The VSVG came into being after requests from L.A. Session players and other artists, who while loving the VS100N and the stable tuning it offered required something with a more vintage feel and sound but a unit that still retained elements of the VS100N such as locked down saddles for stable and accurate intonation.
“The VSVG was a real design challenge” Trev Wilkinson recalls of the initial stages of developing the VSV, “Essentially we had to totally redesign the traditional vibrato while retaining the sound qualities inherent of that unit which was not a straight forward or easy thing to do”.
To redesign the traditional bent steel saddle and offer a similar central locking screw as on the VS100N meant that Wilkinson had to create a whole new saddle concept, engineered from spring steel the final design is ingenious and retains that vintage sparkle associated with the bent steel saddle, and unlike the original saddle found on a vintage vibrato, each unit can be solid clamped once intonated via an easy access central screw.
The folded/bent saddle design of the VSVG also means that the surface of the vibrato is fantastically comfortable under the hand when muting or palming the bridge.
When developing the VSVG vibrato, Wilkinson found that many issues in tuning were created by the straight placement of the holes drilled through the block of the vibrato, the low wound E string and plain G string suffering most from affects of increased tension.
To alleviate these issues Wilkinson created its Stagger Drilled™ method, this concept greatly reduced the tension on each string and balanced the vibrato unit much better than the traditional straight line 6 hole method.
The Stagger Drilled™ method is now incorporated on a large number of our vibrato units.
The vintage vibrato top plate pivot screw holes were the next issue that Wilkinson had to address in the development of the VSVG.
As Trev noted, “The six screws inserted into the body can quite easily bind with the holes in the top plate, just a small misalignment of these screw can cause major tuning issues and cause the bridge to not return to its balance point properly”.
Wilkinson solved this binding problem by developing the 5+1™ knife edge.
The 5+1™ knife edge system elongates 5 of the six holes across the lateral knife edge, this give greater freedom of movement and avoids binding, the sixth hole is retained as normal so lateral position on the guitar is retained.
Due to the design of the traditional vibrato arm their will always be a degree of movement before the bar actuates movement of the vibrato, this is due to the space needed between the threads on the arm and in the block to allow the arm to screw into the block smoothly. Through time various factors will see increased movement of the bar before it becomes effective on the vibrato unit which can be frustrating to the player, and can’t be solved without serious modification to the unit.Wilkinson addresses this issue on the VSVG while still offering a traditional look and feel.The VSVG bar has a smooth none threaded tight tolerance stainless steel bar that inserts positively into a neoprene sleeve held firmly in the steel block of the VSVG, the tension can be adjusted to suit the individual player by a small screw on the rear of the block. The result is a pleasing smooth and instant response from the vibrato.
$200.99 – $220.99
