ChordBender Whammy Bar



Whammies: Useful Info

It doesn’t take long at the guitar store to discover that whammy usage is not easy. And then there are those mechanical issues: staying in tune, stiff arms, down-only action, “impossible” to tune, string breakage, problems replacing strings, whammy wear/“curling”, having to remove the whammy’s arm before putting the guitar back in its case, problems with damaged harmonies, etc.

Plusses and minuses of various whammies

“S”-type guitars (Fender does not like public comments on this model by name) are usually set up so the whammy only bends notes down. That has some advantages: they are easy to tune this way since they do not change rotation during retuning and this setup probably adds to the tone (by providing “Leo Fender’s ideal anvil” with the big metal block inside pulled tightly up against the body). Even though they return to the same position after every whammy usage, the released & re-stretched strings catch on the saddles, string trees, and nut (making pinging noises) so the guitar often goes out of tune after whammy usage. Eldon Shamblin and Eric Clapton both wedged wood behind the whammy so it couldn’t even budge; Shamblin was one of the first guitarists to popularize electric guitars and received one of the first “S”-type guitars in 1954 from Leo Fender so issues go all the way back. The stiff whammy action can make it an unnecessarily difficult chore to control the whammy; reducing the number of springs in the back can help, as can loosening them. This whammy’s famous surf-music sound with each note going its own direction damages a chord’s harmony too but that is avoidable only with a very few whammies designed to “compensate” for how our unruly guitar strings behave without some pretty harsh discipline (the Steinberger TransTrem and the ChordBender can accurately bend chords). Jimi seemed to say “May you never hear surf music again” and he generally avoided whammying more than one note at a time. Actually, Jimi was such a positive guy that this spoken comment in Third Stone From The Sun was taken out of context; he was seriously bummed after hearing that Dick Dale (King of the Surf Guitar) might die and immediately said “you will never hear surf music again.” Dick’s still alive and a great whammy player.

The arm on a typical “S”-type guitar takes nearly the force needed to lift a six-pack-of-beer to get all strings to bend at least a half step. Female guitarists generally find that these require too much effort and many males find them hard to operate with style and control. They can be made easier to operate by removing springs in the back. They can also be adjusted to have up and down (floating) whammy action.

Actually, knowing what goes on when we hear that surf-music sound is musically useful – to learn how to bend notes without a whammy. When we use an electronic tuner to analyze guitars with these whammies we learn something pretty jaw-dropping: the fat E string changes pitch about four times as much as the skinny E, with strings in between those changing pitch at rates in between the two extremes. A video at shows pitch changes for one “S”-type whammy bend at –

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Even simple vibrato on a chord with the skinny E changing pitch by .25 of a half step will result in the fat E string changing pitch by over a full half step so the chordal structure (harmony) is noticeably damaged in “surf” vibrato with regular whammies. We always knew there was something “odd” about that vibrato but now we know what happens. Note that two pairs of strings - the A and G, and the B and D - are similarly sensitive so harmonies using just those strings can be bent by most regular whammies and the harmony will remain pretty sweet.

It is generally easier to do finger bends using the more sensitive strings. In particular, the G string is usually a good choice since it is sensitive. The fat E and A strings are even more sensitive but they are often inconvenient. The skinny E string, the B, and the D should generally be avoided for string bending since they require a lot of bending (and the E tends to break). Dive Bombs: use the sensitive G, A, and fat E strings.

Special tunings: strings get about 12% less sensitive for each half step they are tuned sharper.

String bending: strings get only roughly 5% less sensitive for each half step they are bent sharper by finger bending.

Many whammies are free-floating like the Floyd Rose, which means they can bend notes up and down. Nice advantage. “S”-type guitars can be set up this way too. Free-floating whammies can produce an especially musical “centered” violin-like vibrato since tones are above and below the main note as opposed to the up-only vibrato we get when we use finger bends and the down-only bends we get with a down-only whammy. However, advantages often come with other disadvantages and in this case re-tuning can be a major hassle (or nearly a nightmare) as the whammy rotates after you re-tune each other string so you have to tune all 6 strings repeatedly before it settles down. That is a problem unless the whammy locks down during tuning (rare) and can have its main spring in back adjusted quickly and easily on stage after re-tuning (very rare); both Steinberger TransTrem and ChordBender solve these issues.

Fast locking of the whammy’s rotation (not a feature in a “Double Locking” whammy) is also a great feature for riffs with heavy string bending and oblique bends that can be messed up when the whammy rotates due to the string bending. Fast locking also helps get back in tune just after a string breaks.

Some whammies have knife-edge pivots like the Floyd Rose. Successful users of these whammies reportedly lubricate these edges often so they stay in tune after usage. Jimmy Thackery says graphite works, as does Vaseline. When they do “wear out” in a few years close inspection shows that the knife edges often curl over rather than wear out. In any event, once worn they begin going out of tune after usage unless the sharp knife edge can be restored.

The Bigsby whammy has two nice features: the bar stays where you leave it (instead of swinging down toward the stage) and it can help with picking accuracy. Both involve where the arm is when you reach for it. The Bigsby’s bar stays where you leave it since it uses a spring tensioner to hold the arm onto the whammy itself; most other whammy bars limply swing by gravity. The Bigsby’s arm hits a stopper as you swing it toward the strings. This kind of alignment enforcer (if you like the arm in this “standard” position) gives the picking / whammy hand a consistent position which helps picking accuracy. Very few other whammies have this feature but the ChordBender also offers the ability to adjust this positioning (or even remove the stopper for guitarists who prefer having a whammy bar that does swing all the way across the strings). Lubrication of the Bigsby’s bearings is important to help it return to a consistent position – and stay in-tune - after usage. John Cipollina (a 60s whammy god) favored light sewing machine oil. If your Bigsby has a noticeably sluggish rotation when the strings are off you should remove the lube from its bearings using a grease solvent and spin your whammy axle until the bearings are free of the old goop and change the lube. ChordBender offers a light synthetic oil specifically suited to lubricating whammy bearings. The saddles on some Bigsby’d guitars tend to move toward and away from the fingerboard during whammy usage – and that can negatively affect tuning stability since the positioning changes after almost every usage.

