Soloist SL2H Trem: To block or Not to block

[nitrous12]

Received my SL2H today and I am digging this guitar a lot.
I haven't had a floating bridge guitar in ages and the last one was a cheaper Ibanez at that. I have not spent a lot of time with this guitar just yet and will gig it for the first time tomorrow, but in my limited testing...it seems like diving and pulling up on the bar it settles right back into tune. I was not expecting it.

I have a trem stopper here to install, but I am thinking twice about putting it in.
I'll probably do it knowing it does give me a more stable trem and survive string breaks, etc.

Just wondering what others do. Block or no? And if no, how much do you dig on the whammy attacks?

[ralph]

I have three double locking trem guitars, one is blocked for dive only and the others are fully floating

I almost never use the trem on any of them, hardly ever even screw the trem bar on.

The two fully floating trems provide the best tuning stability, better than a hardtail. I prefer the fully floating trems as it seems more balanced to me, i hardly ever break strings so the problem with detuning when a string break happens isnt an issue for me.

Only thing you might want to consider is that when the trem is set up floating and you do a string bend, all the other strings will go out of tune, or if you are hamfisted at palm muting, the pressure on the bridge can also cause issues, although this is more of an issue with technique rather than the trems fault .

may want to try a Tremel-no as this allows you to change from blocked to dive only to fully floating easily

[nitrous12]

Yeah, typically on blocked or non floating guitars I screw the claw in enough that bends don't make the other strings detune. I noticed that is an issue. Also, now that I am thinking about it more...I don't really like to switch guitars in the middle of a show and I plan on trying a D-Tuna on this guitar. Whether I use the D-tuna or unlock and drop D...that creates a situation where the whole guitar needs a tuning if its not blocked.
I did have a tremel-no on a PRS a few years ago and once set up right they are pretty cool.
Thanks for the input!

[ralph]

No problem, and yeah a D-Tuna is pretty much useless unless you have blocked the trem for dive only, the whole point of it is to switch from E to Drop-D without re-tuning

However I believe the D-Tuna will not fit on the SL2H due to the recessed floyd, unless you do some routing work

good luck!

[nitrous12]

I had another thread going here about the D-Tuna and whether it would fit. The responses I got were that it will, but now that I have the guitar I am seeing that with where I will likely need to keep the bridge height at to get the action I want...its going to be damn close and maybe not possible. I am not going to route it so I'll have to do w/out if it doesn't fit.

I put the tremolo stopper in last night and where it sits in the cavity, the screw just barely catches the trem block to stop it. I have some emails going with Adam from Floydupgrades and might put a longer block in. It never ends