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strange trems


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I liked the old SG Trem that Pete Townshend used.

String your SG 13-sixty something

Plug into Hiwatt stack via boost pedal.

Turn Bass flat, Mid 10, trble 8, in volume 8 master vol 12.

Stomp pedal on.

Grab your sg from behind by top and bottom bout, turn vertical so the neck points straight up, head butt back of guitar violently then shake it like mad.

Just don't do it with any of my guitars... :D

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I'm genuinely scared..... :DB)

I remember reading somewhere about one famous guitarist who had wires all over his guitar so he could bend perform some kind of whacky racers style bending trick by pulling on this wire, which raised this particular strings tension. Was it the guy from Led Zepplin? Who's name I've totally forgotten now! Meh.......

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I heard Jimmy page had a crap load of wood removed from one of his Les Pauls so that the automated tuning system could work. More info here. Picture Here. I think it looked like those keyless entry buttons on a car, and it would do all of his kooky tunings with one push of the button. When pushed all these springs and pulleys and whatnot moved and pulled and tightened the strings to pitch. "Honestly" (ala Austin Powers) that's just being lazy and ruining a good guitar. Plus with all the money he makes and the free gear he gets from Gibson, he could have an arsenal of guitars ready for him off stage. Plus they run like $3000. Uh...no. I'll take the CC Deville route and have 30 guitars on stage.

Anyway. I played one of those Hipshot b-bender things, and you basically have to dig it into your hip to make it work. It's not very comfy. Poke yourself with a pencil in your hip, and that's basically what it's like. No padding or rubber on the end, just plain steel. This one is better, although you can't really jump up and down that much. They came stock on the Fender B-Bender models. It's not cheap, but your guitar could look less cluttered. I'm surprised now you can buy the kits. I heard he originally didn't want anyone else installing them except himself. More weird products on his page -acoustic B-Bender!.

I installed the D-tuners on my guitars I use the Sperzel D-thing now, but I've used the Hipshot D-tuner models for guitar and bass. Theyre fun to play in dropped D then in E back and forth. The trilogy is kind wierd too. It's not very tremolo like, but I supposed if you moved it around while playing an open string, it could be effective.

And then there was this tremolo that was split down the middle and worked independant of the other three strings. But that was the early nineties when bad hair was dying out.

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Ahh yes! Jimmy Page!

I don't know if it was him, but all these mad things you're meant to attach to your guitar are similar to what I was talking about... I think.

I just got my box full of junk thru from a long aways away in the US; Stewmac. I spent the afternoon stroking the ebony board, messing around with the Schaller strap locks, playing with the truss rod and fiddling about with the Hipshot Tremsetter. I've never seen one before in person before, and I'm unfortunately the kind of ass who is not content with some just working, I need to mess around with until it's broken and I've figured out why it -used- to work! The Tremsetter is still in one piece, remarkably, almost 12 hours later! :D

Does the D-Tuna work like they say it does? I wanted to fit one to a floating Floyd Original that I'm going to stabilise with the tremsetter. Have you ever tried this route yourself?

Thanks,

John

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I heard Jimmy page had a crap load of wood removed from one of his Les Pauls so that the automated tuning system could work. More info here.  Picture Here.  I think it looked like those keyless entry buttons on a car, and it would do all of his kooky tunings with one push of the button.  When pushed all these springs and pulleys and whatnot moved and pulled and tightened the strings to pitch.  "Honestly" (ala Austin Powers) that's just being lazy and ruining a good guitar.  Plus with all the money he makes and the free gear he gets from Gibson, he could have an arsenal of guitars ready for him off stage. Plus they run like $3000. Uh...no. I'll take the CC Deville route and have 30 guitars on stage.

The guitar you're referring to is the Transperformance LesPaul. It's a tad bit more than a "self-tuning guitar". It actually offers 118,000 different tuning combinations, all at the touch of a button. Yes- it self-tunes, but it is also constantly tuning the guitar while the unit is on (something like a dozen times a second). My friend Dave Beegle worked on the project with the guys at Transperformance. Dave also owns one. It's a pretty neat setup, but....HEAVY as hell. As if LPs didn't weigh enough. I remember the original version Dave had (circa 1996) was MIDI controlled, so you could use your feet to change the tunings mid-playing.

And then there was this tremolo that was split down the middle and worked independant of the other three strings. But that was the early nineties when bad hair was dying out.

Vai has one of these split trems on one of his white JEMs. Pic is here:

http://www.vai.com/Machines/guitarpages/guitar108.html

I'm not that coordinated. I'm sure Vai is. :-)

I've seen just about every trem concieved (patents will do that to ya). I used to own a Wonderbar trem system, made by Washburn. It bolted flat onto the face of a body. No routing necessary. It worked on a cam/roller-based system. Not bad, but not the best either.

Kahler had the Spyder (I think that was it) that was a "partial route" similar to the Wonderbar. Kahler also had the AutoLatch, which didn't do a very good job of turning your trem into a fixed bridge.

Kahler also had that "Palm Arm" that could be attached to their trems. It had a big, flat handle-type head on a short arm. It was screwed in on the top side of the trem. It could be used for....ummm....errr...uhhh...did anyone use that thing? LOL

Parker's trems don't have conventional compression springs. They work off of a plate-type spring, much like what you'd find in an old 60's studio reverb box. Pretty neat concept.

JohnUK- toss me an email. I have some info for ya.

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