Lok-N-Roll Compensated Locking Nut

[Lok-N-Roll]

the Floyd Rose Corp and I have been working together for over 8 years now. They are my manufacture and a distributor for us as well. We went with the R2 because it’s 1 5/8” nut width and the R3 is 1 11/16” width. I now understand what you were saying. Sorry about that. I can see the confusion.

 

[larbear63]

Don't waste your money. I have an earvana Floyd nut and I tried the Lok & roll and it was a piece of crap. It's a shame that Earvana was sued By Ernie Ball because it works pretty much flawlessly.

 

[skunc]

What is the exact spec Loc-N-Roll nut's fingerboard overhang?
Many companies sweeten the first fret distance to bring the first five frets closer to being in tune (Duesenburg, PRS) .010"-.015" with standard intonation. BFTS is about .030" for a 25.5 scale but utilizes intonation offsets to really make things sound closer to equal temperament. BFTS helps if you are playing with keyboard players-especially playing single note runs together.

 

[skunc]

I now see the compensation is cut in the the steel...I now understand the Earvana/EBMM comments. Ok. Going to have to try this out!
BTW I think I have a couple Earvana nuts in my workbox...

 

[Andy Eagle]

Floyd nuts were designed in the late 70’s-80-‘s. Most fingerboards were much lower radius back then. Later Floyd Rose developed the R10 that has the 15” radius. This worked better on our no industry standard compound radius fingerboards. Lok-N-Roll has a 15” radius for a few reasons. With a rounder smaller radius fretboard (10-12”) in many Cases when a player plays open chords On frets 1-3 they will notice chords being sharp. Especially the G string and so on. By providing a 15” radius the player will notice less sharp notes and by adding compensation points, there is a big overall improvement in notes, and chords.

another reason is the new compound radius fingerboards react so much better. Let’s face it, most of us using Floyd Rose tremolos aren’t just using the first 3 frets. Tapping, slapping, harmonics , string skipping, and so forth are much easier with the 15” radius on the entire fretboard.

Lastly , Floyd Rose tremolos run at basically a flat radius at the tremolo and a R2 Nut is a s 10”radius. R3 is a 12” radius. So for years all of us Floyd guys had to deal with sharp open chords and if we Used around radius fingerboard like a 9.5” we also suffered from strings fretting out past the 12th fret when bending notes. Many manufactures have improved their designs over the years. Hardware needs to Evolve too.

Where to start with all the misinformation here???

Floyd nuts are all 10" radius apart rom the R10 15".
All bridges have a fixed radius of 12" and come with a shim that makes them 10" ish I say ish because the plating and manufacturing is not super accurate .
Making the radius 15" on the nut of a guitar with a 10" fingerboard does nothing but make the action poor ,particularly noticeable on the first few frets.
The rest of the information here is utter rubbish.

 

[Andy Eagle]

The ONLY reason a Floyd nut goes out of tune when you lock it down is either a defective casting or the string retainer bar is not screwed down sufficiently. ALL the other issues with intonation compensation are far better to be accomplished by intonating between the 3rd and 15th frets thus making the fretted notes play in tune. The wrong radius of a nut (any nut) makes different amounts of displacement when fretting a serious tuning problem on fretted notes (most of your playing) The intonation fix 'G' to 'G' and a not defective nut or installation is BETTER than this nut.
IF the nut is a match for your fingerboard and you do G to G intonation you may see an improvement but all the bullshit claims do not help.
I have been fitting Floyd since Floyd made them in his garage, many hundreds over the years particularly in the early days when you couldn't buy a guitar with one on already. The BS almost rivals FU tone.

 

[Andy Eagle]

Cutting the inner or outer slots deeper, depending if you want to flatten or increase the radius

This is not a good idea as you need to keep the locking surface smooth and flat. I suppose a very small alteration could be made to the trailing edge of the nut as long as the string still seated properly at the witness point when locked but this is not recommended unless there is no alternative.
Post a picture of what you did.

 

[connor66]

Won't bother you with a picture Andy. You seem to know it all anyway.

