Who plays an instrument and what are you learning/playing?

[Whispers]

Yeah, it's best to start with a fixed bridge.??Something like a Gibson - few Gibsons have tremolos on them.??Epiphone is the Gibson inexpensive brand, but not cheap like Fender Squiers.??Don't buy a Squier.??D:

The thing with tremolo bridges is that they need a counter balance.??Fixed bridges are attached to the body of the guitar so they can't move.??Tremolo bridges, however, are free to move so they have springs in the bottom of the guitar to bull the bridge in the opposite direction the strings are pulling it in.??With a basic tremolo like on a strat you can just make the springs extremely tight so the bridge rests flush with the body (although some guitarists like a bit of give so they can pull the bridge instead of being restricted to lowering it).

A floating tremolo, however, allows you to pull up on or lower the bridge to raise or lower the pitch at your whim and do cool things like Dimebombs and such.??For this you need to counter balance the springs to match the tension of the strings exactly.??Failing to do this causes the strings to not return to pitch when you release the whammy bar.??To make matters worse you want to have the bridge set at the perfect angle in the first place.??You can counter balance the springs easily enough, but if you have the bridge angled too far in one direction your action risks being too high or too low.

So, you have to tune your guitar one string at a time checking the other strings every time you bring one string to tune.??This takes forever.??Once you finally have all the strings in tune you check your bridge.??If it's angled too far forward you need to tighten the springs because the strings are currently creating more force.??If the bridge is angled back then the springs are overpowering the strings.??Once you turn your spring-tightening screws x amount of half turns (or quarter turns once you're really starting to dial it in) you do it aallll over again!??xD

Depending on your string gauge strings can exert 20 pounds of tension each creating 120 pounds of tension for a six-string guitar using a light gauge.??That's a lot of force to bring into balance an requires a fair amount of patience or an expendable amount of cash to spend at a music store to have some other guy do it for you.??=p

It's really easy to do it's just rather meticulous and time-consuming.??It's just as easy to grab your MP3 player or turn on the TV while you do it.??That's what I do: grab my MP3 player and listen to what I like learning/playing while re-intonating my guitar.??Get the juices flowing while I wait.??