This tops the Ray Ross Bass Bridge

[Jazz Ad]

Those just lock-downs, correct?Riis

Yes but the supposed novelty here is the holes with the strings plunging into it.
The rest is quite common.

 

[ixlramp]

Yes the Bogart stuff is just a string clamp made to have the appearence of a conventional tuner, mostly aesthetics.

The original Steinberger gearless headstock tuners were created late 80's/early 90's when, unfortunately, headless hardware started going out of fashion and guitar tastes were going retro again. There was pressure on Steinberger to make stuff that looked more conventional, therefore headstock mounted tuners again.
So unfortunately these were dictated too much by fashion instead of function.

They have some of the advantages of headless hardware but clearly some disadvantages, especially for larger gauges, which is probably why they were never offered for bass guitar.

 

[fhm555]

So how do you avoid twisting the string when you turn the string anchor? Is it a separate piece not fixed to the moving portion of the adjuster?

 

[ixlramp]

fhm555 i was thinking about that too.
I am guessing the brass string clamp is free to rotate against the tuner screw, perhaps it rests against a bearing to allow it to rotate fairly freely under tension. I saw mention of a bearing in descriptopn.

Watching the official video of disassembly, there is nothing to keep the clamp aligned during tuning.
This concerns me because when tuning, the only thing that prevents the clamp from rotating is the string's resistence to twisting. But the string will twist to a degree even if the clamp rests against a bearing, especially for the thin plain steel strings.

Any string twist will alter the string tension, and the non-fixed alignment of the string clamp will result in some tuning instability.
The only way to avoid this is to use 2 hands, with one hand holding the string clamp in alignment.
There is also no way to be sure what the proper zero-twist alignment is.

The Steinberger tuner is designed so that the clamp never rotates.

Length of string beyond a friction point introduces tuning instability.
For the Riot tuner this length is 1.5+".
The Steinberger tuner has the string clamp next to the friction point.

The radius of the hole bevel is smaller for the Riot, causing more problems through a more extreme string bend.

Overall, this seems a poor design. I expect it works but is probably inferior to a conventional tuner, while the Steinberger design is probably superior to conventional.

However, as i wrote in my last post, i consider the Steinberger gearless tuner itself a somewhat bad concept as it was dictated by the owner Gibson and retro anti-functional fashion. It creates a friction point and puts strings through 2 additional bends, it also removes the advantages of having tuners at the bridge end.

Here is some text from www.steinbergerworld.com about the headed S series, which was the reason behind the gearless tuners:

"By the late 80's popular culture had decidedly moved away from the "technology" revolution of earlier in the decade. Hard rock was firmly established as a predominant musical genre in pop music, and heavy metal guitars were all the rage. Gibson had seen sales of Steinbergers drop and wanted a new guitar to compete with the Ibanezes and other Japanese imports in all the music stores. Steinberger's answer was the GS.

Only offered as a guitar they came with a Steinberger-blend neck equipped with a reverse style headstock - the first and only headed Steinberger instrument. Ned also designed new innovative gearless tuners which allowed for precision tuning as well as a clean look.

Little did Gibson foresee the coming of grunge in the early 90's. This moved the interest towards older more "classic" guitars"

The title of this thread is silly, and untrue =)
This is a guitar tuner, the Ray Ross bridge is a bass bridge.
The Riot tuner is a poorly designed re-implementation of the Steinberger tuner, so does not 'top' in innovation.
The engineering is simple so it does not 'top' in engineering.

 

[RodRy]

Yeah, Steinberger beat them to it years ago, and a lot more elegantly.
Steinberger Gearless Tuners | stewmac.com

True, but I have both, and I think the Alpaca Guitars tuners are more rugged. I agree they don't look quite as nice.

 

[RodRy]

fhm555 i was thinking about that too.
I am guessing the brass string clamp is free to rotate against the tuner screw, perhaps it rests against a bearing to allow it to rotate fairly freely under tension. I saw mention of a bearing in descriptopn.

