[Opinion needed] Misaligned tremolo bushings, not perpendicular to neck

[endrju.m]

As on Monday my neck is going to be delivered, I started initial body assembly. Unfortunately I've found out that one of tremolo stud insert is 0,65mm (.026) closer to the neck than the other one. Is this discrepancy acceptable? I know that I can compensate it with saddles, but still bridge won't float perpendicularly to the neck. Apart from aesthetics (it's a bit visible in relation to bridge humbucker routing), how serious it is? Will it make guitar going out of tune more likely than usual while float?

 

[mystique1]

What type of Trem' did you specify when ordering the body, as I know that certain types are slightly offset in their construction?

 

[endrju.m]

I've ordered Wilkinson VS-100 tremolo

 

[AutoBat]

Also how did you determine your line?  The image doesn't show any reference point.

 

[endrju.m]

Used neck mounting holes as reference (Warmoth uses them as indexes for CNC). I was really detailed about drawing this line.

 

[Cagey]

I could swear we already addressed this issue, but maybe it was for another member.

In any event, that's not enough of a discrepancy to worry about. There's a lot of travel to the saddles on a Wilkinson VS100 bridge, so you'll have no trouble intonating the thing. As to operation, it really doesn't matter. As soon as you touch the vibrato bar, all bets are off. You change the string length, so intonation is out the window. Also, strings don't detune evenly. If you depress the wang bar enough to flat any one string exactly one step, the other five strings aren't going to be flatted the same amount.

This has always been true of all vibrato bridges; it's not the fault of the one you've chosen. There's a new design out there that theoretically solves that problem, but I can't remember its name and I'm not sure it's worth the cost/trouble. Diving a chord is more of a special effect than anything else, so you don't worry about tuning when you do it. A bigger worry is if you go nuts, the strings may fall out of the nut slots or stick to the pickup. But, by the time you get to that point, you're well past any musical needs - you're just beating the snot out of the instrument for the sake of administering a beating.

 

[AutoBat]

Another index hole is where the bridge pickup goes, and it disappears when routed.
Cagey might be referencing the Steinberger TransTrem.  EVH used it in a couple songs.

 

[Cagey]

Yep, that's the one I'm talking about. Special installation, high cost, heavy maintenance, but they supposedly work. I won't be trying one unless somebody gives me a winning lottery ticket that'll pay a magic tech's salary for 10 years. I'm just not that critical. I have a lot more to worry about when I'm playing than whether or not all six strings are in tune if I happen to dive the thing into the ditch during an EVH tune. Nobody else notices; why should I? The whole mechanism is designed for the ultra-anal who work on theoretical planes whose existence most of us aren't even aware of.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

The TransTrem is hardly new at around 30 years old. I'd love to have a go on one, but you have to buy a really horrible and expensive Steinberger to get one. So that's out.

Wanna hear one in action? Sorrow, on the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd, has some nice use. And yes it is a special effect more than anything - but a cool one.

 

[Cagey]

Has it been that long? Seems like only yesterday we were worried about global cooling and the upcoming ice age.

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I think that has already started here in the UK.

 

[Cagey]

Seems like it's about time. The Chicken Littles seem to run on about 20 year (read: generational) cycles. We're either in imminent danger of freezing or boiling to death, depending on who's selling the idea and how much money can be made on it. For instance, Algore is more than an order of magnitude richer now than he was when he started the global warming myth. This, during a period where inflation outstripped growth by a point or two. Neat trick, if you can pull it off.

 

[Dan025]

As on Monday my neck is going to be delivered, I started initial body assembly. Unfortunately I've found out that one of tremolo stud insert is 0,65mm (.026) closer to the neck than the other one. Is this discrepancy acceptable? I know that I can compensate it with saddles, but still bridge won't float perpendicularly to the neck. Apart from aesthetics (it's a bit visible in relation to bridge humbucker routing), how serious it is? Will it make guitar going out of tune more likely than usual while float?

.026 from reference points that are several inches away scribed with some kind of pen is hardly anything to worry about. if they are off perpendicular that much the function won't be effected and the astetics can be hidden with small adjustments to the pickup mounting rings. if you want to go without rings you may be able to scrape a little out of the pocket to fix any visable off-parallel issues....

 

[Dan025]

Seems like it's about time. The Chicken Littles seem to run on about 20 year (read: generational) cycles. We're either in imminent danger of freezing or boiling to death, depending on who's selling the idea and how much money can be made on it. For instance, Algore is more than an order of magnitude richer now than he was when he started the global warming myth. This, during a period where inflation outstripped growth by a point or two. Neat trick, if you can pull it off.

the best part of this is the idea that we can fight the carbon issues by use of electric and hybrid cars powered by nickel metal hydride batteries.... if you know anything about nickel mining that seems unlikely. not to mention buying a new car means powering a factory with coal. but with our old car the damage of that was already done. so why encourage us to do it all over again?

i also love the fact that nobody seems to know that there is no more hole in the ozone layer (except algore who claims responsibilty for fixing it... no really he actually says that, i heard him!) or ever questioned why it was over antarctica to begin with when there is no population there... no that couldn't have been a solar event. it must have been the evils of man and if not for the heroism of al gore we'd all be doomed with skin cancer by now! lol what a laugh...

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Pff, scientists. What do they know?

I think the biggest thing is just to do stuff like carpooling. The amount you guys drive over there in theUS is crazy. For one thing, don't you wanna have a beer sometimes?

 

[croquet hoop]

Wanna hear one in action? Sorrow, on the album A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd, has some nice use. And yes it is a special effect more than anything - but a cool one.

Funny, I didn't know that. But then, the tremolo action in the live versions of Sorrow sound as good as the album version, and that's with a godawful 6-holes vintage Strat trem.

If there's something special to pay attention to in the album version regarding the transtrem, I'll be happy to listen carefully, but to me it sounded just like any trem.

Sorry endrju.m, I don't mean to derail your thread (btw, this slight misalignment does not seem critical to me as well, as far as playability is concerned).

 

[Jumble Jumble]

I will listen to the album again and pick out some moments. I don't think there's any point where he actually bends a chord and holds it - just that when he does dive a chord it sounds different (and better I think).

 

[Jumble Jumble]

Just had a listen to that track. Ignore the intro, there's hardly any whammy in it. The real stuff is in the rhythm guitar work - there are a lot of moments where a distorted chord fades in slightly under pitch, comes up to pitch, and then dives down again just as it's cutting off. It's a subtle effect there, but it's quite distinctive to that song. Doing it with a normal whammy sounds alright, but not the same. Those almost-animalistic roars in the backing give the song a lot of its identity.

After the slow bit in the middle he comes from a C up to an E on the bottom string - doable with any whammy of course but easily repeatable with the TransTrem. And then there's the fact that dipping a whole tone or two on the top string is very difficult on the standard Strat trem. On mine the block would hit the wood before I got 2 tones down. And he does that a fair bit in the solos.

I think it's right to use it as a subtle effect - to make normal whammy usage more musical - than it is to show off about how you can bend a whole chord. Very tasteful.

 

[john_p_wi]

don't you wanna have a beer sometimes?

No!  "A" beer is not enough... ccasion14:

 

[AutoBat]

Last bit of offtopicing from me.  TransTrem tracks from Van Halen include Get Up and Summer Nights (both from 5150) which was released in 1986.