# Best floating tremolo system with a non-locking nut?



## pfizer (May 26, 2017)

Hey guys, just wanted to ask if there was any trem system out there you would recommend for someone like me who hates FR-type bridges.

I have a JP6 and the trem system on that is superb; I don't really go super-crazy with the dive-bombs but the great thing is I _can_ and it still stays in tune because of the great locking tuners.

I've tried looking for a trem system similar to the one in the JP6 but I just can't find one. The closest thing I've tried is the tremolo on the PRS Mark Tremonti sig and it's pretty darn good as well. From what I've read though, PRS trem systems are only compatible with PRS guitars. I was looking for a floating trem system I can have installed on most commercially available electrics and will allow me the same kind of no-hassle whammying I have on the JP6 and the PRS Tremonti.

Any recommendations?


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## takotakumi (May 26, 2017)

Hipshot does one, can't remember the exact name.

However, they come more often in custom guitars (Kiesel, Aristides, etc). I have not seen one in a mass produced guitar (yet, might be wrong).


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## bostjan (May 26, 2017)

You can use any trem with or without a locking nut. It'll just be more stable with the locking nut than without. In fact, the floating trem bridge predates the locking trem by ten or so years.

But, I think a Wilkinson trem might be worth looking into. It is somewhat similar to the JP6 trem. Or, call EB/MM and see if they'll sell you a JP6 trem replacement. They probably won't, but you'll never know until you ask.


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## A-Branger (May 26, 2017)

depends on what guitar you are looking for to instal it. Like if its a Strat theres two different types of tremolos depending on the routing.

Or you are jsut looking to buy a new/used guitar that comes with a good tremolo factory instaled?

Also appart from the locking tunners, I say the trick also comes with a good filed lubricated nut


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 26, 2017)

Fucking love the bridge on my Tremonti Custom.

Had to install a new nut and locking tuners, but it stays in tune as well as my FR-equipped guitars. Honestly preferred it because I wasn't a fan of the low-profile of most Floyds I tried.

IIRC, they're not for PRS guitars only. Mannmade, the original manufacturer, makes different versions for different guitars. They just need to be precisely installed, since each screw has a knife edge pivot point much like a Floyd Rose or 2-point system. The PRS trem is pretty much a hybrid of a Floyd Rose and a vintage trem; making use of 6 contact points, but having a knife edge to pivot in.


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## gunch (May 26, 2017)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> Fucking love the bridge on my Tremonti Custom.
> 
> Had to install a new nut and locking tuners, but it stays in tune as well as my FR-equipped guitars. Honestly preferred it because I wasn't a fan of the low-profile of most Floyds I tried.
> 
> IIRC, they're not for PRS guitars only. Mannmade, the original manufacturer, makes different versions for different guitars. They just need to be precisely installed, since each screw has a knife edge pivot point much like a Floyd Rose or 2-point system. The PRS trem is pretty much a hybrid of a Floyd Rose and a vintage trem; making use of 6 contact points, but having a knife edge to pivot in.



That's cool I never knew they had 6 knife edge points


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## USMarine75 (May 26, 2017)

Wilkinson, Schaller, and Gotoh make non-Floyd, non-locking trems:

http://g-gotoh.com/international/product-category/tremolo-units

https://www.schaller-electronic.com/hp12574/Tremolos.htm

http://www.wdmusic.com/wilkinson_tremolos.html

Also agree that PRS trem is the ballz.


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## pfizer (May 27, 2017)

Advice much appreciated guys 

I might end up getting the Tremonti SE, simply because there's no modification needed; I just sold my Hagstrom Ultra Swede because the smaller-than-usual LP body made it a little difficult to play in classical position. So another LP style guitar with a regular body, a fast neck and a floating trem -- the PRS ticks all the boxes.

The thing's probably going to live in D or C standard, which is great for all the divebombing stuff from Children of Bodom or Pantera.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 27, 2017)

pfizer said:


> Advice much appreciated guys
> 
> I might end up getting the Tremonti SE, simply because there's no modification needed; I just sold my Hagstrom Ultra Swede because the smaller-than-usual LP body made it a little difficult to play in classical position. So another LP style guitar with a regular body, a fast neck and a floating trem -- the PRS ticks all the boxes.
> 
> The thing's probably going to live in D or C standard, which is great for all the divebombing stuff from Children of Bodom or Pantera.



If you mean the Tremonti CUSTOM SE, with the trem... you will need mods. Out the box, no matter what I did, tuning stability was pretty bad with the trem.

Installed some Hipshot gearless locking tuners as well as a Graphtech 43x6 Tusq nut, and that made the guitar stay perfectly in tune.



silverabyss said:


> That's cool I never knew they had 6 knife edge points



Yeah, if you see pics of PRS trem screws, you'll see the pivot points under the screw heads.







