyd Rose has undergone some minor redesigns in the past couple years. I've noticed that the locking nuts are much more consistent and less likely to produce "sitar" noises due to rough metal where strings leave the nut, plus the markings are different on the buttom now.

Is this sitar noise on the nut a known thing? I've been fighting this for years. I've tried everything, shimmed the nut, tried three different lubes on the bridge and nut side, cannot find the source. Everyone who responded said it was fret buzz and shimming the nut was the solution, but that wasn't it.

quoteth myself:

I think I posted it on TGP and not here so I won't link, but here was my comment about it

Two of my guitars have what I describe as a nut buzz. It's like high frequency wolf overtones that appear only when plucking the open string. If you fret the 1st fret or any fret the overtones go away.

One is on the high E, the other is on the B. Double-locking trem systems, so it's a locking nut, and it's an original FR nut in both cases (not cheap copy).

I sound reminds me a bit of a sitar, which is why I think it's like buzzing out. I don't think it's on the bridge size because it goes away when fretting any string. And muting the headstock strings or the floyd springs doesn't change anything.

I tried some poor man solutions like putting pencil graphite or a lubricant into the nut V-cut but it didn't help. Is this a case where the nut needs to be more V or more U? it might not be the V angle either, it could be the angle of the cut in the up/down direction. Like if you added relieve from the truss rod, the nut would angle slightly relative to the strings, and that could cause the string to nut contact point to gain some relief and allow buzz?

 

[groverj3]

Is this sitar noise on the nut a known thing? I've been fighting this for years. I've tried everything, shimmed the nut, tried three different lubes on the bridge and nut side, cannot find the source. Everyone who responded said it was fret buzz and shimming the nut was the solution, but that wasn't it.

quoteth myself:

I think I posted it on TGP and not here so I won't link, but here was my comment about it

Two of my guitars have what I describe as a nut buzz. It's like high frequency wolf overtones that appear only when plucking the open string. If you fret the 1st fret or any fret the overtones go away.

One is on the high E, the other is on the B. Double-locking trem systems, so it's a locking nut, and it's an original FR nut in both cases (not cheap copy).

I sound reminds me a bit of a sitar, which is why I think it's like buzzing out. I don't think it's on the bridge size because it goes away when fretting any string. And muting the headstock strings or the floyd springs doesn't change anything.

I tried some poor man solutions like putting pencil graphite or a lubricant into the nut V-cut but it didn't help. Is this a case where the nut needs to be more V or more U? it might not be the V angle either, it could be the angle of the cut in the up/down direction. Like if you added relieve from the truss rod, the nut would angle slightly relative to the strings, and that could cause the string to nut contact point to gain some relief and allow buzz?

My experience has been that it's almost always the string not making a clean break on the metal leaving the nut.

You can sometimes lessen or temporarily fix it by pushing down hard on the offending string between the nut and first fret to try to seat it at the bottom of the groove in the nut. In the past this would even happen sometimes on brand new nuts, which was maddening as I had assumed this is a sign of them wearing out. However, it seems like the tooling at the Schaller factory must've been wearing out, and the QC is shit.

I've replaced a couple of locking nuts since FR started selling the new ones and I haven't noticed this problem as frequently.