Guitar Gear Forum

So the guys I jam with want to play Unchained, so I started looking into the tuna d, which leads me to the next question; am i understanding correctly that you can't use the Tuna D with a free floating Floyd?

Surely EVH wasn't playing them that way and had designated drop D tuned guitars, right? If that's true then that makes the tuna d pretty worthless to me,

That’s correct. Your Floyd has to be set to dive only. You can use it but it won’t work on a floating Floyd because the d-tuna loosens the tension of the low E string to go to D. On a floyd that’s set dive only you can overcome the tension change by having the springs tighter to keep the Floyd against its block/guitar surface/etc. On a floating Floyd there’s nothing to counteract that so using the D tuna throws the whole guitar out of tune.

Also a D tuna doesn’t work very well with a recessed trem. Most folks usually have to modify/route the body of their guitar to get it to work right. They’re mainly meant for top mounted, dive only Floyds. There are other fine tuner attachments that do a similar job that don’t extend out as much as the D tuna but again, need to block trem to dive only, etc.

Yeah I agree. D-Tunas are for dive-only, top mounted tremolos. That's how Eddie's guitars always were. He never had a recessed or full floating tremolo.

I agree with the two comments above. I also wanted to add that free floating bridges of any type are a pain in the ass. Deck it and dive it. Use a Digitech Whammy if you want to raise the pitch. That's just my take and your use case or preferences will likely differ.

See I love my trem floating. Zero issue with it. Recessed or top mounted (my 83 San Dimas has a top mounted Floyd set to float). I’ve just learned to adjust my technique for playing with one for double stops and such.

Well this has all taken me down the EVH rabbit hole, I'm looking at buying an EVH 5150 std with the kill switch. Does anyone have one of these, and if so, any issues with it?

VinDSL wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:42 pm Well this has all taken me down the EVH rabbit hole, I'm looking at buying an EVH 5150 std with the kill switch. Does anyone have one of these, and if so, any issues with it?

I'm curious as well. I love the location of the switch and how simple the overall design is. Looks like a machine!

VinDSL wrote: ↑Thu Feb 13, 2025 3:42 pm Well this has all taken me down the EVH rabbit hole, I'm looking at buying an EVH 5150 std with the kill switch. Does anyone have one of these, and if so, any issues with it?

These guitars are well made IMHO. Pickups are good. Neck feels good too. The only thing I'm not crazy about is the Floyd Rose Special. I wouldn't be a problem right away but they wear out fast. You should get a couple of years out of that Special depending on how aggressive you are with the tremolo.

So I'd budget an extra $100 or so for a Gotoh 1996T or $200 for an OFR at some point. But it's not something that's needed right away.

So I'd budget an extra $100 or so for a Gotoh 1996T or $200 for an OFR at some point. But it's not something that's needed right away.

Ok, I can live with that.

Tone vise with their stabilizer all the way imo.