Technically, the effect is a change in vibrato, because manipulating the bar changes pitch. Let’s start by getting the terminology straight: tremolo/vibrato/whammy bar/arm, and tremolo/vibrato system/tremolo bridge all refer to pretty much the same things.
What’s the difference between a whammy bar and a tremolo bar? When one string breaks, the spring tension pulls harder on the remaining strings sending them out of tune as well. The drawback of a whammy bar installed on your guitar is that when you break a string, the entire guitar goes out of tune because the tuning is a balance between the string tension and the whammy bar springs on the underside of the guitar. Some guitars with whammy bars have what is called a floating tremolo, which means the strings can be loosened, lowering the pitch, by pushing the bar towards the guitar body, or the strings can be tightened, therefore raising the pitch by pulling the bar away from the body of the guitar.īecause the tension of each string is different, and the effect of the changing tension differs, depending on the frequency of the note, the variation in the pitches of each string is dramatically different, so the guitar does not stay in tune as the bar is moved.