The bridge of a guitar influences in many aspects, emphasizing the tuning and the reliability of the same, as well as the play style or the use that we can make possible of the lever. We will not go into depth in each style of bridges or all existing bridges, but will take a look at the most popular guitar bridges.
Fixed Bridge
It is a traditional bridge, completely anchored to the body of the guitar, which cannot move. The design is typical of Gibson guitars, it cannot be used with lever, and could be established as a parallelism with an acoustic guitar and its bridge. It is also used in electroacoustic guitars.
The most positive thing is that there is no problem changing the tuning, the calibration and adjustment is simple, and the tuning is maintained easily. In double notes, the tuning is very balanced, and technique turns out how to make Palm mute in various styles such as metal, closed palm, or blues, open palm.
Stratocaster-Type Tremolo Bridge
This is an innovation made by Fender on fixed bridges. The tremolo bridge has springs in the back cover that allow the guitarist to move, as in the case of a Floyd-Rose, but unlike this bridge, it can only make one type of movement, since it does not ‘float’, but goes to support it in the body of the guitar, because it can only move upwards, causing the strings to lower tones. It usually has a very high stability, almost as much as the fixed bridge, and also does not give problems to tune.
Floyd-Rose Bridge
This is the most popular bridge in the date of today, although we have to stop to think if it suits us in the case of buying a low-end guitar or if we do not use the tremolo lever.
The advantage of Floyd-Rose bridge is that it pivots or floats on two supports, without being completely anchored or colliding with the body. Because of this, you can scroll up or down, allowing yourself not only to lower tones with the lever, but to raise them to make many more effects.
The Floyd-Rose is recommended when the guitarist often wants to handle the lever and make effects, and it is not recommended if the bridge is not of a quality, at least, acceptable.
Bigsby Bridge
Highly used in classic rock and highly valued in the rockabilly aesthetic, and own brand of Gretsch guitars, Bigsby bridges, unlike the Tune-O-Matic, allow the use of a tremolo lever, but unlike the bridges of Fender, the change in the tuning of the strings is subtle and does not allow to create exaggerated effects..