Tremol-no is here

[moro]

This showed up in the mail today. (The mailman put the box in the bushes for some reason. I almost missed it.)



Installation was fairly straightforward. It took me about 30 minutes. There is some back and forth you have to do with the setup, but I guess that goes without saying for a floating bridge.

You do need 2mm and 1.5mm allen wrenches, which may not be obvious.

So far, I've just played around with it locked down. It feels great and re-ignites my GAS for a real fixed bridge guitar. I haven't tried the dive-only setting yet.

I'll probably put a D-tuna on this guitar too, to complete the Floyd-mod stupidity.

[brothersnowgone]

That's cool, I plan on getting one and a d-tuna coupled with my ESP arming adjuster just to have the most advanced/versatile floating setup I can possibly have. If this had never come out I would've never considered a D-tuna since I'd have to block my trem from raising pitch. Too bad they don't make a D-tuna that'll work on a Lo Pro Edge!

[LonePhantom]

yeah this is awesome. I'm trying to convince my local music store to order these in.

[David McCarroll]

Any feeling for what it does for the tone/sustain of the guitar, after descending into the evils of PRS world, I'm losing my love for locking trems due to some odd attack/sustain shaping which one of our local techs so cruelly pointed out to me......

[mi2tom]

Totally awesome, looks neat

[BLAKK:JAKK]

I've been waiting for something like that since............I can't even remember...

BLAKK:JAKK

[fettouhi]

Cool . Gotta order mine soon .

Regards

André

[moro]

Originally Posted by David McCarroll

Any feeling for what it does for the tone/sustain of the guitar, after descending into the evils of PRS world, I'm losing my love for locking trems due to some odd attack/sustain shaping which one of our local techs so cruelly pointed out to me......

After my first post, I played around with the dive only mode and I didn't notice any difference in sound. I think that for dive only tremolos to have any noticeable difference in tone, the springs have to be tightened so they're actually pulling the bridge against whatever is blocking it.*

In the fully locked mode, it really does feel like a fixed-bridge guitar (duh). The strings feel nice and tight, there's none of the floppiness you feel when you bend strings on a tremolo equipped guitar, and the notes seem to pop.

What PRS(es) do you have? I might go try out some Les Pauls and PRSes after work today.

* My Pod is currently in the shop, so I'm unplugged. :P There might be a difference I'm not hearing.

[moro]

Originally Posted by brothersnowgone

That's cool, I plan on getting one and a d-tuna coupled with my ESP arming adjuster just to have the most advanced/versatile floating setup I can possibly have. If this had never come out I would've never considered a D-tuna since I'd have to block my trem from raising pitch. Too bad they don't make a D-tuna that'll work on a Lo Pro Edge!

Lol. I was thinking about that. Arming Adjuster + Tremol-no + D-tuna = Ultimate Floyd Wackiness.

Please do it. I'd love to see how it turns out.

[john1880]

I just got mine too. I have hipshot trem-setters on all my guitars(with a d-tuna) and I will have one with the tremol-no. I still prefer the hipshot because there is nothing to do before I drop my D which is great live, but it is a quality piece of gear and the fact that you can "turn it off" with a twist of a couple of screws is awesome.
BTW...I am currently working on a D-tuna that will work on a LO-PRO edge. It's just a matter of getting some time on my CNC machine and tweaking. I have done 2 prototypes out of plastic just to see if it will fly, and I believe it will. But it is tricky 'cause there isn't a whole lot of room to work with.
Stay tuned though...
The tremol-no is a must for anyone with a floating tremolo.

John

[David McCarroll]

[quote=moro]

What PRS(es) do you have? I might go try out some Les Pauls and PRSes after work today.

QUOTE]

I've got a Custom 22 with Duncans (59 in the neck, Custom Custom in the bridge) and the toggle switch rather than 5-way - a truly lovely guitar, and a Custom 22 Soapbar which has three (!) P90s.

I played until recently a Custom Shop 57 Goldtop Les Paul - the damned thing refused to stay in tune, and I quite literally ended up having physiotherapy as a result of the weight and the lack of body contouring. I then swapped that for an original 64 SG, which, oddly enough for a Gibson (no irony here :-) )also refused to stay in tune.

After many years of being put off PRS's by our local vintage dealer ("mate, the day you can prove they'll be an investment, I'll stock 'em), I picked up the Soapbar in another shop, and while due to the maple 'board she's not the easiest guitar to play, she is one of the best sounding guitars I have ever heard - the 5-way blade is set that you get standard Les Paul sounds in the 3 main positions, but in 2 and 4, the middle pickup is added to the bridge or neck, and she becomes a supercharged strat on steroids - just an amazing guitar.

