Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Tremolo stabilizers 2

I have now tried the Van Rosa Stay Tuned Tremolo Claw for a while. I think I get the idea with the construction, but I just cannot seem to get it to work the way I want. 

As you can see in the picture below there are 5 claws to hold springs. Three of them are fixed on the claw and the other two can be adjusted with the two screws. I think the idea here is to adjust it so that the tremolo's resting point is determined mainly by the tension of the three fixed springs. Since the two adjustable claws makes the springs attached to them shorter, the tension from these springs will therefore be much less than from the fixed ones. Now when you bend a note for example and therefore increases the string tension, the bridge will move from the resting point to the right in the picture. When it does, the tension from the three fixed springs will be higher of cause. But as it moves the tension from the two adjustable springs will more and more effect the total spring tension. The move of the bridge to the right will therefore be shorter compared with just having the three springs. And since the bridge moves a shorter distance, the pitch also changes less then with just the three fixed springs. 

But, when I try to adjust the system I end up with the two screws fully screwed in, i.e. the adjustable springs as long as possible. That is the only setting that I am satisfied with the amount of pitch change I get when I bend a note. So it works fine you might say. But if you watch the picture you will realize that this setting is almost the same as having 5 fixed springs there. The drawback with this setup is that maneuvering the bride will require a lot of muscle force, and you will still get a change in pitch. 

I will change this to the Super Vee Mag-Lok instead. It works much better. It gives me much less pitch change and it requires much less muscle force to do a dive. 

Verdict: Do not use!