 

[Andy Eagle]

ho ho ho.

 

[MarkStudios]

IMHO this is just a scam. "one size fits all" premade compensated nuts do not exist in any way, shape or form. A truly compensated nut must be custom made for your guitar scale, your tuning and your string gauge among other things. Many factors contribute to the position and height of that nut compensation for each string.

 

[Andy Eagle]

Absolutely.
The best option is just do a good setup and intonation between the 3rd and 15th frets.

 

[Sbiamkoenr]

I have a Warmoth compound radius neck. I use 10-46 strings, so pretty regular.

If a compound radius neck is, for example, 10-16, then the nut should have a radius of 10”. The bridge should be have it’s corresponding radius set to somewhere in the region of 18”. That’s what I have done to my bridge. The Lok-n-Roll nut I bought was their R3 width to replace my existing FR nut.

The vast majority of FR equipped guitars have a 10” radius at the nut end of the fingerboard. These are the customers (guitars) which would benefit the most from the Lok-n-Roll nut as an upgrade.

I’ve got a Lok-n-Roll nut (see my previous post). I had to modify the radius under the shelf, and shim to fit the depth of a standard FR nut slot, to install it properly, without it tilting backwards, or compressing the end of the fingerboard.

I use a Peterson strobe tuner for setting up intonation in my workshop, and the guitar with the Lok-n-Roll now plays almost perfectly in tune all over the fretboard. Frets 1-5 have near perfect intonation, and chords all ring out in tune. The Lok-n-Roll nut does in fact work.

With a standard Shaller FR nut, those frets were all a bit sharp, as can be expected. The action was near perfect with the original FR nut.

About the radius needing to be 15” to cope with compound radiuses makes no sense. If a neck has a straight 15” radius, then this would be true. Also having a flatter radius nut putting the strings closer to the lower frets, is the opposite of what is happening on the outside strings.

In my case, lowering the height in the centre of the nut by grinding a bit of a greater radius under the shelf has not caused any real problems with fretting out or low strings.

I had been following news of them becoming available for a few years, and jumped at it as soon as I found out I could.

I’d like there to be more options for the Lok-n-Roll. There should also be more clarity on what you are buying.

An R2 should match the FR R2 standard for width, height and radius. An R3 should also match the Floyd Rose R3 specs for width, height and radius. If there’s a need for an R10 (15” radius nut) then this should be marketed as an R10 replacement, and not an R2 or R3.

People buying a replacement R3 version nut should expect it to have the same width, height and radius as the nut they’re replacing. This would make it a drop-in replacement.

There shouldn’t really be a need to shim the nut by 1mm, and certainly not have to make any other changes to make it fit.

I wish Lok-n-Roll real success with these. I think they should tool up for new R2 and R3 nuts, and have the existing 15” nut as another option.

 

[Andy Eagle]

The vast majority of Floyd equipped guitars are 12'~15" at the nut only Warmoth PRS(USA) and close 9.5" fender are 10"

 

[Dasein]

The ONLY reason a Floyd nut goes out of tune when you lock it down is either a defective casting or the string retainer bar is not screwed down sufficiently. ALL the other issues with intonation compensation are far better to be accomplished by intonating between the 3rd and 15th frets thus making the fretted notes play in tune. The wrong radius of a nut (any nut) makes different amounts of displacement when fretting a serious tuning problem on fretted notes (most of your playing) The intonation fix 'G' to 'G' and a not defective nut or installation is BETTER than this nut.
IF the nut is a match for your fingerboard and you do G to G intonation you may see an improvement but all the bullshit claims do not help.
I have been fitting Floyd since Floyd made them in his garage, many hundreds over the years particularly in the early days when you couldn't buy a guitar with one on already. The BS almost rivals FU tone.

Andy - can you elaborate on the floyd intonation... struggling with mine right now (on my 1990 Hamer Californian). The 3 to 15 fret thing - can you walk me through that? And the g to g intonation fix? is that the same thing?