Kinda why adjusting the height of a PRS bridge is a bitch. You need to make sure every screw is at the proper height.


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## devastone (May 27, 2017)

Guthrie Govan uses a non-fine tuner Floyd with locking tuners. 

https://floydrose.com/collections/tremolos/Non-Fine-Tuner

I have a Hipshot Contour on my strat, it's nice but doesn't seem to have the dive-bomb-ability of a Floyd. They pivot on bearing surfaces instead of knife edges so they return to pitch really well. You can find them for under $100 online, they are $150 at the Hipshot store.

https://store.hipshotproducts.com/cart.php?m=product_detail&p=181


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## pfizer (May 27, 2017)

HeHasTheJazzHands said:


> If you mean the Tremonti CUSTOM SE, with the trem... you will need mods. Out the box, no matter what I did, tuning stability was pretty bad with the trem.
> 
> Installed some Hipshot gearless locking tuners as well as a Graphtech 43x6 Tusq nut, and that made the guitar stay perfectly in tune.



Good call; shouldn't be too much trouble to have those installed.

Here's another question; how about the trems on some other Musicman models, like the Stringray Guitar or some of the other artist sigs? I know some of them have versions of the Modern Tremolo from Petrucci's signature, but I don't know if it has the same routing as the JP models, that lets the player pull-up on the trem.


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## rami80 (May 27, 2017)

From the bridge side you can't go wrong with a non fine tuner Floyd. As long as the knife edges are in good shape you have nothing to worry about since the strings are locked in place. Any tuning instability means you have an issue in nut/tuners which needs remedying.


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## HeHasTheJazzHands (May 27, 2017)

pfizer said:


> Good call; shouldn't be too much trouble to have those installed.
> 
> Here's another question; how about the trems on some other Musicman models, like the Stringray Guitar or some of the other artist sigs? I know some of them have versions of the Modern Tremolo from Petrucci's signature, but I don't know if it has the same routing as the JP models, that lets the player pull-up on the trem.



The constrution at the pivot points seem to be about the same. The main difference on the JP trem is the piece of metal that overhangs the lower half of the saddles, which seem to be more of a comfort thing. On top of that, it also uses roller saddles which'll add to comfort AND tuning stability, since the standard MM trem uses (IMO, shitty) bent-steel saddles. 

Also, +1 on the Floyd Rose w/o fine tuners. It also gets rid of one of the main issues with tuning stability on vintage trems; the break angle at the saddles. Since the strings are fixed to the bridge instead of being held there via tension, it gets rid of all the tuning issues at the bridge (unless the bridge is worn out, which takes YEARS with a German-made FR).


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## Zalbu (May 28, 2017)

Hijacking the thread for a bit, but does anybody know what trems are on the new Ibanez prototypes that the dudes from Chon and Polyphia have? I have an RG with the Edge Zero but I'd love to try a superstrat with a more vintage style trem since I'm not a huge fan of the floating trems with locking nuts. I've seen somebody say they might be Gotoh, or are they the same that they use on their other guitars with vintage trems, like the Talman 1730?


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## ElRay (May 28, 2017)

14 posts an no mention of Kahler or Bigsby?


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## Malkav (May 29, 2017)

Okay I'll mention Bigsby, they are total shit, don't bother 

Someone may say things like "not if you set them up properly" or "not if you do x mod to them", but they are wrong and are lying, Bigsby are literally the worst bridges there are.


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## DjentleVibes (May 31, 2017)

The guitarist for The Artificials has a hipshot contour tremolo installed on his Sterling by Music Man JP60. Looks like a pretty clean fit.


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## Drew (May 31, 2017)

For tuning stability, your nut and locking tuners are going to be the real test here. But, assuming that's squared away... 

...I've used, and have been very impressed with, both the Hipshot Contour and the Wilkinson/Gotoh VS100 as full floating trems. The former looks and feels more vintage than the latter, and with the roller bearing pivots is SUPER smooth. The later feels more Floyd-like. Both are awesome, and both seemed more stable than the Fender American Standard bridge they replaced. 

You can also technically use an OFR without a locking nut, though on aggressive dive bombs the strings will likely pop out of the nut.


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## tedtan (May 31, 2017)

ElRay said:


> 14 posts an no mention of Kahler or Bigsby?



And rightly so.


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## pfizer (Jun 1, 2017)

DjentleVibes said:


> The guitarist for The Artificials has a hipshot contour tremolo installed on his Sterling by Music Man JP60. Looks like a pretty clean fit.



I noticed that actually, but I wasn't sure if he was using a US made EBMM -- thanks for clearing it up. Might give that a go sometime, especially since I've seen some JP60s go for pretty cheap.



