What do locking tuners look like

First and foremost, you will want to watch out for the size of the locking tuner. Some locking tuners have explicitly been made for certain guitars so that way they perfectly fit said instrument. There are some tuners out there that may make you make the hole in your headstock bigger in order to properly fit your locking tuners. You should also look for the orientation of the locking tuners.

Typically, you will find staggered sets of tuners that will all line up on the same side of the headstock. Depending on the type of guitar that you bought, there may be a good chance that you have to drill into your woodwork, as different brands make differently sized gauge tuners.

This would call for you to make adjustments in your headstock, which you can figure out how to properly do by reading online guides. The Grover Rotomatic tuners are one of the most popular aftermarket locking tuner on the available and for great reason. These locking tuners also come with all of the hardware that you will need to mount these tuners.

Grover Cs are one of the most popular locking tuners, but Sperzel 6 Inline Locking tuners serve Grover for heavy competition. The Sperzel locking InLIne tuners are the most popular Sperzel tuners, and these are staggered tuners that will also fit a large selection of guitars. If you have a popular guitar, you will most likely find that these tuners fit with ease, but there is always the chance that you will have to drill holes in the headstock of the guitar.

The Sperzel locking tuners are well known for having superior guitar tuning retention and for being incredibly reliable. The Hipshot locking tuners are great to get your hands on if you are absolutely against drilling into your headstock to make room for your locking tuners.

The biggest complaint that some people have about these tuners is that they look a little bulky on the headstock, but that may be the price that you have to pay for locking tuners that are so versatile.

These tuners have an tuning ratio that makes it a lot easier for you to fine-tune your adjustments. Hipshot offers post holes that fit strings up to. You can also choose between standard and staggered configurations, in basically any color you could ever want.

Set of six locking tuners designed to fit most modern-style Fender electric guitars with dual-pin mounting configuration. If you have any guitars from the Fender America Deluxe series, these are the same Fender locking tuners that are on those guitars. If you have a Fender Telecaster or Stratocaster with a locking tuner system, you will be able to drop your replacements right in.

You can still use these Fender locking tuners on your guitar if you happen to play a different model or even if you use an entirely different brand. These locking tuners from Planet Waves have a unique feature that makes them stand out from all of the others on this list and most of the other locking tuners on the market.

The Planet Waves Auto Trim locking tuners come to trim your string for you as you lock it into place. This not only cuts down on the time that it takes for you to install your strings on your guitar, but it will also help to provide your guitar with a cleaner appearance. These locking tuners have an tuning ratio and are not only known for their cool wire trimming feature, but also for their consistency. So, locking tuners are a pretty basic but kind of brilliant technology.

So obviously the advantages of locking tuners are, at least in theory, better tuning stability. But are there any drawbacks? Not really. The big one that people mention is that it does add a little bit of weight to your headstock, which just varies on how you are as a player. And honestly, some people feel that having more weight on the headstock even gives you a more meaty tone. There are some products that claim this out there. The other drawback is pretty basic, but just elementally the more things you have going on with anything out there, the more things there potentially are to go wrong.

It had all the options on it for at least, which back then was like, you know, a multi-CD changer, powered windows, and all that sort of cool stuff. Do locking tuners do a better job than standard guitar tuners? This is really a question with quite a bit of debate behind it. So you could definitely make an argument that it might be overkill. All that said, there is one thing that locking tuners do well which prevents slippage at the tuning peg.

They do fix one element that can throw strings out of tune, which is slippage, but in my opinion, the quality of the strings can do a lot more for making your tuning stability not what you want, than that will. For example, when I got this Ibanez brand new from the factory, everything was set up just right. The locking tuners were done pretty well, but all that said, the tuning stability was still really, really poor.

So, how do you use locking tuners? But that should be pretty obvious. So the big mistake that a lot of players make with locking tuners is that they leave a lot of slack on the string, the same way as you would with standard tuners. What you want to do is pull your string pretty well through, so that you have most of the slack taken out, and then go ahead and tighten that bottom screw all the way down. And this is actually a pretty good example of what we were talking about earlier.

So what do you think? Have you tried locking tuners before? Do you swear by them? Does it seem like a total waste of time to you? Let us know down in the comments. I currently have a set of Schaller locking tuners and the locking knob on one of them just spins in place, preventing me from locking down the string or even getting close.

Very frustrating. You can install them yourself. Or you can do as I did and have a guitar tech install them for you.

Locking tuners basically all do the same thing. They lock the headstock end of the string in place, which gives you tuning stability, and allows you to benefit from it without having to wrap your strings around the posts, multiple times.

With that in mind, as with any other piece of gear, the quality of the product does make a difference. The design of the locking tuner is going to make a difference in terms of esthetics, which might seem like a superficial consideration. In a way it is, but if your guitar is equipped with chrome tuners, then you might want to stick with chrome tuners. Certainly, you can probably find cheaper and more expensive tuners if you go looking for them.

So, take your time, choose well, spend responsibly, and you should be happy with your selection. But some of the best ones are certainly represented. They make machine heads, bridges , tremolos, S-locks, megaswitches, preamps, pickups, and other guitar parts and accessories. Gotoh is another well-recognized brand in guitar hardware and accessories. This Japanese company has been around since They make tuners for guitar, mandolin, banjo, and ukulele.

They also manufacture tremolo units, guitar and bass bridges, and other accessories. They make tuning keys, accessories like strap buttons, strap locks, capos, nuts, humidifiers, truss rod wrenches , and more.

They have a factory in Cleveland, OH. Hipshot Products was founded by inventor Dave Borisoff in in California. Hipshot makes bass and guitar hardware, including bridges, tuning machines, saddle sets, and a great deal more. They are most known for their strings. Fender makes guitars, basses, amps, effects pedals, audio systems, parts, accessories, clothing and more. If you have a double-locking tremolo system i. Meanwhile, a lot of guitarists with non-locking tremolo guitars love using locking tuners.

Locking tuners can provide additional tuning stability. How about non-tremolo systems? Even here, locking tuners can be of some benefit and provide additional tuning support. Some guitars come with locking tuners. There are some perceived downsides to installing locking tuners on your guitar. Some locking tuners will clip the excess off your strings, which can be an added benefit depending on the product.