The story of Mr Steinberger and his bass guitar must be one of the most remarkable and successful of all time. Some people are saying that until Mr Steinberger came along nothing had happened since Leo Fender, as far as change in the guitar industry goes. Certainly the bass, and now the guitar, incorporate some of the most interesting design features since Fender, and judging by how many people choose to play them these new designs work.

Mind you, with any new concepts come the copies — the guitar world is renowned for this and sure enough before Steinberger actually took a six-string to a trade show someone had come up with a wooden one and had it in production! Mind you, imitation is the best form of flattery and now, at least, anything short, black and headless is universally regarded as a Steinberger copy or an extra in a Spielberg film.

Now after the bass and guitar comes the tremolo arm, which is where this review comes in. I've only covered the basics of the actual six-string as by now that in itself is not new (see June '84 IM for review) although it is impossible to review just the trem as the guitar is fairly important anyway!

The tremolo system fitted here is still at the prototype stage and obviously changes will be made. Like everything else bearing the name Steinberger, it will be black!

Construction

The Steinberger probably doesn't need too much introduction; everyone will be familiar with the look of the instrument even though few of you will have actually played one. The body and neck are formed from a two piece carbon fibre compound moulding — the main section comprises of the neck and the bulk of the body. The second piece is merely a lid for the body. Interestingly the body of the Steinberger is, in fact, hollow — much like a semi-acoustic with a central spine running through it. Here we have the neck continuing through the body at a height of about 20mm onto which the trem/bridge assembly is mounted. The sides and back of the body are only about 8mm thick — the rest of the body is simply fresh air!

The lid is a curved piece of carbon fibre compound held to the main body with six Allen-keyed bolts. These now enter the body from the back of the guitar as opposed to the front as on earlier models. To add strength to the lid, two ribs are included in the moulding which pass across the front between the pickups. Despite the hi-tech design of the guitar I was surprised how similar the body design was to that of a semi-acoustic.

The neck on this sample is well shaped with a full curved profile which feels exceptionally good. Another traditional feature is the heel which is probably unnecessary for strength but adds form to the design. Even with a 25½" scale and two-octave fingerboard the neck doesn't overpower the guitar at all and just illustrates further how well this instrument has been designed. The board itself is made from phenolic resin which is apparently very hard, stable and durable. Into this are inserted the frets — all finely shaped and polished — I might add — as well as traditional white plastic dot markers on the face and side of the board. The nut appears to be made from aluminium (with a black finish) and merely serves to hold the strings in place as a zero fret acts as the string break. It's held to the neck with three Allen-keyed bolts; in fact the whole guitar is held together with Allen-keyed bolts. There isn't a slot head screw in sight and the only Phillips head screws are the ones used for the pickup fixings.

Thankfully the Steinberger tremolo system is as unusual as the guitar itself, and is a logical step forward for the company. Of course Steinberger don't do things by halves, not content with designing a standard trem system they have come up with a unique transposing arrangement. Firstly, though, the bridge itself deserves a mention. Mounted in a solid alloy block are the six string saddles made from brass and featuring a small roller over which the string passes, as well as two height adjustment screws. The rectangular section of the saddles allows them to snuggly sit side by side in the block, held in place by the string tension and locked securely by a side mounting bolt. To adjust intonation the locking nut is loosened then the relevant string (and the saddle) is simply slid into its correct position and the locking nut re-tightened.

The tuning system found here is mounted behind the bridge and probably needs no introduction but it is this section of the otherwise standard looking assembly that forms the movable part of the trem system. It is pivoted at the back of the bridge and below the tuning assembly is an 'L' shaped bracket which connects with a spring, the tension of which can be adjusted to match the tuning of the free and locked positions (more of that later). So far so good. The trem arm locates into the side of the tuning block and can be locked into position via a knurled nut. The tightness of the arm movement can also be altered via another small locking screw.

Above the pivot point on the right side of the bridge is a small upright post. This locates with another small post, this time coming horizontally from the base of the trem arm locating point. The horizontal post has a series of steps in it and a central groove which is the key to the transposing system. Because this post is located into the trem arm, whenever the arm moves so does the post. When this post is located in its central position the trem system becomes locked, and there is no movement. This makes tuning the guitar a piece of cake as well as curing two note-bending problems. Moving the arm towards you unlocks the system and gives you a very fine basic trem system that I couldn't get to detune. This is greatly helped by the whole nature of the bridge design which even on the non-trem guitar features string locking and roller saddles; it's as though Mr Steinberger had this trem in mind when he designed the first guitar. I won't dwell on the action and feel of the system itself as I'm more than aware of how personal this area of a guitar is. To me the action felt a bit stiffer than a Kahler, for example, but I must say I prefer this — it seems to aid expression.

The transposing function of the system is indeed clever and, above all, it really works. Either side of the central groove on the horizontal post that I mentioned are three steps. These can be locked onto the vertical post by either lifting or depressing the arm and provide a subsequent change in pitch — one and a halftones up or down. That means that if you hold down an E chord in first position without moving your left hand you can go down to a B or up to an A flat. Now on the actual production models the system will only have two steps each way allowing you to move down through D to C or up through F to G. Obviously the uses of this transposing trem system are very varied indeed.