If tuning stability is a problem for you, consider using a locking nut (you can epoxy sand onto the screws to get a good grip on them with your fingers). You can also reduce friction at the nut and saddles simply by using Teflon™ or rollers. Dri-Slide can be very helpful at the nut too; you can use a pencil eraser to remove discoloration from a white nut.

Tips from Pros

Jimmy Thackery uses a strong vibrato to manage feedback (since feedback can get out of control with a single pitch). He also recommends using Leo Fender’s original “tilt forward” installation for “S”-type whammies so there is 3/32” between the wood and the bottom of the base plate on the side farthest from the neck so up and down action is available for better vibrato. He uses very even tension on the four mainsprings in the back too. He recommends reading “How to Make Your Electric Guitar Play Great” by Dan Erlewine to get this bit of magic to work just right.

Tom Principato’s advice is to ease into a widening whammy action to add dynamics. He also graciously gave us a cool lesson in exotic chordbending using an “S”-type guitar over an E7: A string @ 7th fret (fixed), G string @ 6th fret bent up 1 half step to a D note, and then dramatically “tightrope” the 2-note chord up and down with the harmony sweetly intact using the “S”-type guitar’s tremolo arm.  Hear that @ 4:10 on YouTube (Principato tango) the one with a green and orange sign in the upper right corner.  The String Sensitivity Graph above shows how Principato uses the ideal pair of strings to make that move.  He has also installed the stock “tension spring” to keep his “S”-type guitar’s bar from drooping away from where he wants it.  Google “Fender tremolo arm tension spring" to buy one. Tom also regularly uses a graphite or silicon lubricant on all of the strings’ friction points (string trees, nut and bridge saddles) so his whammy action is smooth and his guitar will stay in tune.

Dick Dale long ago made friends with the “S”-type guitar and uses its effects on chords to add tension and West Coast / down-home mayhem.

Jeff Beck often places his picking forearm behind the bridge pointing toward the fingerboard so he can simultaneously pluck the strings, use one finger to warble the whammy bar, and control his dynamics with the volume knob.

Carl Verheyen essentially uses the string sensitivity chart above so the up action is limited to roughly 4 half-step increases for the fat E, 3 for the G&A, 2 for the B&D, and 1+ for the skinny E. The arm angle is set by adjusting the spring claw in the back of the guitar; the screws holding the whammy down might also have to be adjusted to calibrate this. Carl also prefers an angled claw so the springs are different lengths. One theory on this holds that this setup will avoid having all the springs with essentially the same frequency of vibration. This setup might reduce uneven / spiked frequency responses from the strings, especially in feedback. Carl has Voodoo so why not try it?

Upscale Whammies

Playing a guitar that accurately bends chords (Steinberger TransTrem and ChordBender) can greatly expand songwriting since a lot of great chords want us to bend them: minors, 69s, major 7ths, etc. Jimmy Page’s sweetly sighing B flat 79 (xx6576) bent down to A79 in The Rain Song is probably the only widely known usage of a bent chord by guitar. Juicy bends like that can greatly spice up the emotional messages we are trying to convey. Jimmy apparently does not do this bend in live performances so he probably used a slide just for that sigh (in the studio) and found that the 79 tuning did not work for the rest of the tune; listen carefully and the tone is slightly different for just the sigh. ChordBender players can play that bend perfectly and some report that they follow that sigh with C major 7 (xx3335) bent to B major 7 since that bend also sounds great in the flow of The Rain Song. Whammies that accurately bend chords give even slide guitarists a lot of new flexibility since they can bend any chord that can be gripped. Chord-bending whammies also produce dramatically sweeter vibrato on chords than we hear from other whammies since - unlike vibrato using other whammies - the chord’s harmonies remain intact (just like when a slide is used on a guitar tuned to a chord) – whereas regular whammies will noticeably disrupt the harmonies. Rock and blues are all about bent notes so it is almost the logical next step musically that we should explore bending chords too.

Actually, you have been hearing a lot bent chords – but mainly in backup vocals. Mustang Sally has bent-chord vocals (with harmonies that stay intact) at 1:03 & some sort of similar guitar line at 2:49 that could be very effectively re-tooled with a chordbending whammy (). Actually that whole guitar part can be nicely modernized with chordbending.

Ease of whammy action: the easiest appears to be the new ChordBender whammy which can be easily operated with just a little finger since it requires about a quarter of the force needed to operate a typical “S”-type guitar. It also uses a limiter that can be flipped on so perfect bends are guaranteed, which becomes sort of a secret weapon. That is especially potent since that whammy also accurately bends whole chords (C7 to B7). Therefore, perfect bends are guaranteed on every string, or for the whole chord. The bar can be pressed down to the limiter when the note or chord is plucked and the bar can then be released to get a perfect bend up, in time with the music. These can even be used to guarantee perfect oblique bends – done with the whammy.

Conclusion

Whammies have at least 37 different issues that guitarists can be concerned about. You can see how five different whammies stack up in each of the 37 ways at . If you and whammies (The Dark Art) have not gotten along in the past you should try again with the latest gear.

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