Watching the official video of disassembly, there is nothing to keep the clamp aligned during tuning.
This concerns me because when tuning, the only thing that prevents the clamp from rotating is the string's resistence to twisting. But the string will twist to a degree even if the clamp rests against a bearing, especially for the thin plain steel strings.

Any string twist will alter the string tension, and the non-fixed alignment of the string clamp will result in some tuning instability.
The only way to avoid this is to use 2 hands, with one hand holding the string clamp in alignment.
There is also no way to be sure what the proper zero-twist alignment is.

The Steinberger tuner is designed so that the clamp never rotates.

Length of string beyond a friction point introduces tuning instability.
For the Riot tuner this length is 1.5+".
The Steinberger tuner has the string clamp next to the friction point.

The radius of the hole bevel is smaller for the Riot, causing more problems through a more extreme string bend.

Overall, this seems a poor design. I expect it works but is probably inferior to a conventional tuner, while the Steinberger design is probably superior to conventional.

However, as i wrote in my last post, i consider the Steinberger gearless tuner itself a somewhat bad concept as it was dictated by the owner Gibson and retro anti-functional fashion. It creates a friction point and puts strings through 2 additional bends, it also removes the advantages of having tuners at the bridge end.

Here is some text from www.steinbergerworld.com about the headed S series, which was the reason behind the gearless tuners:

"By the late 80's popular culture had decidedly moved away from the "technology" revolution of earlier in the decade. Hard rock was firmly established as a predominant musical genre in pop music, and heavy metal guitars were all the rage. Gibson had seen sales of Steinbergers drop and wanted a new guitar to compete with the Ibanezes and other Japanese imports in all the music stores. Steinberger's answer was the GS.

Only offered as a guitar they came with a Steinberger-blend neck equipped with a reverse style headstock - the first and only headed Steinberger instrument. Ned also designed new innovative gearless tuners which allowed for precision tuning as well as a clean look.

Little did Gibson foresee the coming of grunge in the early 90's. This moved the interest towards older more "classic" guitars"

The title of this thread is silly, and untrue =)
This is a guitar tuner, the Ray Ross bridge is a bass bridge.
The Riot tuner is a poorly designed re-implementation of the Steinberger tuner, so does not 'top' in innovation.
The engineering is simple so it does not 'top' in engineering.

Well, as the owner of both the Steinberger tuners from Stew-Mac, and these types of Riot tuners from Alpaca Guitars, I can say that they both have strengths and flaws.

The good:
Both offer very fine tuning ratios, in the 40:1 range.
Both are visually interesting.
Both work for guitar strings.

The bad:
The Steinberger design does not do a good job holding small strings. Less than .011 is a challenge, and less than .009 is a nightmare. I would never dream of using .007s.
The Riot design leaves sharp string ends poking out from the back. Even the most flush-cut will still have string ends sticking out. For non-wound strings, you can loop the string back around and secure it so you only have a little loop, instead of the pointy bits.

The meh:
Weight is about the same as a enclosed cast guitar tuner. Maybe a little more, but not enough to really change the balance on my guitar.
Visually interesting is also called ugly by some.
They are only for guitars. For several reasons, I don't think either would scale up very well for bass. But the Riot tuners would probably be easier.
The Steinberger has a larger radius for the string to be pulled into. I think that's better.
The Riot didn't seem to twist the strings. And if it did, then the change in string tension was insignificant. Same with any length of string behind the bend. If it made any difference, it was too small to note.

Neither is a poor design. They may solve problems you don't have, but that does not make the designs poor. I personally don't think either better or worse than a conventional tuner. They solve different problems, and have different flaws.

Agreed, why does this thread even mention the Ray Ross bridge?
It's a totally different thing. Shall we compare bananas and pineapples next?

 

[Tim Skaggs]

They may solve problems you don't have

It looks like they will do it with elegance not usually observed in non-problem solutions.