Enjoy the benefits of a premium membership!
Upgrade Account
-
TalkBass has been independent since 1998. Add your voice.
Create a free account to reply to discussions, view embedded media, and browse with fewer display ads.
Join free Log in
Want zero display ads or expanded classifieds tools? Compare plans.
Headless Bass Tremolo
- Thread starter rick0link
- Start date
4 String Bass Tremolo
I think Overlords of Music makes one too, but it’s junk. I haven’t seen one of the Hipshot in person, but their products are uniformly excellent.
Kahler makes one too:
https://www.kahlerusa.com/bass-tremolos-4-string
I think Overlords of Music makes one too, but it’s junk. I haven’t seen one of the Hipshot in person, but their products are uniformly excellent.
Kahler makes one too:
https://www.kahlerusa.com/bass-tremolos-4-string
The only one I recall is the Steinberger bass TransTrem and that’s probably pushing a thousand just for the bridge if you could find one.
The only source I know of for original NOS Steinberger parts is Ed Roman, but I don’t see any bass trems listed, though I have seen them on there before.
Steinberger Parts
Try the Headless Bass Club here on TB too, somebody may have one for sale, or know if a source other than Overlords that’s worth buying.
Steinberger Parts
Try the Headless Bass Club here on TB too, somebody may have one for sale, or know if a source other than Overlords that’s worth buying.
I vote you make one. Seems simple enough in my head anyway. Now you've got me thinking about brazing more brass.
I had a Steinberger with a Bass TransTrem and foolishly sold it. That said, I found the term part to kinda suck except for when I put piccolo strings on it once. But at that point, it's better to just play guitar. You don't get any of the cool tremolo effects on bass that you can do with the higher pitched, lower tension guitar. Another issue with bass trems is that they're harder on strings. The only bass strings that I've ever broken were on my trans trem. They usually broke at the ball end were you have one strand of wire with all of the tension. If you've played other bass tremolos and enjoy them, then it's worth pursuing, but, IMHO - the bass whammy is a fretless. Fretless sounds great on bass and sucks on guitar. Trems sound great on guitar and suck on bass. It's all physics and the tension needed with the strings. What would give you a fully slack string on guitar would drop your pitch maybe a fourth on bass.
By description the knobs are fine tuners, not full-range tuners. You wouldn't be able to make a headless bass with it.
That looks like the same kind of trem bridge, it's for standard headstock-end tuning, those are fine tuners, not intended to fully tune a bass, just minor adjustments.
. I would agree with @RichSnyder and I'll follow up with the obvious question....have you thought about playing the song on fretless?
Just brainstorming: I think you could improvise one from a Stratocaster bridge and a non-tremolo headless bass bridge, but it would be messy.
I had an Ovation P style bass (UltraBass I think) with the Kahler trem bridge. That trem was well made and worked great but weighed a ton! I almost never used the trem function and a buddy just had to have it so I traded it to him.
I was weirdly obsessed with the idea of putting a Kahler trem on a fretless Frankenjazz I built years ago, envisioning bending false harmonics, or some kind of unearthly Mwah/Trem combo tone through an echo, but alas, never worked up the nerve to do the requisite woodwork. It's one of those gadgets you think you'll use and then.... don't. A buddy actually did this, but the couple times I tried it, the string tension was too high to get a nice smooth vibrato out of it. I think he ended up taking it off pretty quick.
Last edited:
I can imagine it wouldn't be terribly hard to make one using a home brew base plate with headless bridges mounted on top of it. I'd just get parts for it like the claw, studs, and springs from a hipshot or kahler bass trem and make sure to cut knife edges on the base plate.
