Installing a D-Tuna - Any of you ever do one yourself?

[Dinosaur David B]

I never knew it was this simple. I may try this.

[Stitsel]

Yep, I've done it.....not so hard really. I just got my Charvel Henrik Danhage back, I had it upgraded to all FU Tone in black hardware. Looks tight now, I'll start another thread I guess. I had them keep the original D Tuna I had from before & put it on this new bridge, works great. These  things are fun. 

[Dinosaur David B]

I assume the thing works on a floating Floyd, right? Didn't EVH use floating?

[Stitsel]

Ummm....actually no, on both counts; however.....

Eddie  was pretty much a top-mounted Floyd, dive bomb only guy....if you check out any of his guitars on his EVH website, everything's all topmount/dive only, because of the D Tuna. Supposedly they're not supposed to retain their tuning stability if a bridge is floating, as in.... they're rock solid when everything's all set up right ( tuning/springs etc. ) and they're set to dive only. Which kind of defeats the purpose & is stupid IMO but I digress.....However, I believe I covered this in another thread when I put a Tremolo Black Box on my Charvel .....

https://www.fu-tone.com/product/tremolo-black-box/

This thing works believe it or not......you can adjust pull back resistance, it allows you to pull back on the bar ( even a top mounted supposedly down only setup ) & pushes the bar right back to the "zero" that is so important for the Floyd style bar to remain perfectly in tune. So in other words, it will allow you to utilize the D Tuna & still stay in tune while whammying to your heart's content.

D Tuna's are actually somewhat finicky, and there's a lot of fine tuning/adjustment between your regular tuners/locking nut/fine tuners and the fine tuner hex screw on the D Tuna itself.It will not work flawlessly at 1st, right out of the box, after installation. You will need patience & have to F with it a bit. Does all this sound like a pain in the ass....? Well, yes it does because it kind of is.... but once you get everything dialed in & broken in, they do work as advertised & work pretty flawlessly. Sure they advertise only the dialed in, set up aspect of this product, but they don't tell you you gotta kind of mess with it a bit before it actually works right. 

I know, very long winded....but there ya go!!

PS ....here's the link where I covered this before...

viewtopic.php?t=246779

[Dinosaur David B]

Nothing's ever easy. 
Thanks. I guess I'll need to get one of those as well and spend hours on it. 
 

[Stitsel]

Yeaaaaahh man, I actually hope your experience is different than mine, and it works out easier for ya. It seems others have no issue/problems,but I always seem to. Whatever, I'm still alive & nothing's gonna bring me down!
 

[Stitsel]

Whatever guitar you're putting it on....once you have it all dialed in, I'm sure you'll be happy. Just remember you'll have a bit of tweaking to deal with, but you already know what you're doing so you'll be fine. None of these "innovations or solutions" come without some sort of PIA (pain in the ass) situations, or a lot mumbling/grumbling BS....but I know you'll work it out. FWIW, I don't believe ANYONE has come up with a truly "will stay in tune 100% always 100% of the time" product yet. Even seasoned musicians know this. Not Floyds, not whoever....but I've heard/read that Evertune is the shit,Hmmmm.....will have to see. 

[cvansickle]

I remember installing one of those HipShot D-Tuner levers on my Les Paul, back in the 80s. I think there were three songs I played that required the drop-D, none of which were Van Halen songs! Anyway, I had a bit of trouble keeping the tuning right - if the E was in tune, the D would be a little out. If I tuned a perfect D and then switched back to E, the E was out. I didn't have it more than a couple months, and restored the original tuner.


 
 

[Dr Nick]

I assume the thing works on a floating Floyd, right? Didn't EVH use floating?

 

No, he had his trem flat on the body with no routing (as opposed to Vai/Satch etc). 

I tried it with a Floyd a number of years ago, and it definitely messed with the tuning of the guitar, so gave up and just kept a guitar with a low D string for a while. 

I've yet to hear of a reliable E string de-tuner with a floating bridge. I'm sure there must be a way. The closest is a floating bridge that you can fix using a switch, THEN you can flip down to a low D string. I think Guthrie Govan does something like that occasionally. 

[Stitsel]

The Black Box....I covered it before, and the link is above....