Drew said:


> For tuning stability, your nut and locking tuners are going to be the real test here. But, assuming that's squared away...
> 
> ...I've used, and have been very impressed with, both the Hipshot Contour and the Wilkinson/Gotoh VS100 as full floating trems. The former looks and feels more vintage than the latter, and with the roller bearing pivots is SUPER smooth. The later feels more Floyd-like. Both are awesome, and both seemed more stable than the Fender American Standard bridge they replaced.
> 
> You can also technically use an OFR without a locking nut, though on aggressive dive bombs the strings will likely pop out of the nut.



Thanks for mentioning the model names, makes it a lot easier for me to say exactly what I'm looking for in stores. I'm thinking of installing the Wilkinson on one of the first-gen Chapman Guitar models.

On another note, how are the trem bridges on Parker Guitars? I'm not sure if they're only routed one-way, but I think I've seen some players go crazy on the whammy bar on a Parker Fly.


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## bostjan (Jun 1, 2017)

pfizer said:


> On another note, how are the trem bridges on Parker Guitars? I'm not sure if they're only routed one-way, but I think I've seen some players go crazy on the whammy bar on a Parker Fly.



Parker's trems are other-wordly. You can leave it free-floating, or lock it into a dive-only mode. It can be easily adjusted on the fly (see what I did there?) without messing up tuning, it has a built in piezo, and the flat springs cut way down on trem noise. The materials are durable and feel great.... but... I don't think something like that could be retrofitted.


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## b7string (Jun 1, 2017)

I've used wilkinson VS401, VS100, EBMM jp, PRS, and floyd rose locking, and ibanez lo pro edge locking. One of the ibanez's I tried would have return to pitch issues, worn edges I presume, and even with the locking nut, it was problematic. My OFR 7 was perfect, all the time, no matter the abuse. The next best for me was the EBMM, but the wilkinson and PRS are also very very close behind. I found that 2 point trems return to pitch better than the PRS 6 point, even if it is set up perfectly, especially for moderate/agressive use. The wilkinson's I used were on par with the floyd and EBMM for the bridge quality and return to pitch, so I can definitely vouch for those. As others have mentioned, nut maintenance is key though, as a great bridge with a "grabbing" nut will have issues no matter how great the knife edges or pivots are. 

I'd love to try a parker though, they look so sleek.


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## marcwormjim (Jun 1, 2017)

The Parker trem pivots on bearings in the center of the bridge. You don't get the range or stability of a (settled-in) floyd, but I've never felt limited by any of the four Flys I've owned. Considering the brand is defunct and unserviceable, I wouldn't recommend buying anything Parker-branded just for the hardware.


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## bostjan (Jun 2, 2017)

marcwormjim said:


> The Parker trem pivots on bearings in the center of the bridge.



This is correct.



marcwormjim said:


> You don't get the range or stability of a (settled-in) floyd, but I've never felt limited by any of the four Flys I've owned. Considering the brand is defunct and unserviceable, I wouldn't recommend buying anything Parker-branded just for the hardware.



This is not entirely correct. The stability of the Parker trem is better than that of a floyd rose. The flat spring is more elastic (as opposed to plastic, a plastic deformation causes permanent elongation of the spring, whereas elastic deformation does not) than coiled springs, and the bearing surfaces on the spring wears more evenly, thus moving the zero point far less than a floyd. You don't get the same amount of flutter, which is good for stability, but bad if that's a technique you regularly use. No trem design so far has been perfect, and each has advantages, but to focus specifically on tuning stability and to say that the floyd is more stable than the Parker trem is just untrue, unless you ended up with a dud or something.

Parker is not completely defunct; however, the company is restructuring and on hiatus, so it may well be defunct soon if things don't pan out. There are still plenty of parts available, though, so calling the trem "unserviceable" is not only jumping to the conclusion that the company will not return to commercial activity, but is also a stretch, even if that assumed conclusion ends up being correct.


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## lewis (Jun 2, 2017)

the wilkinson is absolutely amazing. Just installed one. Highly impressed


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## marcwormjim (Jun 2, 2017)

bostjan said:


> This is not entirely correct. The stability of the Parker trem is better than that of a floyd rose [...] to say that the floyd is more stable than the Parker trem is just untrue, unless you ended up with a dud or something.



I agree, so long as we're assuming that the Parker's nut is cut correctly for the player's preferred string gauge, that the bridge posts aren't leaning forward, and that the Sperzels' button-screws are tight. Those generally aren't problems folks with locking nuts worry about.

I too hope Parker rises like a phoenix, but the official response from JAM/US Music regarding repair inquiries is to message wiguitar on eBay for parts, then hope someone local to you has experience with Flys.

For those reasons, I cannot, in good conscience, promote Ken Parker's fantastic (and proprietary) single-locking design over the most common double-locking hardware to be found in any store. But the fact that I still own two of them is a testament to their splendor, even if I do have to retune them more often than my headless or other locking nut-equipped instruments.


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