Tone Claw Tremolo

Blix said:
Love how they did it on my Ibanez MSM1:
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Looks like exactly the thing.

I guess I could add a "mini-split" on my room to help it even out a bit, but it's on the southwest corner of the house and the sun overwhelms the one tiny vent in the afternoon, especially in the summer when the days are long and it's eleventy-something degrees outside, so the temperature fluctuates in my room....
 
Joe Bfstplk said:
TBH, what I'd like to have is a micro-adjuster knob/wheel for fine tension adjustment. Frequently I find my trem guitars have gone sharp if I haven't played them in a while, due to temperature changes and such in my office/studio, and it takes 15-30 minutes of play time to get them settled in again at the new balance point. A micro adjuster for the overall tension could help with that, I think.
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The Schaller mentioned above does that with an Allen wrench.

Also, Sofia makes a 3rd party trem block with a larger thumb wheel adjustment:

https://sophiatremolos.com/collections/global-tuner-upgrades/products/global-tuner-pro

But for $195 it's a bit much.
 
Parker Fly guitars had an adjustment wheel for the spring tension too. With a few turns of the wheel and retuning you could go from floating to decked or vice versa quite easily. Horribly ugly guitars IMHO but superb quality and way ahead of their time.

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From what I understand the guy behind Sophia is the inventor of the Ibanez trem that was used on the S series, with the pivots that were not knife edges. I remember doing this search a few years and finding online a lawsuit in which he sued Ibanez for not paying enough royalties on his design. So I guess a result of that suit is that neither he nor Ibanez use that trem.
 
mr_fender said:
Parker Fly guitars had an adjustment wheel for the spring tension too. With a few turns of the wheel and retuning you could go from floating to decked or vice versa quite easily. Horribly ugly guitars IMHO but superb quality and way ahead of their time.

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Looks like the builder fell in love with the headstock design echoing it on the upper and lower horns. I played one once super light weight and played nice!
 
All these snake oil things created, yet Leo used crap and yet everyone wants the vintage gear for tone. Go figure.
 
State of Epicicity said:
From what I understand the guy behind Sophia is the inventor of the Ibanez trem that was used on the S series, with the pivots that were not knife edges. I remember doing this search a few years and finding online a lawsuit in which he sued Ibanez for not paying enough royalties on his design. So I guess a result of that suit is that neither he nor Ibanez use that trem.
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For anyone interested, I found more about CSL Sophia legal stuff. I wonder if this is the real reason the Floyd Speedloader system died. That system was the greatest thing since sliced bread to me.

https://www.harmonycentral.com/foru...ent-complaint-against-ibanez-other-companies/
 
mr_fender said:
Parker Fly guitars had an adjustment wheel for the spring tension too. With a few turns of the wheel and retuning you could go from floating to decked or vice versa quite easily. Horribly ugly guitars IMHO but superb quality and way ahead of their time.

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My 1980 GL Steinberger & the modded install S-Trem is way ahead of its time as well. On the fly trem spring tension adjustment. It zeros the trem to balance after string changes.

http://www.steinbergerworld.com/parts/s-trem.jpg

http://www.steinbergerworld.com/parts/tt-type2.jpg

http://www.steinbergerworld.com/Gbridges.htm
 
RevDrucifer said:
A couple months back I watched a vid where someone tried different claws, they might have been sampling the FU stuff? I can’t remember, but I remember chuckling in my head at first, thinking it was pure snake oil/BS, but the sound DID change. Whether it was better/worse is completely subjective, but it was different.

9x out of 10, for things like this that add a really small tonal change, the same thing can be done by turning the treble knob up or a bass knob down. It’s amazing how much time is spent on these small nuance things, but if that’s what makes someone happy to play, more power to ‘em!
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Everything matters, I think the stock steel one sounds the best by far but everyone has different ears.
 
Henry said:
I loved that when I had it on an Ibanez. Surprised that even Ibanez doesn't use that more often anymore, and also that there's not many products that do that to retrofit an existing FR guitar. @Joe Bfstplk

I did find this one online but not sure whether it does exactly that:

https://sophiatremolos.com/collections/global-tuner-upgrades/products/global-tuner-pro

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All the extra moving parts and unnecessary mechanical functions are detrimental to the resonance of the block which is the function of the part,
bad design. The only bridges that need this are ones that lock in to a precise zero point . The Steinberger terms all had this function ( apart from the Z ), the Parker Fly, and the Wilkinson convertible should have had it but didn't , also true for the Kahler auto latch.
 
I had that Ibanez adjustment wheel in a S920 Premium with a Edge Zero trem system. The wheel helped set the tension/level of the bridge vs the springs. It wasn't bad.
 
mr_fender said:
Parker Fly guitars had an adjustment wheel for the spring tension too. With a few turns of the wheel and retuning you could go from floating to decked or vice versa quite easily. Horribly ugly guitars IMHO but superb quality and way ahead of their time.

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That trem has some serious issues. The flat spring is pretty unreliable and you can press the trem down to the point that the string lifts off the saddle while there is still tension. The Nightfly version was better with a conventional block.
 
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