The Custom 22 I bought as a sort of Les Paul substitute - she is not only aesthetically gorgeous (Emerald Green Ten top, stop tail), she sounds like a really good Les Paul and plays like a dream! My only minor gripe is that the Custom Custom is just a touch too hot and lacks the airy woodiness of the neck P/U, so it will most likely get replaced by a Pearly Gates or Seth Lover at some stage soon.

I can't recommend them highly enough, I have three JEMs and a UVMC, and sadly they just don't get played at all nowadays as a result of the PRS's. The only Gibson I have played in the last few years which compares is a CS 59 reissue in our local store which is a cut above the hundred or so others I played while working in the aforementioned vintage shop - but it's $10K AUD secondhand - and for that I could get a superb brand new PRS (in fact even here I could probably just about get a Private Stock PRS!) - AND it STILL doesn't feel anywhere near as good as the Custom 22 - go figure!

Gibson! - lift your game, please!

Cheers, sorry for the long post,

David

[brothersnowgone]

Originally Posted by moro

Lol. I was thinking about that. Arming Adjuster + Tremol-no + D-tuna = Ultimate Floyd Wackiness.

Please do it. I'd love to see how it turns out.

Sure I'll post pics if I'm the first, but thats getting done next month when my next job starts. I think I'm also going to route the body behind the bridge for the D-tuna while I'm changing the trem route to a lion's claw, so the it doesn't smack the face of the guitar. I'll also be changing the input to a jem style, just cause I record a lot sitting and the input cable hits my leg all the time. All this to a 91' 570 that cost me $110 lol, it could have easily sold for much more!

[moro]

Originally Posted by David McCarroll

Gibson! - lift your game, please!

This is getting OT, but hey, it's my thread. :P

Thanks for the response. I'm surprised by your experience with the historics. What I've heard in other places is "yeah, Gibson has QA issues on their production models, but their custom shop stuff is amazing." (The historics are from the Custom Shop.)

One of the big reasons I'm looking at PRS is the ergonomic stuff you mentioned. I'm not in a band or anything so I mostly play sitting down, but still, I'm a little scared by how damned heavy Les Pauls are. PRSes seem a lot more friendly though I'm a little baffled by the massive flat shelf that extends into the neck where it meets the body.

Anyway, I'm off in a few minutes to experience them for myself.

[David McCarroll]

[quote=moro]

PRSes seem a lot more friendly though I'm a little baffled by the massive flat shelf that extends into the neck where it meets the body.

QUOTE]

That odd heel that they do? yeah, never been able to understand that myself, but it's their gig huh? I do wonder whether it is to allow their sheltered workshop to assemble guitars without fear of getting it wrong ;-)

That said, I have to admit the odd heel doesn't seem to affect the way I play (possibly badly), and despite initial aims to have the heel recontoured on the Soapbar, i haven't found the need.

I worked for a shop called Jackson's Rare Guitars here in Sydney for about five years - we were selling about 70 Custom Authentic '59 Reissues a year - apparently more than the rest of Australia combined (which is understandable given that they were $12 - 13K AUD!!!!), and I can honestly say that while they look superb, they arrive from the factory very poorly set up and with terrible fret jobs - ummmm, like perhaps Gibson thought most of their buyers would be well heeled attorneys who'd been to Woodstock in their youth and could now afford the guitar their heroes played (ouch!!!) - so you were up for another $100 or so to get the damn thing playable, THEN the stupid thing wouldn't stay in tune anyway!

I hand picked the best '57 Goldtop we got, paid enough to keep a small African nation fed for a month, and ended up with a guitar who's tuning would drift as you thought about picking it up to play the next song! Eventually I just gave up and borrowed a friend's CU22 PRS to do gigs as I knew it would still be in tune halfway through a set - the writing was, unfortunately on the wall by then.

I sort of gave up on the vintage/collectable thing about then - I'm a gigging guitarist - the principal thing a guitar has to do for me is work reliably, and unfortunately the Gibsons just weren't doing that. The SG that followed the Les Paul I bought for lust reasons after seeing Eric Johnson play one, but frankly........ the guitar produced more dissonant harmonics than fundamental notes, the G string warbled like a blackbird in love no matter what we did to the nut, bridge, frets etc etc etc - I had to tune it to my Korg DT1, then RETUNE it by ear to make it sound roughly in tune, then just, y'know, pray and hope for the best that I'd make it through a song or two!

Having said that of course, Gibson are selling guitars by the truckload, so they must be doing something right - but given the choice of forking out $5399AUD for a Les Paul Standard, or $5400AUD for a PRS McCarty (yep, that's what we pay down here....) it is a bit of a no-brainer to me!

Cheers - hope the guitar hunting goes well,

David

[Ironjose]

does it really works? i mean, the dive only mode and the full floating mode?, coz someone said that the springs didn´t work correctly, what´s that about?
JJ