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Gotoh GTC101
The Gotoh GTC101, a hard-tail bridge Enlarge sprite

The term hard-tail can refer to a type of guitar bridge or a complete guitar model. A hard-tail is a fixed bridge, usually consisting of a single unit instead of a separate bridge and tailpiece. Strings are usually mounted through-body and run over separate adjustable saddles fixed to the bridge plate. An example of a hard-tail bridge used on Ibanez guitars is the Gotoh GTC101.

A guitar model can be called a hard-tail when it doesn't feature a tremolo system or vibrato tailpiece but a fixed bridge/tailpiece. The term mostly applies to guitars which usually do have a tremolo, such as Fender Stratocaster type guitars and Ibanez RG models and S models. Most of these guitars feature a 'hard-tail' style bridge instead of a tremolo when being 'fixed'.

In Ibanez catalogs the term Fixed Bridge is used for either Ibanez branded hard-tail bridges or the quite similar Gotoh GTC101 bridge.

Examples[]

  • The PGM301 is the hard-tail version of the PGM300.
  • The Ibanez RGs feature the Tight-End R bridge which is not found on RGAs. However, both models feature fixed bridges (the only difference between these series is that RGAs are archtop guitars while RGs are flat top guitars).
Related content: Fixed bridges | Parts-icon
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