Just Got An Evertune Bridge - WOW!

[lbpesq]

I had heard of Evertune but never saw one in person. 


I recently grabbed a G&L Tribute series ASAT with an Evertune bridge on reverb for cheap.  It’s a Tele type guitar with a carved Flame Maple top over Swamp Ash.  The Evertune is a 100% mechanical unit utilizing a system of springs and levers.  Once you get it set, your guitar is ALWAYS in tune!  ALL the time!  Though I read that if you allow the strings to get rusty, the weight of the rust might throw the tuning off by a few cents!


You can bang as hard as you want, you can even pick up the guitar by a couple of strings, and it will still be in tune!  If you break a string, the others remain in tune.  You can even adjust it so that bending a string has no effect on the note, or you can adjust each string so that bending raises the note, like a regular bridge.  It does require that a lot of wood be routed out of the body - that’s why I never wanted to test one in one of my guitars.    Anyone ever tried one?


Bill, tgo

[jazzyvee]

Sounds like a great bit of kit.

[cozmik_cowboy]

OK, that sounds interesting, but - pictures, or it didn't happen!

Peter

[edwardofhuncote]

I had never heard of them, so I watched this:

Heresy, I say. Rattlesnake eggs, I say. Bull feathers, I say. But I wish I'd thought of it first. 

[adriaan]

So it's like AutoTune for guitarists? And no more bending strings? Puzzled.

[lbpesq]

Unlike Autotune, it will not let people who can't play pretend they can.  Nor will it tune itself.  But once you get the guitar tuned, it will stay that way as long as the strings remain on the guitar.

As for keeping strings from changing pitch when bent, it is an optional feature that can be set, or not, for each string individually.  The ability to bend a string without it changing pitch could come in handy for playing rhythm, especially on long finger stretches where strings can unintentionally bend a little.  Also, one wouldn't throw off intonation by pressing too hard on the string as happens in a normal set up.

Bill, tgo

[edwardofhuncote]

I am positively fascinated by this thing, but I can't imagine even after watching the video, how the ham-sandwich it works. It must be purely mechanical... but that's just hard to believe. Lloyd Loar tried almost 100 years ago to invent a way to keep a hide banjo head tight under humid conditions using a spring-loaded assembly, and failed, spectacularly. To the tune of an entire production model cessation. This thing can retune a guitar string over and over, apparently indefinitely. [mind-blown]

[lbpesq]

Yup, purely mechanical, though there just might be a genie (or Jeannie?) hidden in there somewhere!  When it turned up on reverb in a decent guitar for only $400 with shipping, I had to pull the trigger and check it out.  Gregory, you are not the first to have your mind blown by this thingy.

Bill, tgo

P.S.  Here's a video that explains how it works: 


 

[jwright9]

That is very impressive!

[cozmik_cowboy]

OK - the first vid just left me scratching my head in dumbfoundification; that second one almost made me understand it.....
Pretty amazing.  And as far you can tell thus far, it is as advertised?

Peter (who's glad nobody came up with this thing while he was tuning guitars for a living......)

[mario_farufyno]

Absolutely clever, just brilliant.

[edwardofhuncote]

I found that one late last night too, and while I felt better I'm no less amazed that someone R & D'd this thing. That must have taken a lot of trial and error to get all the spring tension figured out. Not only that, but to market an aftermarket part for variable scale lengths too. My hat is off. I'm not guitar player enough to need one, or tech enough to install one for that matter, but I recognize the cool-factor of 14 if it works anything like planned. 

[bigredbass]

The spring tension only floats and works with the saddle off forward stop and the back stop:  So the calibrated spring tension(the absolute key to this) is suspended/balanced  against the tension of the string tuned to the pitch for that particular saddle/string.  They left travel between the two stops to allow for different gauges (I'd think, only to a point, could this work with a wound G instead of plain;  lots of guys are gonna study the string tensions charts !).

I dare say they're buying springs from suppliers that do engine valve springs, and this will absolutely have to be 100% QC'd.  A brilliantly engineered solution vs. AutoTune or the various motor-driven tuning key solutions.  Having said that, I've played with more than a few doofuss guitar players who could break an anvil, and the guy on the repair desk at GC should start taking Valiums right now.

I wonder if you could place this inside a vibrola-like base and have it do this AND bend strings . . . . . . in tune.

[cozmik_cowboy]

The spring tension only floats and works with the saddle off forward stop and the back stop:  So the calibrated spring tension(the absolute key to this) is suspended/balanced  against the tension of the string tuned to the pitch for that particular saddle/string.  They left travel between the two stops to allow for different gauges (I'd think, only to a point, could this work with a wound G instead of plain;  lots of guys are gonna study the string tensions charts !).

As a user of wound Gs, i wondered about this when the demo dude in the 1st vid mentioned the G being plain.  But it also seems, from from what he said, that there is enough play to accommodate alternate tunings.

I dare say they're buying springs from suppliers that do engine valve springs....

If so, they're in good company; Paul Bigsby's first vibrato units used Harley valve springs.

Peter

[lbpesq]

If it doesn’t work with a wound G, I believe you can contact the company and they will sell you the appropriate spring.

Bill, tgo