Multi-Guitar Tremol-No™ Review by Bob Lynch

"Kevan and I have been talking about the Tremol-No™ for quite a while now- probably since he first got the idea for it. I do all kinds of work on one of my buddy's collections, which is easily around 70 guitars, in addition to my own guitars. So, I've had the pleasure of putting the unit through it's paces on a few different trem-equipped instruments. Installation was a snap on all but one, my Vigier Excalibur™. The reason for that was the trem claw screws holes were pretty deep in the fairly shallow trem cavity route, so the unit bottomed out, causing some binding. But, that was on this particular instrument. On about four others- a Peavey Wolfgang®, a Warmoth® SRV clone w/Wilkinson™, a Vigier Excalibur™ Indus, and a Fender® Richie Sambora prototype- everything worked smooth as silk, and now it's on the Warmoth® Soloist pictured below.

I've gotten to the point where I can literally install a Tremol-No™ in less time than it takes for my soldering gun to heat up. Installation on the Warmoth® was the usual breeze, and the unit did what it was designed to do, flawlessly. This Soloist is an extremely resonant guitar to begin with: it's a chambered archtop with a 22 stainless steel fret neck, Floyd, and Duncan '59 neck and JB bridge pickups. There is a definite difference in the acoustic resonance of the guitar with the Tremol-No™ locked. Unlocked, well, it's a Floyd with locking nut: whammy city. The unit gets out of the way nicely when unlocked, and battens down the hatches when engaged. Sweet! The best of both worlds in one guitar.

Now, how does this apply to me? Right now, my only so-called "normal" trem-equipped guitar is the Vigier. Kev and I discussed how I can get around the claw screw problem, so hopefully I will get to that soon. My other main guitars are a Carvin® hardtail Fatboy, and a Steinberger® GM1T, so the Tremol-No™ is not applicable. Also, I rarely, if ever, bend strings anymore, so the real-time stability the unit offers is a nice-to-have for me, not a must-have. The sustain it adds when locked seems to vary from guitar to guitar, but is a definite plus.

This simple little unit effectively solves an age-old problem inherent in the vast majority of trems; lack of tuning stability while bending strings, and loss of sustain vs. a hardtail model of the same guitar. Good job Kev! "