Check out the Floyd parts...

[psychodave]

Adam lives a few miles away from me and has worked with Floyd Rose tremolos for a long time. He is now making parts for them. Check out what he has... he is a super nice guy and knows his shit!!! BTW, he owns D-tuna as well

http://floydupgrades.com/

[necrotechno]

Some interesting ideas there. Prices are a bit out there, maybe. Also, a lack of gold and black plating will limit consumer interest.

I want somebody to come up with a new version of the Kahler style Floyd locking nut that had the retainer bar built in. The real Kahler ones aren't a direct drop-in replacement.

It's also very surprisnig to me that no one has ever com up with an Floyd style bridge that takes the ball-end style strings but is still double-locking. Like, either load the ball-end into the top and there's enough room under the saddle for it to sit in there; or just load it through the block like a Fender and it would still have the saddle clamp.

[pinto79]

It's surprising to me that people find cutting the ball end off a problem... Don't you trim the string at the tuner end anyway? What's an extra cut?

Why not just buy strings that don't have ball-ends?

[cdwillis]

I just string them backwords through the tuner first and chop off the excess.

That site though, I can see them making some money off the bigger blocks because they're getting pretty popular nowadays but $795 for titanium replacement saddles?

[necrotechno]

It's surprising to me that people find cutting the ball end off a problem... Don't you trim the string at the tuner end anyway?

Nah, it's not a problem. I've only had a string slip out of the saddle maybe a few times. A very fair trade-off for the tuning stability, IMO. It just seems like somebody would have come up with another alternative by now.

And I use Planet Waves auto-trim tuners on everything. I've even used them to trim off the ball-end, and then turn the string around and put that end in the saddle.

[straycat]

Westone had a single locker back in the 80's.Strung thru the sustain block then thru a steel retainer then locked at the nut.A very solid trem never had a problem dive boming on the westone trem.

[Rich#6]

It's also very surprisnig to me that no one has ever com up with an Floyd style bridge that takes the ball-end style strings but is still double-locking.

Ibanez has one. the trem on my rg320 you slide the string through with the ball attached, but it locks just like a floyd rose.

[Model1VH2]

Everybody's making brass blocks these days, but I can honestly say that he's the only one I've seen with $795 replacement saddles.

[DonP]

The Kahler 2700 Killer is double locking and doesn't require ball ends to be removed.

[stevoc]

Ibanez has one. the trem on my rg320 you slide the string through with the ball attached, but it locks just like a floyd rose.

Fender made one also...in the 80's their System 1 trems were locking with the ball attached to the string which fed through the bridge . I have a fender with a system 1 tremolo....very easy to change the strings.

http://freespace.virgin.net/john.blackman4/trem.htm

Don't know about the systems 2 & 3...never seen them.

[Dreamland_Rebel]

i want him to make a 32 or 34mm brass block, then i'd get one.

[Newc]

The Aria ProIIXR had a FR copy that would keep the ball and locked at the saddle. You could load the strings through the block or through the saddle posts out the back (under the fine tuners).
I once strung it all 3 ways - 2 "reverse", 2 through the block, 2 from the back - which really messed with my brother's bassist when he went to change the strings

[jhale667]

Adam lives a few miles away from me and has worked with Floyd Rose tremolos for a long time. He is now making parts for them. Check out what he has... he is a super nice guy and knows his shit!!! BTW, he owns D-tuna as well

http://floydupgrades.com/

Funny, I was just giving Adam props in the "Big Block" thread too, and didn't notice this one..he is a very cool guy, and the Brass Big Blocks I got from him kick ass!

Had no idea he owned D-tuna until I checked out his site the other day...

[necrotechno]

Hmm. So I guess there have been a few proprietary designs that do what I wanted. Too bad there's nothing in the aftermarket that I can find...

[toejam]

Ibanez has one. the trem on my rg320 you slide the string through with the ball attached, but it locks just like a floyd rose.

And Yamaha had a trem like that long before Ibanez.