Forgotten Genius: Steinberger TransTrem

Steinberger’s pitch-shifting bridge system should have been revolutionary – so what went wrong?

Firms and luthiers are always trying to revolutionise the gear we use in some way. From robot tuners – what were you thinking Gibson?! – to next-gen cables and gimmick-laden tube amps, a new idea, be it inspired or insane, is never far away.

Bad ideas usually fade away quicker than an asthmatic in a marathon, but sometimes innovative concepts never take off, even if all the evidence suggests their fortunes should have been far better. The forgotten genius of the Steinberger TransTrem is one such example.

The what?

Recognizing a guitarist's addiction to exploring different tunings cough cough DADGAD cough the TransTrem was designed to fix issues that standard tremolos face. Ostensibly it's a fixed bridge that includes dedicated rollers for each string which work in unison to maintain the intervals between the strings when the whammy bar is dumped.

Typically with other guitars, the thickness of the different strings will see the intervals go way out of whack. This way, full chords could be whammy-ed and remain musical.

But having mastered the concept, Steinberger was able to hone in on another benefit; the one from which it gets its name. The strings can be re-tuned on the fly.

Like how Eddie Van Halen’s Floyd Rose guitars had a D-Tuna installed to drop his low E to a D in a heartbeat – and thankfully not require the bridge’s typically tedious setup – the  TransTrem works in a similar way.

Strings, however, need to be retuned in tandem with one another, meaning if one string drops a tone, the rest have to follow suit. So, while this doesn’t allow players to switch between, say standard and drop C at the flick of a switch, it can go from D to C standard.

But how?

For the whammy side of things, like Ross Geller trying to move a sofa, the magic lies in the bridge’s ability to pivot. The fact the thinner strings require more movement than their thicker counterparts to pitch in unison is countered by the TransTrem. Each string saddle essentially has its own pivot point which swing against the movement of the whammy.

The transposing methods follow the same principle, with five notched positions built into the bridge, essentially giving the players the ability to drop each string by a semitone with each notch.

Why did it fail?

As is often the case with new, cutting-edge tech, it was fiddly, and not quite as exciting in practice as it was in concept. Setting it up was a slow process, and so this was always going to struggle to prize Floyd Rose haters away from faff-free fixed bridges.

To get it set up properly, its instructions advise players to dance between the different positions and fine-tune as necessary so that it better understands how to handle each string. Fine-tuning is done via the screws which sit just below the ball ends of the strings. The cycle has to be repeated until there is no unwanted change in tuning when switching between the notches. This has proved time-consuming for many.

Of course, it’s easy to sit here and badmouth what is a truly innovative and ultra-precise piece of engineering. For me, it’s not so much that it failed – it’s that it wasn’t nurtured. Very rarely do technological advances smash it at the first attempt.

This wasn’t a failure because it was a bad idea.

The Gibson takeover

Since its acquisition in 1987, Steinberger has been part of the Gibson family of brands, which also includes the likes of Kramer and high-gain amp kings MESA/Boogie.

The company's founder, Ned Steinberger, remained involved with its operations for some time, before launching NS Design three years later. That led to Steinberger's decline, with Gibson less and less invested in moving it forward, focusing instead on other brands. Production halted entirely in 1998. 

NS Design is still in operation today, but hs pivoted towards headless classic instruments, alongside bass guitars. That’s left Steinberger’s guitar innovations trapped firmly in the past. There  are arguments that the likes of Strandberg have since taken the headless guitar design far further, but this is a concept no one has tried to kick on with, and it’s a crying shame.

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