Wilkinson tremolo on LPS carved top body: setting tips?

[ienablues]

Hello, folks. I just finished to assemble my new Warmoth axe: an amazing LPS mahogany carved top with mahogany/rosewood Warmoth conversion neck.
I had the body routed for the Wilkinson trem, but once installed the trem I notice 2 problems:

first, the bridge baseplate must be left high on the body, because the fingerboard is high above the body's surface (this is mostly a matter of look, since functionally it does not affect the sound or the tuning stability in any way);

the second is all about playability, since I'm a pretty hard string bender (I use to bend 2 full tones on the G string on some solos). The floating bridge doesn't allow me to prevent the tremolo to sink and (temporarily) detune the other strings when I bend one. On my other Warmoth axes (two strats and a tele) I keep the tremolo's baseplate anchored to the body and keep 4 springs on the claw to prevent the sinking. On this body I can't do it. Any suggestions (apart from stopping to bend strings that way :guitaristgif?

Thank you in advance for your tips. :rock-on:

 

[dmraco]

I have the same set up on my sons LP.  I have three springs and the tension set so the back of the whammy is sitting on the body.  I placed a small rubber strip on the bottom of the whammy to protect the finish. 

Try to lower the whammy a bit.  My action is super low and have no buzzing issues.

I have found that this solves most tuning issues, however I have lost the ability to pull UP on the bar.

Can you post some photos??  You can also screw the spring mount on the underside in more.  This will create more tension on the springs.

 

[AutoBat]

A Hipshot tremsetter or a Tremol-no would allow you to adjust your vibrato from fully floating, to down only, to fixed (depending on the product).

 

[Shadow]

Sorry, late to the party here, but something to check out: a "Goldo Backbox."

Basically it will pre-stresses the springs so that you can bend, or lay your hand on it without it movin' on ya. You can however, still bend up and down with it, you just need to exert more initial force to get the thing to move. It looks like way less of a pain than the tremsetter as well. I guess the one downside that I can think of would be it would probably stop any kind of flutter, if you're into that thing.

The Tremol-no is also cool, but doesn't really do the same thing. It just allows you to lock the trem, and set it in dive-only. You'd still pull the trem forwards in floating mode.

Or, if you wanted, you could use both... and have the functionality of both units.

From what it looks like, the Backbox is somewhere around $30-40 plus shipping and the T-no I'm not sure.

This is a review of the backbox, talks a little about it:
http://joe.emenaker.com/TremStabilizers/BackBox.html

And this is an installation guide which also tries to explain how the thing works:
http://joe.emenaker.com/TremStabilizers/BackBoxInstallation.html

Note: It'll replace the middle spring in your set if that's a problem for you.

 

[Cagey]

Bending a string two whole tones takes two or three adjacent strings out of the picture, so who cares if they're getting flatted? This sounds sorta like an imaginary problem based in reality, the reality being that it's technically true that putting unusual tension on one string will pull the bridge up and flat the balance of the strings, but are you actually holding a chord that's sounding and stretching one of the strings two whole tones? What kind of chord would that be? It would be an interesting bit of manipulation, to say the least, something I suspect you'd need Herculean strength to pull off successfully.

There's an old saying: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Vibrato stabilizers fall in that category. I keep expecting RonCo to come up with one and run a 1/2 hour infomercial late at night.

 

[swarfrat]

It only takes the strings on the upper (lower pitched) side of the fretboard out. Ringing a drone string, fretting the next string a whole step below (but usually a half step) and sliding up into the note is not so rare as to be imaginary or something only Eric Johnson would do (probably because he has a tremolo bridge

 

[Shadow]

For the most part, I agree with you Cagey, 99% of situations aren't going to need it. The only time I can see a use for it is if you really like to spam unison bends, are very heavy handed on the trem (and even then...), or if you're using one of those saddle peizo pickups, which I hear seem to be very sensitive to any kind of extra movement in the trem. Swarf should be able to better judge the peizo side of things, as I don't have one.

 

[swarfrat]

If you've got piezos on it you will hear bumps whenever 1) you grab or release the bar. 2) Your springs fully compress. 3) The trem hits the body - either the top or the cavity wall. 4) the trem flutters, 5) you bump the bridge.

Some day I'm planning to replace the Graphtech guts with homebrew, and it will contain steep (24 db/oct) high pass filter about 3 semitones below standard tuning for each string, and summed piezo will derive from that.

#1 can be reduced by making sure the collar set screw is tight.
#2 can be fixed by using only 2 springs, and running them in so that they're always stretched out.
#3 can be fixed by floating the trem. I have just less than a half step of pullup (it's close on some strings)
#4 isn't solved by not doing fun but cliche 80's hair metal tricks

#1, 4 and 5 can really only be solved by high pass filtering.