FR replacement in TAG's ???

[Big Harry]

Hi Tom ,Roy and TAG Team !
Is there any chance you are thinking of Floyd Rose replacement in TAG's ?
Say , with Ibanez like Floyd Rose's , which proved them selves as a superior FR's over the years .
Having both Ibanez , old vintage OFR , and new FR in my DT , I cannot resist to tell you my opinion ,: after more than 25 years with OFR , 4 years with new FR (on DT ) and 7 or 8 years with Ibanez FR (on Steve Vai vwh Ibanez model) conclusion is : Ibanez FR are by far better and by any means superior than OFR's or new FR's , at least for me :-)

So , is there any chance to order a custom TAG guitar with chosen Ibanez FR- that is my simple question :D

I know it might include different bridge routings, , different neck width and radius , since all of Ibanez FR's are for 24 freets guitars , having quite a largest strings spacing than OFR's .
On the end, if I read it very well, one of the first Steve Vai -post Fender guitars was -Tom Anderson guitar .
So, maybe it is a time to close that circle, and make an ultimate blues & shredder guitar or better to say Steve Vai dream guitar of all the time ... ???

This time not for Steve but for us, TAG customers .... Let him play on those Ibanez until the rest of his carrier ....

Also, nothing wrong to stick to classic OFR's , they are part of my life and my playing style - but I am just asking for Ibanez FR in TAG's :rolleyes: :cool:
Thanks on your time and nerves spent on reading my post !
Zoran

[Pietro]

I think everybody always enjoys your posts, Z.

[tom]

i'm afraid i'd have to lovingly disagree about the ibanez being better. i have seen so many OFR's with countless hours on them still behaving perfectly that i'm not sure what would make anything better. the arm would be the only improvement i'd like to see, but replacing the arm every few years does not seem like much to ask with the abuse they take. i'm not sure that the preferable delrin bushing style arm like on our vintage trems would hold up any better under hard use, and the arm is easier to get and replace than the bushing inside the vintage trem.

i'm not sure what you mean by "new floyd rose". they are made exactly the same they always have been. there is a cheaper model out just recently but we do not use that.

what is it that you think is "better" about the ibanez?

by the way, 24 frets wouldn't mean anything needed to be wider about the bridge. the strings taper does not change if you add frets.

[Pietro]

...by the way, 24 frets would mean anything needed to be wider about the bridge. the strings taper does not change if you add frets.

uh oh... tom used the wenty-tay our-fay (pig latin... get it?) word in a post...

[tom]

and should have been "wouldn't" too

[strat56]

He may be talking about the Ibanez Zero Resistance Tremolo rather than a "real" FR.

[tom]

the 24 rule does not apply to me:D

[markus]

24 rule?!? Has the rule been upgraded from "2 more years" to "24 more years"? :confused: :confused: :D

[Big Harry]

My first OFR is from 1988 , still working , no complain .
(Recently some guy offered me $1.000 for that vintage OFR piece of art , but my answer was -no )
My "new" OFR on DT - no complain , guitar can be abused terribly , still in tune ! And yes, I like that specific sonic combination between mahogany, maple , that chunk of steel alloy in ORF ...it is magic somehow...
( I am calling it "new" but I cannot prove it is different than old one, but it is how it looks and sounds like to me-different and new )

Ibanez EDge Pro Tremolo -7-8 years old, no complain (except that gold paint is going off) , guitar in tune ...

So both bridges are fantastic pieces of mechanical art .

Why did I said "better" (ok , I should say "different") ?
Because of two things:
1. somehow Edge pro is felt much easier for dive bombs and high pulls ups ,much more sensitive and with greatest response, that's why one can do all of that kind of weird Whammy Bar things Steve Vai is very well known.

OFR looks a little bit stiff (for the similar guitar and same strings brand and size) and one cannot do exactly these weird things as with Edge .

2. The most important thing is movement of strings up and down during (ab) use :D .
EDGE : you can bend high E or B string on 20 fret for semi 4 tones up, and than add a decent pull off (even more stretch in strings) with whammy bar - string will not get chocked , it will still ring ! (if you are lucky and string doesn't get broken )
Some how strings are not going down (when stretched) so much as OFR , but rather only backward??) all of that with extremely low strings setup .
OFR : when you pull up Whamy , strings are going straight down , and get easily chocked , no way you can bend and stretch so far as with Edge , and even very high string height set up doesn't help...