 

[Andy Eagle]

For a start check the hight of the nut is correct. most manufacturers stick all kinds of crap under them as shims. Then tune the guitar using the notes on the third fret and set the intonation one octave higher. 3rd and 15th this means the FRETTED notes are the reference in the lower position instead of the nut.

 

[JTAC_WAK]

I bought 12 of these when they came out. I have them on 6 guitars so far... just haven't got to the others. I LOVE them. They are very well made, I can hear a difference before and after, and the tension on the stings feels more uniform (maybe I'm crazy but it felt that way to me in my before and after comparison.) I plan to do a video comparing two Ibanez Jems I have, one with and one without someday, but just can't find the time to do it.

I had issues with one nut lock slipping on the low E and Greg Decker sent me a new nut right away, no questions asked. GREAT customer service and comms. I hope his venture takes off, because between the Earvana vs EBMM lawsuit over the compensated Floyd Rose nuts (look it up) I have been waiting YEARS for a solution without having to do Buzz Feinten mods.

NOTE: This nut uses the smaller size 2.5mm allen wrench (like for the saddle intonation adjustment/mount to the tremolo base plate.) BUT the threads are the same size as the 3.0mm stock allen bolts on a Floyd nut. The counter sunk screws that come with the Lok-N-Roll are pretty small and, I would think, easy to lose, especially if you have to adjust on stage or at an inopportune time...also harder to manipulate than the stock bolts.

The Lok-N-Roll nut screws are counter sunk but I have found the original 3.0mm bolt will fit (as I mentioned the bolts are the same size thread) justthe allen wrench size is what is different. To use the 3.0 original bolt, you have to center it on the counter sink while tightening down, but should work if you lose one. That is my only complaint, Greg should have gone with the standard allen 3mm bolt but whatever... minor issue for a great product. If you guys want more detailed pics, let me know and I will post.

V/R

WAK

 

[JTAC_WAK]

For a start check the hight of the nut is correct. most manufacturers stick all kinds of crap under them as shims. Then tune the guitar using the notes on the third fret and set the intonation one octave higher. 3rd and 15th this means the FRETTED notes are the reference in the lower position instead of the nut.

Andy, like you, I have been using Floyds for YEARS... basically since they came out. I have never heard or seen the 3rd/15th fret intonation method... after you mentioned it, I have been scouring YouTube to see it demo'd (simple enough explanation don't need a demo), to see if others were doing this.

Bottom line: THANK YOU for bringing this up! I actually learned something new on a system I thought I knew almost everything there was to know about (I also got into the Edwards Finger Tite locking nuts and got the story from Edwards himself about the drama with Kramer and Schaller... and even reseached and used Buzz Feiten system.)

I know it's a pain in the ass, but maybe you should post a video to YouTube? Guarantee millions of other Floyd Rose lovers don't know this either!



V/R

WAK

 

[Andy Eagle]

I already linked Suhr's set up video as John also does this.
This would only be a good idea if it was a direct replacement for existing locking nuts . Tempered nuts only move the issues around as the guitar is a tempered instrument and most manufactures have a slight offset at the nut already. By far the best way to improve this is with the saddle position and offset intonation worked out to suit what you actually play of what annoys you the most by being off. Anyone who says this can be right all over the neck in all keys is just a lier or an idiot.

 

[seclusion]

I had this problem with my new Ibanez Premium S1070, see attached...
I traded the locking tuners from my retired RG770 that fit snug in the new saddle. The originals seen here on my old RG twisted slightly when tightened. Never had that on 8-9 locking guitars I’ve had. never noticed for a month at least, trying to get setup. What a PITA!
saving a few cents and shaved off mm on the originals.

 

[Dave Merrill]

I already linked Suhr's set up video as John also does this.
This would only be a good idea if it was a direct replacement for existing locking nuts . Tempered nuts only move the issues around as the guitar is a tempered instrument and most manufactures have a slight offset at the nut already. By far the best way to improve this is with the saddle position and offset intonation worked out to suit what you actually play of what annoys you the most by being off. Anyone who says this can be right all over the neck in all keys is just a lier or an idiot.

Andy, how about the Buzz Feiten system? Does that work any better in practice than not having it?