Super-Vee Strat Tremolo

Robboman

Robboman

Fractal Fanatic
No affiliation, but when a product is this good you wanna tell your friends.

Super-Vee | BladeRunner | Fender Stratocaster | Tremolo Bar

I replaced the stock 2-post trem bridge on my USA Strat with a Super-Vee Blade Runner. It's a beautiful, high-quality piece of hardware that has NO knife-edge pivot or contact points to ever wear out or sit out of place to cause tuning issues. It uses a flat-spring instead.

I also dropped a Mag-Lok into the back cavity between the trem springs, this little guy uses rare-earth magnets to hold your full-floating trem firmly in place while you're bending double-stops, but then lets go easily and smoothly when you use the tremolo bar.

Both were easy to install and wow, what a difference this has made to the guitar. Rock solid tuning stability and I think the guitar sounds better, sounds more solid and spanky in the low end, bit more sustain.

Highly recommended.
 
Robboman said:
I also dropped a Mag-Lok into the back cavity between the trem springs, this little guy uses rare-earth magnets to hold your full-floating trem firmly in place while you're bending double-stops, but then lets go easily and smoothly when you use the tremolo bar.
Click to expand...
Does the Mag-Lok still allow you to do slight vibrato with the tremolo bar ? How much movement is required for the Mag-Lok to release from it's "locked" position ?
BTW, thanks for posting this ...I've been wanting to hear some user-feedback on this device for a while now.
 
Robboman said:
...

I also dropped a Mag-Lok into the back cavity between the trem springs, this little guy uses rare-earth magnets to hold your full-floating trem firmly in place while you're bending double-stops, but then lets go easily and smoothly when you use the tremolo bar.

...
Click to expand...

Can you tell us a bit more about the Mag-lok? The concept sounds interesting, but I would never have thought that a simple rare-earth magnet would have sufficed to prevent the floating bridge from pulling forward, especially when bending two strings at once. Does it, really? Your other strings stay in tune?
 
Girlfriend got me a bladerunner for Christmas. The smooth, frictionless bends are amazing. I never thought the traditional trem was "rough" but now I know better. Kind of like switching from nickel to SS frets.

Also, tuning stability is top notch now.

Last thing is that the trem arm is significantly thicker than a stock fender arm. I had issues when bending up on the arm of doing it too hard and bending/breaking the fender arms. This new one is tough as nails.
 
Also......

Can the Mag-Lok handle drop tunings? Altered tunings?

Seems like it is just beneficial for bends and double-stops.
 
OK, here's some more Mag-Lok observations:

It's a very simple device, meant to provide just enough magnetic force to hold a floating bridge tight in place so it won't dive forward from string bending, but still dive forward easily when you grab the whammy bar... and still allow movement back/upward (sharp), as in 'floating'. There is a compromise here; although you can still pull the bar back/upward freely, you do feel the magnets release when you push down on the bar. It's pretty smooth but it does 'feel' different than a fully free-floating trem when you do light, subtle vibrato.

You can 'adjust' this feel and magnet strength somewhat by replacing the felt pad thing inside the barrel (between the magnets) with a thicker or thinner pad. If you don't bend strings all that hard you could use a thicker pad which would separate the magnets a bit further apart at zero position, the result is that it will require less downforce on the bar to move the bridge and therefore feel smoother.

The Mag-Lok is really only meant for playing those double-stop bends, where you play a chord and bend string(s) within the chord while other string(s) have no bend. On a full-floating trem the non-bending strings will pull out of tune (flat) instantly as the bridge pulls downward from the extra tension of the string bend. If you don't happen to ever bend within chords like that, but you do often grab the bar to add light vibrato, then the Mag-Lok might not be for you. (You'll still love the Blade Runner bridge though.. smoothest Strat bridge ever).

I kept the stock pad in mine and for me it's perfect.. I can't get the bridge to budge at all, no matter how hard I bend the strings, yet it dives easily with the bar. Perfect.

No, it won't help you change to drop D tuning easily, because that would reduce string tension and cause the bridge to move upward slightly. There's no magnetic resistance in the upward direction, only downward. Maybe if you put in TWO Mag-Loks and put one in backwards :) Hmm..
 
Thanks a bunch for the details.

I'm installing one for a customer shortly. I installed a Tremol-No on his 81' Custom Les Paul a couple weeks ago. Gibson modified the it back then with a Floyd Rose.

He he chanced upon this Mag-Lok and picked one up.

Btw ....the Super Vee caught my eye a few years ago! ....the TremKing system also!

Yet to pick one up.......

I must say......the smoothest most sensitive trem I've experienced to date is the Point Tremolo System. Just as it's name implies...it utilizes 2 needle like points for the pivot points into two metal cones. The cones are mounted on the body just below the bridge trem cavity.

Interestingly.....the pivot points are located near the center of the trem (not on the knife edge).
This effectively doubles the trem bridge travel with half the effort on the trem bar.

......and super smooth!

Electric Guitar Tremolo Vibrato Bridge by The Point Technologies
 
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