It's really rather like an automatic capo especially useful for any chord shapes or riffs which use open strings. An example here is those Country type riffs using the open G string, which are fine when you're in the key of G but translating them to A is usually a pain as you not only have to rework your fingering, but you also lose the 'twang' of that open string. With this trem you don't even have to change your fingering; a simple movement of the arm suffices. Not only chords benefit, but also harmonics — those simple fifth, seventh and 12th fret ones can now be made to fit any key with a bit of thought.

So what are the disadvantages? Well surprisingly few really — tuning is the one that springs to mind. The normal tuning is as easy as ever with the excellent tuners on the guitar but the setting up of the trem tuning is long-winded. For example you lock the trem system two steps up and tune in the normal fashion. Now taking one string at a time you lower the trem two steps down and check the tuning. If the string in question is sharp you unscrew the threaded ball end (which is at the tuner end of the guitar) with a 1.5mm alien key then compare the tuning two steps above normal and so on until you achieve the correct tuning at both extremes. This is a long process and I was rather concerned about the ball end idea, well not so much the idea, but the actual material used for the ball end which has already begun to wear with the use of the Allen-key. When you remember that the only way to remove these strings is by unscrewing the ball ends I think it is rather important that they can stand up to the wear that they may incur.

However, it must be said that when you actually spend the time to tune the trem it is actually very accurate, especially when you bear in mind that this is a prototype and that the standard will have only two steps as opposed to three which will obviously go a little way to improve tuning.

Pickups and electrics

These are comparatively standard — two EMG units totally enclosed in their familiar black covers and featuring a small logo. In the bridge position is an EMG LG-60 humbucker while in the neck position the pickup is numbered with an 81. These pickups are apparently non-standard and are built especially for this guitar. The low impedance units are powered by a nine-volt PP3 battery enclosed in a small compartment on the back of the guitar by the bridge.

As with the pickups, the controls are mounted on the front, or lid, of the guitar; simply a volume, tone and three way selector. The tone control is quite unusual as it provides an extreme amount of treble when fully on giving it almost a treble boost function. However, this is a passive circuit so that is not possible and I couldn't find out the actual spec on this control. The pickup selector is a mini-toggle switch saving space on the guitar and all the components are mounted on a PCB — very neat and tidy too. The position of the controls has changed slightly from earlier models too (so I was informed) but comparing this guitar to previous photos things look fairly similar — oh well, I thought I'd mention it anyway. The jack socket is mounted on the back of the guitar on the opposite side to the controls just below the battery compartment.

Sounds and playability

First thing to mention here is the dinky little knee rest which slots into the underside of the body; a touch of genius that idea, I reckon, enabling you to play this sitting down anywhere. Strapping on the Steinberger, however, all the horrors begin — trying to adjust to the body shape and feel is a killer, not to mention the headless neck which sends you shooting far too far up the board to compensate. "Sort yerself out Burrluck," I hear you cry! Very true — it takes a lot of positive thinking and re-adjustment before you feel happy, and of course there are those of you I suppose who will never feel happy with one of these around your neck. You know, the "Looks like you've caught it in the door" brigade.

I must say I wasn't feeling too at home myself, until I plugged this little thing in, that is. In size it may be small, but in sound it's 'kin 'normous! Truly, the pickups fitted really do push out some power seemingly louder than the humbuckers fitted on my Strat — a Seymour Duncan 'Mag' in bridge and a Di-Marzio PAF in neck position. Tonally the overall character is bright and metallic with the tone control itself turned up full; back it off a bit and a warmer sound prevails. I found that with the tone at just over eight position, the sound of the guitar — overall suited me with the option of a bit more top if necessary. I must say that this is the first tone control I've seen and heard for years that actually does anything — I didn't even bother to put one on my present guitar but I think I might take a closer look at this circuit!

The sustain and clarity are fairly remarkable but not surprising for this type of instrument, and the action and feel of the neck was excellent. I find this instrument pretty hard to fault in this area; possibly the only criticism could be that the sound is just a little too 'cold' for some people's liking.

Obviously the trem system works as I've previously described, the interesting thing about the transpose function is the different character of sounds produced, even on two steps either way the sound really changes. Moved down to low C the guitar sounds very eerie and strange, almost as if the sound is compressed. There is a rather nasty clonk when you move the transpose function with the guitar plugged in, so any thoughts of changing key mid solo are out (not that the system has been designed for that).

I did feel that the instrument was prone to microphonic feedback at high levels especially when the tone control was full on.

Conclusions

It is quite impossible to knock this product — I really do feel you like it or you don't. I refer here to the overall feel and aesthetics as I'm sure the sound could be changed to meet more traditional requirements if required. Personally I loved the sound, I loved the whole damn thing.

The trem system with its lock and transpose function is certainly quite a feat of design and engineering, and once the few bumps are ironed out it will be truly amazing and useful. Don't forget it's still a very, very good trem on its own — the transpose and locking functions are helpful, of course, but the trem holds up with anything on the market today.

Once I'd got used to the feel of the guitar I was left with only one problem... you guessed it, the price. It was suggested to me that it should be nearer £1,000 and I must say I agree. With its present — albeit proposed — price this Steinberger will only be available to a select few musicians, which is a shame.

Slipping this beauty back into its nylon gig bag (with shoulder strap and handles — looks like you're carrying a machine gun, etc, etc) I felt a bit sad. Steinberger has definitely changed the guitar world but the high cost of his ideas means that at present to get close to them most of us have to settle for a wooden Jap copy which is putting deserved money into a possibly undeserving pocket.

STEINBERGER TREMOLO SIX-STRING — RRP: £1,500 (Approx)