Chistopher
malapterurus electricus tonewood instigator
The short answer is... yes!
A while back I purchased a Vegatrem VT1 Ultra Trem, which is a pretty complex name given it's the only product that Vegatren sells. The idea behind the VT1 is that they wanted to design a floating tremolo with the most possible range and the least possible friction. But the kicker is that they wanted the whole thing to fit into a standard Strat synchronized tremolo route.
When I was first looking at this thing, I thought it would use a three part design similar to the Bladerunner, with the mounting section, the blade, and the bridge itself being three separate units, but rather it only has two parts consisting of the mounting section and the bridge itself. The bridge pivots off of two half inch blade-like portions.
When I installed it I was pretty surprised at how well it worked. It doesn't quite have the range of a Floyd, but you can pull the low E up about one and 3/4 of a step and it will dive almost to the point where the strings stop sounding out. One thing that stood out was how smooth it is. Usually with this much range on a tremolo it becomes really tough to do subtle chord bends because they sound too abrupt and mechanical, but you can get almost Bigsby like vibrato with little trouble. I also noticed that there is a pretty consistent amount of pressure that has to be exerted the further you push or pull it. It has a thick screw-in bar with absolutely no play in it at all, but it's in a bit of a weird place, and while usually I always have the bar in when playing, regardless of whether or not I think I'll use it, I have to take this one off as it gets in the way.
It stays in tune like a champ too. This bridge in tandem with locking tuners and a lubed nut will stay in tune as well as any Floyd will.
It's a good unit, but is it $260 good? I don't quite think so. For that money you also get 3 sets of various strength springs, the trem itself, two allen wrenches, and a nifty decal. Granted the prices are going to be pretty high as the VT1 is Vegatrems first model, but if they continue to sell products and word gets around, I think if they get the price down to the $160 range or lower, this would be an excellent bargain.
*Just a side note about this unit, my previous Callaham bridge I had on my Strat was all about mass and surface area, the VT1 was just the opposite. It's a tiny unit and all energy transfer from the bridge to the body is through about an inch of knife edge, and yet there was almost no effect on sustain and a much smaller change to the tone than I was expecting.
Here's some Callaham/Vegatrem side by side pictures:
A while back I purchased a Vegatrem VT1 Ultra Trem, which is a pretty complex name given it's the only product that Vegatren sells. The idea behind the VT1 is that they wanted to design a floating tremolo with the most possible range and the least possible friction. But the kicker is that they wanted the whole thing to fit into a standard Strat synchronized tremolo route.
When I was first looking at this thing, I thought it would use a three part design similar to the Bladerunner, with the mounting section, the blade, and the bridge itself being three separate units, but rather it only has two parts consisting of the mounting section and the bridge itself. The bridge pivots off of two half inch blade-like portions.
When I installed it I was pretty surprised at how well it worked. It doesn't quite have the range of a Floyd, but you can pull the low E up about one and 3/4 of a step and it will dive almost to the point where the strings stop sounding out. One thing that stood out was how smooth it is. Usually with this much range on a tremolo it becomes really tough to do subtle chord bends because they sound too abrupt and mechanical, but you can get almost Bigsby like vibrato with little trouble. I also noticed that there is a pretty consistent amount of pressure that has to be exerted the further you push or pull it. It has a thick screw-in bar with absolutely no play in it at all, but it's in a bit of a weird place, and while usually I always have the bar in when playing, regardless of whether or not I think I'll use it, I have to take this one off as it gets in the way.
It stays in tune like a champ too. This bridge in tandem with locking tuners and a lubed nut will stay in tune as well as any Floyd will.
It's a good unit, but is it $260 good? I don't quite think so. For that money you also get 3 sets of various strength springs, the trem itself, two allen wrenches, and a nifty decal. Granted the prices are going to be pretty high as the VT1 is Vegatrems first model, but if they continue to sell products and word gets around, I think if they get the price down to the $160 range or lower, this would be an excellent bargain.
*Just a side note about this unit, my previous Callaham bridge I had on my Strat was all about mass and surface area, the VT1 was just the opposite. It's a tiny unit and all energy transfer from the bridge to the body is through about an inch of knife edge, and yet there was almost no effect on sustain and a much smaller change to the tone than I was expecting.
Here's some Callaham/Vegatrem side by side pictures:
