Friday, July 04, 2008

Steinberger ZT3

Posted by Jon in • Cool Guitars

Steinberger ZT3
I haven’t checked out Steinberger’s site for a while and to be honest I naively thought they would pretty much be still flogging the same old guitar they have been selling for years… well to a certain extent they are after all they have 6 models of the shape we are all familiar with when we think of Steinberger with slightly different pickup configurations, controls and switches. There are 2 variations to their tried and tested shape though, the Demon and the much more attractive ZT-3 Custom pictured above. Without a doubt the coolest feature on a Steinberger guitar is the TransTrem™ transposing tremolo system something I was made aware of watching Eddie Van Halen playing “Summer Nights” from the album “5150” when I was 12. At first I couldn’t figure out what he was doing until I read about this revolutionary tremolo system.

“The TransTrem can take you from standard E tuning up to F and then to F# or down to Eb or way down to D. Lock in the key by moving the arm back and you’re ready for anything. And, when locked, the tremolo acts much like a fixed bridge in that sustain is improved and should you break a string, the other strings still stay in tune. In the un-locking position, the TransTrem acts like a regular tremolo capable of extreme pitch bending with smooth and renowned Steinberger accuracy.“

Click on the video link on the ZT-3 page to see the TransTrem™ in action. The innovation on this guitar doesn’t stop there though:

“At the heart of it’s construction is our Cybrosonic™ neck featuring our patented graphite U-channel with adjustable truss rod uniquely crafted into a 3-piece, hard maple neck. We then add a smooth and durable phenolic fingerboard to create an instrument with distinctive tonal clarity, sustain, “pop” and response as well as excellent stability.“

Aside from that the guitar also has a switching system that lets you get 8 combinations from the 2 humbuckers using the push/pull volume and tone control to switch between “series” and “parallel” in order to achieve single coil sounds too. You also get a Flame Maple top and a Direct-Drive double-ball bridge with 40:1 tuners for tuning ease, this also works with single ball strings apparently and is supposed to be very easy to change strings. I would be interested to see how well those tuners really work. At $1600 it isn’t going to break the bank either I was expecting a much higher price tag for all this research and development.

Recently on Guitar Noize

on 08/21 at 11:19 AM

I used to own a white Steinberger GL-Pro (hum-sing-sing config).  It was an absolutely beautiful guitar to play.  I sold it back in 2003, thinking I’d found an instrument that was more inspiring.  What a mistake.  Big, huge mistake.  A friend of mine told me at the time that he thought I might be making a mistake, and did I listen?

Anyway, I was happy to read recently that Steinberger was introducing the ZT-3 models, with an improved Trans-Trem, and with most of the niceties I’d fallen in love with when I owned the GL-Pro.  Granted, I don’t think anything can match the balance and compactness and sustain of the GL-Pro, but this looks like it will come fairly close, and it’s a little prettier to boot.

I see a ZT-3 in my future.

Jon on 08/21 at 08:53 PM

I really like the ZT-3 but when I look at it I somehow feel that it is unfinished I think that it is the lower cutaway? But I’ve never played a Steinberger so I am going to hunt one down to test!

on 09/25 at 06:25 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k1uU-JMlBw

Sound good, playability good. And the eyes shouldn’t complain when listening to music.

Jon on 09/25 at 09:44 AM

Wow, Ned looks like Borat in that video! smile

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