'Backbox' tremolo stabilizer

[decadence5423]

I was looking into stabilizers and it really came down to the tremsetter and tremol-no but neither really appealed to me.

The tremsetter has the drilling that I didn't want to do. The price isn't bad but I've read a lot of reviews online that put me off to it.

The tremol-no seems pretty expensive for what it is and I didn't like the idea of doing only dives or blocking it completely. For about $50 this seems kind of stupid when I can just block the trem for free with a piece of scrap wood.

Anyway, I came across this German 'BackBox' thing which seems much simpler and genius, assuming it works. Should be able to pull up, dive and all that jazz. Someone sells these on ebay for $35 shipped, and if it works as I hope it will, this will be a really good deal. It should be arriving this weekend and I'll be installing it on my Dinky XL with a Takeuchi that has been fussy. I'll be reporting back to let you know if I think it's worth it. Unless someone here already has one of these and is going to tell me it's garbage and I wasted my money

[xenophobe]

They work as advised... they also add quite a bit of acoustic volume as it gives the trem something to actually rest against. They're a bit fussy to set because you basically have to find your own preference of tension and the knurled nuts are a little difficult to twist when it's in between your trem springs. I don't have this unit but I did buy two ESP Arming Adjusters which are basically the same thing.

I took mine off when I was installing my Gotoh trem and didn't put it back because the Gotoh did increase the resonance of my instrument in a similar fashion as my Schaller with ESP AA. I will reinstall at some point in time to see what it's like with the Gotoh.

[bucketbrian45]

Those are awesome! I've use both the ESP Arming Adjuster and the Goldo Backbox, I liked the Backbox much better.

[BenoA]

Interesting. Can you do drop-D tuning with the "Backbox".

FYI Stay away from the Tremol-No!!!

[emperor_black]

Interesting. Can you do drop-D tuning with the "Backbox".

FYI Stay away from the Tremol-No!!!

Since it involves only one string in Drop-D, other than the D-Tuna, neither of these devices will help.

[decadence5423]

Those are awesome! I've use both the ESP Arming Adjuster and the Goldo Backbox, I liked the Backbox much better.

I've read about the ESP Arming Adjuster (whatever that's supposed to mean... ) but I couldn't them for sale online. This seems like the same idea.

Interesting. Can you do drop-D tuning with the "Backbox".

FYI Stay away from the Tremol-No!!!

Do you mean tuning the low E to D without adjusting anything? Probably not, but maybe if installed like 5 of them.

[bucketbrian45]

The way I had mine set up I could not only whammy the shit out the guitar but I could change tunings on the fly.

[VanHoosen]

Woah! You've got me interested. Be sure to review it here once you have it all set up.

[xenophobe]

Since it involves only one string in Drop-D, other than the D-Tuna, neither of these devices will help.

These offer adjustable tension for adjustable tuning stability that you don't get with a D-Tuna. D-Tuna just gives you a reference point and a drop point that you can tune. Your strings still go out of pitch when using it. If you set up this unit, you decide how much pull up tension you want, and that will offer more or less tuning stability when you drop...

The problem with two guitarists in one band, if you're both using D-Tunas, you'll both go out of key similarly. If you're both using these devices and they're set differently and detune, both guitars will go out of pitch differently.

[toejam]

The tremol-no seems pretty expensive for what it is and I didn't like the idea of doing only dives or blocking it completely.

There's three modes for the tremol-no... fully floating, hardtail or dive only. The inventor, Kevan, is a member here, but he hasn't been on in quite awhile.

[BenoA]

I have 2 guitars with the Tremol-No.

Depending on your needs, the "dive only" solution can be solved with a piece of wood and it's free!

The Tremol-No is nice if you are a basement player, but for live use, not reliable. The only real solutions I found was to bring various guitars!

[SausageofPower]

I already bought/installed two Tremol-No's, and they work fine for what they do, but I'm curious to try this out too...maybe run both at once for the hell of it. :P

[straycat]

Hum may have to try one.Keep my scrap wood handy tho'.

[javert]

I have these units installed in several of my guitars. They work well.

[decadence5423]

I've been pretty busy but I've finally got this thing installed and have been using it. The directions are in German so I totally winged it, but it wasn't very complicated.

I blocked the trem and removed the springs. I had a roll of electrical tape and the width was perfect to block it, go figure. I pre-drilled the holes for the base. May not be necessary but I didn't want to crack the wood. The first issue I found is the spring mechanism is in the way off one of the screw holes. It's offset a bit, but it doesn't help any. I had to take the whole thing apart and figure out a way to fit the string mechanism back in after the base was screwed down. I installed it so the felt on the pushing thing was against the block of the trem. I tightened the claw screws up a bit and adjusted so the spring of the backbox was pushing more against the block.

At this point I retuned and all that was left was to play with the thumb screws. Once the spring has some force going I found it next to impossible to adjust the thumb screws by hand. I used a smaller pair of needle nose pliers which didn't seem to damage the screws but allowed me to adjust them easy. After a lot of fussing I got it working pretty well. I can go pretty nuts on pull ups and return in tune, dives may go slightly flat but it's nothing compared to how badly out of tune it would go before. I may just need to tweak it a bit. It gives you stability in pull ups and dives which is what it's advertised to do. There is no added noise that I found, the small piece of felt works. You lose fluttering, and the trem is significantly more rigid which may or may not be a bad thing for you. I also noticed that the trem has no visible movement when doing string bends. Since it's difficult to set up you probably don't ever want to change tunings or string gauges.

If you're going to put it in a guitar you don't plan on changing tunings in I would highly recommend it. It's a $35 dollar solution that would otherwise cost $200 or so to replace with an OFR or similar.