Rounding Out Tremolo Stabilisers (for now)
Things have been a little crazy around Haze HQ as I write but I thought I’d take this opportunity to round up a few final points on the previous discussions on tremolo stabilisers.
Actually, that’s not quite true. There is one last trem stabilising system that I want to talk about but, I’m going to park it for a while. We’ll return to it another day. For now, I want to discuss two important things about these stabilisers.
First point regards the tension element of stabilisers like the Back Box and the Tremsetter. On these devices, you can turn a thumbscrew and alter their internal spring tension. Doing this can bring a little more perceived stability to the system but (and it’s a big but) it progressively alters the feel of the tremolo. The more tension on the device, the ‘harder’ or most positive is the neutral point. That means it’s less easy to make subtle or flowing tremolo movements. There’s a stiff stop-point in the middle of your whammy bar’s travel.
For some players, that might be fine. The plus-side is that the device can more readily withstand massive bends without altering the pitch of other strings. It can tolerate a player resting their picking hand more heavily on the bridge without going out of tune. It might even be able to cope with some dropped tuning or even a string-breakage (this latter is a tall order, though).
Adding tension to the stabiliser will likely mean some work on the rest of the tremolo setup. There’s no such thing as a free lunch in the Newton Equal and Opposite Café. Expect to fiddle with the trem springs too.
And, since we’re talking about setup, I must mention the second point. And it’s vital.
If your tremolo is experiencing tuning problems, a stabiliser like the Back Box or Tremsetter probably won’t cure them. These work best in a system that’s already well set up and where tuning is already behaving itself. I realise that's pretty annoying if you're experiencing problems but these things a probably not a silver bullet to fix your trem woes (tremolwoes?)
If your trem system is getting itself hung up and not returning properly to tune, that should really be fixed for these things to work their best. Yeah, you could probably brute-force things by whacking a load of tension on to try make the neutral point as ‘sticky’ as possible and it’ll probably help to an extent. It won’t work as well as it could, though, and the trem probably won’t be great to use. You’ll probably get some sick gains in the biceps of your whammying arm, though. 💪😄
This article written by Gerry Hayes and first published at hazeguitars.com
