Principles
Position I illustrates the normal position of an ideally tuned Floyd Rose bridge. The bridge (orange) balances on a pivot point, being pulled counter-clockwise by the strings' tension and clockwise by typically one to five springs. Controlled by special tuning screws (turquoise), these two forces are balanced such that the bridge's surface is parallel to the guitar body (olive). The strings are locked tightly with a special mechanism at the nut (green) as well as at the bridge, hence "double-locking".
Position II illustrates the position of the bridge when the vibrato arm is pushed down towards the guitar body. The bridge rotates around a pivot point counter-clockwise and the tension in each string decreases, lowering the pitch of each string. The sound of any notes being played becomes flat. While the tension of the strings decreases, the tension of the springs increases. It is the balance between string-tension and spring-tension, as well as the fact that the strings end at the bridge saddles and nut (eliminating "play" in the string, which would negatively affect tuning), that brings the strings reliably back into tune when force on the bar is removed.
Position III illustrates the position of the bridge when the vibrato arm is pulled up away from the guitar body. The bridge rotates clockwise, tension in the strings increases, the pitch of the sound increases and so notes sound sharper than normal. Due to the limitations on the assembly's movement imposed by the guitar's body, the amount of available pitch change is much larger when the bar is depressed than when it is lifted.
Note that when using the vibrato bar, string action (the distance between the strings and the fretboard) is affected, and this can sometimes cause the strings to unintentionally touch the frets and create unwanted sounds on instruments set up with extremely low action and heavily recessed vibrato installations.
Read more about this topic: Floyd Rose
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