Tremolo Stabilizer

 again!

Today I tried out the new guitar during rehearsals with the band! It worked just fine. It sounded awesome and felt great to play. The only problem with it is that I'm still quite unused with the fact that I'm having two volume controls to fiddle with. On all of my other guitars I have only one volume control. I actually just recently rewired my Gibson Explorer 7-string from two to one volume control so that it would be like all my others and that was a real improvement. But now I'm back with the same problem again. You might think that it should not be hard to learn how to handle two, but I always turn the wrong one when I'm playing on the neck pickup. The volume handling is more of a reflex for me and that reflex does not take into consideration which pickup I am using at the moment. I do not use different static volumes on neck and bridge pickups and switch between them as you might do, so I really do not have a use for two volume controls. I feel that the quickest way to comfort with the guitar might be to rewire it.

Another thing about the volume control on the BC Rich is that it is the type that is stiff to turn mechanically. I'm not used to that either, but I think I might grow to like that a lot since it keeps the controls steady. I tend to smash my fingers into the controls sometimes and on my other guitars the controls then wonders away. I've noticed that when I am playing I automatically, without thinking, every now and then check that all the controls are on max (when they should be). So stiff controls are better, but I have to learn the timing needed to do fast adjustments of the volume in the middle of the playing.It feels slow now...

Before taking my new guitar to practice I had to install a tremolo stabilizer. As I mentioned before I started to use the Hipshot Tremsetter in the 90's and cannot play Floyd Rose without one. So why play Floyd Rose you might say. Well I have always liked dives and nice whammy tricks and when correctly installed, and with a tremsetter, a Floyd Rose system is the best! No doubt about it. It almost never goes out of tune and survives the roughest handling. Of cause you have to know how to set it up and you cannot change string gauge and tuning every now and then, but who does?

I use the tremsetter to make the whammy stiffer to maneuver. Not locking the strings from going higher than pitch but making it stiffer to move the strings lower than pitch. Here is the thing:

You remove one of the springs in the Floyd Rose mechanism and install it there like this:

You adjust the stiffness of the whammy to your liking with the biggest of the springs in the tremsetter. I do this just enough so that a whole step bend on fret 14 on the third string barely noticeable lowers the pitch on the first string. By adjusting it that way it will be just like having a fixed bridge when doing bends, unibends and double stops, but if you use a little more muscle it is still a floating bridge. The only thing I don't like about this is that the stiffness of the whammy might make the whammy bar wiggle. It's all dependent on how ridged the bar is attached to the bridge. I can live with this, but I'm also looking out for the best solution to attach the bar. 

There exists other tremsetter solutions that I have not tried, so this time I wanted to try another tremsetter for my BC Rich. I scanned the internet and found lots of good word about this thing:

The Göldo Back Box. The reviews said that it was as good as the Hipshot Tremsetter function wise, but that it was a lot easier to install. I agree that the Tremsetter from Hipshot needs some major surgery with drills etc to install, but it's doable. But I cannot complain if the process would be easier, so I decided to go for the Back Box. The installation was rather easy, not that super easy. The worst problem was that it was not really fully possible to get the screwdriver in vertical position when tightening the screws. An improvement could very easily be done here. Never mind, here it is installed in my guitar:

So far so good. The problem was to adjust the spring. You have to have miniature fingers to be able to hold one nut while turning the other. It is not that much space in between the springs. I used a pair of pliers instead. Maybe it is meant to be used that way but I don't know because it did not have the patience to read the included installation manual in German!! Anyway it worked, I was able to adjust it. BUT I did not get it to work as i wanted :-(. I tried readjusting it several times but I always ended up in the same situation. I did not take that much tightening of the Back Box spring to keep the first string from lowering when I did the bend, but it was not able to come back to the exact position after moving the strings above pitch with the whammy. I tightened the spring in the Back Box very very much, but I still could not make it to go fully back to position after a whammy rise. I also noticed that rocking the whammy from center position and up to max pitch a couple of times made the nut unwind and leaving the spring less tightened. Not good. Anyways, I got the thing adjusted so that it worked fairly good. I did not notice anything during rehearsal  but you see the problem with a tuner.

Verdict for the Göldo Back Box: Do not use!! Use the Hipshot Tremsetter instead. Even though it's harder to install it's working much better!! I have now ordered a Hipshot Tremsetter to replace my Göldo Back Box! End of story. 

Until next time, rock on!!