3. Edge surface is much more rounded and thus comfortable for the hand , OFR is little bit too "cornered"

If anyone have a chance, please try this exercise and you will then know what I mean !
Again, nothing wrong with OFR , but EDGE is simple more modern design , designed for all that "Steve Vai" kind of string abuse and torture .

Note :
people who uses ORF for vibrato and occasionally dive bombs and stretches can use OFR with no problem it is perfect for that!
People who uses OFR in more expressive way , in a manner of Steve Vai , might go further ,looking for something as Edge pro tremolo or similar .:cool:

Peace Brothers !:D

[Briggs]

steve vai?!?!.... ibanez?!?!.... Oh the humanity!!!!! :eek:

[Big Harry]

steve vai?!?!.... ibanez?!?!.... Oh the humanity!!!!! :eek:
there are a few more worst musicians on the World than poor Steve Vai :D
like him or or not , he still do not play commercial music for stupid masses ...
passion and warfare was the first guitar instrumental album in the World sold in 1 million copies - except one or two tunes, the rest of the songs were anti- commercial by any means .
He is a part of legendary Guitar Players History ,one could like it or not , but that's it .
Even by today's standards , Steve's music and songs are not acceptable by Red Necks type of people all around the World , even after so many years...
(disclaimer-each and every country has its own Red Necks guys,not only USA :eek: )

but anyway, I am using SV as an example of Whammy Bar use , not as example of favored musician ,this is irrelevant .

Ibanez Edge bridges are designed under his heavy and strong requirements-by walking on the edge of mechanical science ,that's why the name EDGE '

Apart from the liking's, Ibanez EDge bridges represent progress in OFR design , huge progress .
OFR latest design was in 1983 , can you imagine it ??

Guitar playing style was changed a bit in a last 30 years or so , so I get used on Edge comfort , features and and expression possibilities .
I don't want another OFR guitar, 3 of them are enough .

Now I want a perfect Guitar , which only Tom can build, but not with OFR, since it will not be perfect, not because of Tom, but because of OFR limitations. :D

Anyway, just pull up any of Ibanez with decent bridge against OFR equiped guitar , and you will know what is this all about .
And I am talking only about Whammy Bar bridge, not about entire guitar .

I can only imagine Tom Anderson Guitar Works applying the best ideas from modern Ibanez guitars in the bridge section , but with the rest of guitar build with Tom genius , perfection to details and quality....

This is about quest to build PERFECT GUITAR , more than anything else ...

Summary : this current World , and my generation, until Tom &Roy and TAG Team and we like customers are still alive and kicking -we need that Perfect GUITAR , from Tom Anderson Factory works .

OFR simply cannot be fitted in that project , that's all.
Did I said -That's all :cool: :D
Peace Brothers ! :D

[Pietro]

Although I have no desire to play like Steve Vai, I admit it. He's a fabulously gifted musician and I LOVE listening to his stuff.

I have only ever bought instrumental guitar music from a few guitarists, Satch, Vai, Keaggy (the BEST) and Stanley Jordan.

When I did try to become a FR-guitar god in the early 90s... I had an RG770 with an Edge... It was AWESOME to pull up on, Z, I hear you on that.

Nowadays, a Bigsby or a standard 2-point are more my speed.

[Big Harry]

Me too Pietro.
My guitar nubmer one in the last 2 years is Bulldog-no OFR, No Edge, just a a simple , but perfect 100% hard tail bridge .
I didn't tune it for weeks and weeks -why should I ;) :p
Please do not turn this thread in Steva Vai fan boys or haters , I am talking about the OFR against Gotoh produced Edge ....
I am talking about huge design improvement in Edge versus OFR .
Ibanez and Steve Vai are not more important here ...

[Briggs]

Hey Zoran,

Please don't take my post about Vai/Ibanez as bashing. And I always love reading your posts! I was just alluding to the past history where you can read about in Tom's first post here: http://andersonforum.com/board/showthread.php?t=403

Seems Tom has always taken the high road, and I would NEVER attempt to speak for him, but if it were me... I would have a hard time bolting that hardware onto one of my guitars.

I can totally see where you're coming from in a hardware point of view...

Tom, if I've overstepped my boundaries I'll delete this post. I don't want to cause anyone any grief!

[Big Harry]

Hey Briggs , Brother ! !
Please do not delete any of your post !
I fully respect any of your statements, nothing wrong with them !
You actually brought the life to this post , and make me to tell the things I haven't told in a last few years as a TAG owner and member of this forum, so thank you for that ! :)
BTW, in the last few years , Steve pissed me off as well, too much business , self advertising and making money instead of making music and playing guitar...but I can forgive him, I will do the same ,probably, if I can ;)

I just comeback from 2 hours session in my humble home studio , with Kemper, Ibanez 7vwh, Fender YJM , my 30 years old hand made ORF equipped guitar, and those two TAG beauties -DT and Bulldog .

