aleclee
Major General GAS
I came into a Tremol-No about 10 days ago. A business trip and some other distractions kept me from writing this sooner.
One of the reasons I got a pre-production review unit was that I was going to put it in an "interesting" guitar. Kevan (the Tremol-No's designer) knew how the Tremol-No worked on regular Strat & Floyd bridges but had limited experience with PRS bridges and was very interested in my Driskill bridge, which is very similar to that of a PRS. As my band is in the process of recording a CD, this unit quickly found its way into my Driskill.
Construction and Materials
As you can see below, it's a nicely machined unit. Most of the device is aluminum. The round shaft is stainless and the thumb screws are brass. The choice of those materials ensures durability (stainless) and good grip with the brass thumbscrews.
The leftmost thumbscrew operates on the Deep C part of the device. When tightened, it puts the unit into dive-only mode. It allows the use of a D-Tuna on a floating trem. When the Deep C is engaged, you can break a string without going out of tune.
The other two thumbscrews totally lock down the unit, effectively making your floating trem a hardtail.
Installation
At NAMM, I got to see Kevan install one on a Floyd-equipped Hamer in a little over six minutes. My experience wasn't quite that fast. As it turns out, there was a good reason for Kevan to be interested in how it worked on my Driskill.
Unlike most trems, not only is the trem block made of brass, it's polished and gold plated. That makes it a bit harder for the clamp to get a good grip on the block. That caused me to tighten the clamp more than usual. My tightening, combined with the lever action of the thick Driskill trem block caused the plastic stabilizer rods (far right of the unit) to flex a bit. Applying some tape to the block allowed the clamp to get enough grip to secure the unit to the trem.
Kevan indicated that to address that issue in production units, they will ship with metal replacement rods that can be used on thicker trem blocks. Once I had attached the clamp, the rest of the install went smootly and quickly. The trem claw had to be adjusted to avoid binding and then was tightened on to the claw screws using set screws visible on the top of the claw.
Production units will not have the crimp ring for the grounding wire. You can just wrap the wire around the screw and tighten it down. I also suggested that the ground screw have a phillips head instead of the hex head. It was kind of awkward to tighten with my allen wrench set and I think it would be more convenient to be able to use a phillips screwdriver instead.
If you wish to work the thumbscrews, you either need to cut an access slot in your trem cover (templates are available on the web site) or leave it off. Since my Driskill's trem cover is made from carbon fiber (with mahogany veneer laminated to provide an all-wood appearance) I'm inclined to leave it off rather than trying to cut an access slit in the thing.
One of the reasons I got a pre-production review unit was that I was going to put it in an "interesting" guitar. Kevan (the Tremol-No's designer) knew how the Tremol-No worked on regular Strat & Floyd bridges but had limited experience with PRS bridges and was very interested in my Driskill bridge, which is very similar to that of a PRS. As my band is in the process of recording a CD, this unit quickly found its way into my Driskill.
Construction and Materials
As you can see below, it's a nicely machined unit. Most of the device is aluminum. The round shaft is stainless and the thumb screws are brass. The choice of those materials ensures durability (stainless) and good grip with the brass thumbscrews.
The leftmost thumbscrew operates on the Deep C part of the device. When tightened, it puts the unit into dive-only mode. It allows the use of a D-Tuna on a floating trem. When the Deep C is engaged, you can break a string without going out of tune.
The other two thumbscrews totally lock down the unit, effectively making your floating trem a hardtail.
Installation
At NAMM, I got to see Kevan install one on a Floyd-equipped Hamer in a little over six minutes. My experience wasn't quite that fast. As it turns out, there was a good reason for Kevan to be interested in how it worked on my Driskill.
Unlike most trems, not only is the trem block made of brass, it's polished and gold plated. That makes it a bit harder for the clamp to get a good grip on the block. That caused me to tighten the clamp more than usual. My tightening, combined with the lever action of the thick Driskill trem block caused the plastic stabilizer rods (far right of the unit) to flex a bit. Applying some tape to the block allowed the clamp to get enough grip to secure the unit to the trem.
Kevan indicated that to address that issue in production units, they will ship with metal replacement rods that can be used on thicker trem blocks. Once I had attached the clamp, the rest of the install went smootly and quickly. The trem claw had to be adjusted to avoid binding and then was tightened on to the claw screws using set screws visible on the top of the claw.
Production units will not have the crimp ring for the grounding wire. You can just wrap the wire around the screw and tighten it down. I also suggested that the ground screw have a phillips head instead of the hex head. It was kind of awkward to tighten with my allen wrench set and I think it would be more convenient to be able to use a phillips screwdriver instead.
If you wish to work the thumbscrews, you either need to cut an access slot in your trem cover (templates are available on the web site) or leave it off. Since my Driskill's trem cover is made from carbon fiber (with mahogany veneer laminated to provide an all-wood appearance) I'm inclined to leave it off rather than trying to cut an access slit in the thing.
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