Take control of your whammy bar with Tremel-no

The tremel-no allows you to turn your tremelo unit on and off, mean you don’t accidentally bend the strings when your hand catches the arm. But is it any good?

I love a good gadget, but the emphasis is on ‘good.’ I’ve seen too many ‘latest things’ to get excited when the next one comes along. This gadget, however, seems to me to be a great idea and solves a real problem - inadvertently smacking your tremelo arm mid riff.

It allows you to switch the tremelo on and off. You install it between the springs on the back of the body and it, effectively. Moderates the way those springs expand and contract.

There are three modes: free-floating, which allows the tremelo to work as it normally does; hardtail mode, which stops the pitch of the strings changing at all; and dive-only mode, which allows you to lower the pitch, but not raise it. 

As for installing it, you’ll need a screwdriver, a soldering iron, and the supplied Allen keys, but that’s all. There’s no drilling, cutting, or routing involved. 

That’s the theory, so does it work?

Premier Guitar thought so. You can read its Tremel-no review here. The conclusion? ‘The rock-stable tuning, extra sustain, and the ability to rest my hand on the bridge without wobbly pitch artifacts was a plus. Being able to execute unison and double-stop bends without the detuning was also nice.’ The only downside seems to be the tendency for the thumbscrews to loosen and fall out occasionally.

There are tons of forum testimonies too, which are generally positive. Like this one: ‘All I have to say is wow. This product is extremely impressive, and IMHO a must have for all floyd users, and is comes in handy for vintage trems, or so i've heard. The installation takes only a few minutes, and no soldering of the ground wire is necessary since all you have to do is wrap it around a small screw on the tremol-no then screw the screw in.’ 

So, if you’re having trouble with that tremelo arm, the this nifty gizmo might well be worth a try.