For a long, long time I didn't play them all on the bunch as this night .
(man, this is pretty heavy work to took them out of cases, tune them ,play them , clean them, tune again and bring them back to the cases :eek: :D )

All I can say is that every cent I paid for my 2 TAGS is worth 2 cents I paid for my other guitars, which are also fantastic btw.
But , this night I played with OFR against Edge (my Son helps me a lot) just for the purpose of this post .

I can tel you , that if,I mean, just IF , DT is equipped with Gotoh edge Tremolo, it will be the best guitar on the world, period .

This is just my humble opinion, probably very, very subjective, and anyone can tell me I am wrong, no problem :p .
DT definitely looks to me as a Ferrari with Toyota tires , where Ibanez looks like a Toyota with Ferrari tires if you know what I mean :D :cool:
Cheers and Peace !
Zoran

[markus]

I think it all comes down to personal preference in my opinion.

I've played both, the older Ibanez Lo Pro Edge tremolo, the newer Ibanez Zero trems and then of course all my Andersons (and I don't actually own anything else anymore :D ) except one (the Bari) have Original Floyds on them.

I personally like the Original Floyd way better than any of the Ibanez trems. The Zero I didn't like at all from a build quality perspective. It just felt pretty cheap and flimsy to me. The Lo Pro Edge is pretty good, but while I played Ibanez guitars back in the 90's, I went through quite a few of those, as they would rust and corrode like crazy and also the knife edges would get nicked/damaged really fast and that obviously ruins the trem.

I've never had a any problems with an Original Floyd Rose. It's built well, doesn't rust or corrode, I never had any problems with the knife edges. It just works - especially after Tom & crew dial it in to be put into a TAG! The only thing I agree with is that Floyd Rose could improve the trem arm a bit, but hey... if that's my only complaint, I'm a pretty happy camper! :)

[Briggs]

Haha! Sounds like you and the guitars got a good workout last night!

And you're right Zoran, it is all very subjective but it's great we have a place to talk it all out.

You have peaked my curiosity about the 'newer' floyd... I might see if I can retrofit one onto the Crowdster plus :eek: :D

[Big Harry]

You have peaked my curiosity about the 'newer' floyd... I might see if I can retrofit one onto the Crowdster plus :eek: :D

:D :D :D !!!

[tom]

when it comes to anyone's opinion of what they like, they can not be wrong. opinions can change over time, mine certainly have. so zoran my brother there is no lack of respect from me about your opinion.

what is attractive to one may not be to the other. it seems we both see the bridges differently but i'm ok with that.

and briggs, i have moved on from my dealings with steve. he made a boatload of money in that deal, and if they'd have offered me that much money i might have taken it too:D ... well probably not. but i don't think ibanez is interested in selling bridges and i'm not interested in buying theirs so the question is moot.

[Briggs]

Well said Tom. You're a good man.

[gibson5413]

Well said Tom. You're a good man.


+1 Totally agree here. Don't know if I would have been as diplomatic.

[Big Harry]

It was such a nice discussion, thanks guys ! :) :D :D

[Briggs]

Hey, you started it Zoran! :D

This is what I love about this forum, we can have good discussion and have different preferences/opinions and not flame someone because they don't think the same way we do.

-Bobby

[dplight]

Personally I prefer Kahlers. Probably cause that's what I learned on. Tried to like FRs since they are the standard, but gave up on it. Finally just built a guitar with a Kahler Flyer (the original one I learned on) from my guitar parts box. Some of my preferences/opinions have changed over the years, but not this one so far. Still I bet there is a trem out there somewhere...

[Casper]

I had a Kahler Steeler on my first Andy and one on a Zion years ago...perfect. The OFRs and even some of the Gotohs are decent, but the Kahlers were the shiz! (opinion)

[Pietro]

I had a Kahler Steeler on my first Andy and one on a Zion years ago...perfect. The OFRs and even some of the Gotohs are decent, but the Kahlers were the shiz! (opinion)

They were awesome!

[markus]

What happened to Kahler? They're till around, but their trems looks very different now. Are their new designs not good?

[tom]

they had patent fights with floyd back in the day and it all but put them out of business. i did love that bridge but it also had it's short comings. they do not make that one any longer. not sure why since the patents are now up.