Questions about the Ibanez tremolo

I know Ibanez gets a lot of flak, but every time I pick one up at the store, I find that I can shred on the thing like no other guitar. I find the neck on the S-series to be ideal. I'm guessing it's more or less the same on the RG series. Neck feel is extremely important to me because I have small hands and I like to do weird stuff.

Anyways, I tried an S series the other night and I saw that it had an Ibanez proprietary trem. I see that a lot of their models have this same trem. So naturally, I have some questions.

- Is it as much of a pain in the @$$ as Floyd Rose? The S series I tried seemed to have an LSR Roller Nut as opposed to a locking nut, though perhaps my memory cheats me. I think I remember seeing bridge tuner buttons, but I could be wrong. I do remember seeing screws, which indicates that you have to snip off the ball ends... which to me was the biggest pain of all.

- Does it go two ways instead of just one like the Floyd? It was hard for me to tell because floor models don't have arms.

- What about in terms of sustain/tone? Does it get sucked dry like with FR?

I think what I would do is get a hardtail RG or S, and maybe retrofit it with a Kahler later on. But that limits my options by quite a bit.

Thoughts?

Originally Posted by: Vegas WierdoI know Ibanez gets a lot of flak, but every time I pick one up at the store, I find that I can shred on the thing like no other guitar. I find the neck on the S-series to be ideal. I'm guessing it's more or less the same on the RG series. Neck feel is extremely important to me because I have small hands and I like to do weird stuff.

Anyways, I tried an S series the other night and I saw that it had an Ibanez proprietary trem. I see that a lot of their models have this same trem. So naturally, I have some questions.

- Is it as much of a pain in the @$$ as Floyd Rose? The S series I tried seemed to have an LSR Roller Nut as opposed to a locking nut, though perhaps my memory cheats me. I think I remember seeing bridge tuner buttons, but I could be wrong. I do remember seeing screws, which indicates that you have to snip off the ball ends... which to me was the biggest pain of all.

- Does it go two ways instead of just one like the Floyd? It was hard for me to tell because floor models don't have arms.

- What about in terms of sustain/tone? Does it get sucked dry like with FR?

I think what I would do is get a hardtail RG or S, and maybe retrofit it with a Kahler later on. But that limits my options by quite a bit.

Thoughts?

My guess is you saw a guitar with the ZR tremolo it uses ball bearings instead of the "Knife edge" system this is supposed to make the trem work alot smoother.

as for the questions, the trem has something you can remove ( i can't recall the name) that will make it work more as a dive only type trem and if you break a string it will stay in tune but it is removeable so it will act as a standard floyd if you take it off.
So I guess you could say it's as much a pain in the ass to tune

Im not sure if you have to cut of the ball end but with that trem i think so, but i jsut put my ball end strings the other way around if that helps

Yes it can go two ways but so can any standard floyd

the sustain and tone im not sure but ive never had a problem with any of my floating trem ibanez guitars but i have RGs

I hope that helps

The high-end Ibanez guitars have floyds. Low end have knock-offs but of similar construction, so as poontang says you can go up and down on them. I've got mine set up so I can dive but can only go up a little (so I don't break strings!).

All the floyd trems have the strings blocked in at the bridge, so no ball-ends. People do string them backwards and use the ballends at the machinehead end to save the hassle of cutting them off. I just cut them... always have and not a problem. I can string a floyd in 5 minutes from nothing...

I don't have any problems with tone or sustain. Check out some Ibanez endorsees... do thet have sustain problems? Ibanez don't get flak that I hear - their top end guitars are as good in my opinion as anything else in the ballpark (if not better). The cheapo ones are still good for the money, but pickups might need upgrading.

Maybe look at the JS2000? It's a radius body (like an S but fuller) and has a fixed bridge if that's what you want...

The hardtail RGs are often neck-thru as well, so you should get better sustain. How long do you want a note to ring for? With a bit of vibrato I can carry a note on a JEM/RG/JS/Floyd whatever until I'm bored of hearing it...

Maybe they get more flak from bassists. I was a bassist before I was a guitarist, by a longshot. The consensus is that Soundgears are absolute crap unless it's 800-level and above, and many seem to think BTBs are overrated whereas others love them. It's complicated... but if you go to www.talkbass.com they have entire archives on Ibanez-related flame wars.

I'm leaning more and more towards hard tails.... but I really really want to try a Kahler. Its devotees swear up and down that it's leaps and bounds beyond the FR, but I'd like to find out for myself. If it's really all that, then I would want one badly. I also want to try a whammy pedal... maybe that'd be better. Get two of 'em so I can go up and go down without having to fiddle with a switch or anything.

I do love the Bigsby. I'd love to get a Gretch hollowbody that has one. I can yoink on that thing all day. Different beast than the FR or Kahler, of course, but plenty fun just the same.

Anyways, my trouble is I usually play on pure clean... more difficult to get sustain, and the wood/pickups matter a lot more whereas distortion is a matter of effects and knobs. Anything that has any noticeable effect on sustain and tone is far more of a negative effect if you're on pure clean most of the time. SRV had a mixture of dirty/clean running simultaneously and he had the Fender trem with big fat 13 gauge strings. I don't know of any gripes about the Fender trem killing the clean too badly.

Also, with strings that big you pretty much have to snip the ball ends. The other end, on the fatter strings it tapers down so that you can actually thread it through the bridge and into the tuners. Of course, that wasn't the hard part. Dang thing was way hard to set up with 13 gauge strings... might be easier with 9s, I guess. I never tried.

Let's see... I put 12s on a hard tail the other day. That took about 15 or 20 minutes. If I put 10s on it, it would take about 10 minutes. It took me an hours to set up an FR with 13 gauge... getting it to stay in tune and all. And I would have to buy multiple packs because they'd just keep popping out and getting all warped during the set up process. I guess the thing wasn't built with big fat strings like that in mind. But SRV is hard evidence that the Fender trem can be made to handle them with aplomb.