G'day,
Good tremolo's have hard base plates or knife edges. On crappy trem's the knife edge wears out and blunts after a short while. The Takeuchi trems that are on the cheaper Ibanez JS models are made from very poor quality materials, and while they may stay in tune for a couple of months of playing, they will start going out of tune when you whammy down, then try to return to pitch. Guitars with cheap tremolo's are a hassle, I had a Korean Floyd copy that went dead in a month and ended up replacing it with a Schaller, cost a fair bit $300 usa I think, but it works really well. They also make a low profile design too, but there's no point in those if you ask me.
Steve Vai kill's his tremolo's quite often so I've read so the tech he has replaces them often. They are certainly better than the cheap ones, but I'm not sure how they compare to the hardened steel edge Schallers, Gotoh's or Original Floyds. An
Ibanez trem is about the same cost as a Schaller here in Australia I think.
Tony
6828@iname.com
`·.¸.·´¯`·...¸><((((º>
