The new Ibanez Ultralite Tremolo Arm

Joe Satriani introduces the Ultralite Tremolo Arm, a brand new tremolo bar which gets lighter and more pleasant to play with, from Ibanez. They have been months of testing during the Chickenfoot and G3 tours for the development of this high-end tremolo arm. What makes this tremolo arm better than the others?

The weight :

Joe Satriani wanted to remove that tremolo crunch that you can hear when you heavily attack the strings.

That tremolo crunch was due to the fact that the previous tremolo arm make the floyd instable because of his weight and lenght. If you heavily attack the strings it destabilizes the floyd, and because of the strings from one hand and the springs from the other hand that pull on it, it rebalances, oscillating until the balanced position, during this time it makes the string tension vary so the pitch changes. This is happening in a split second because of the high tension of the strings but it’s a very audible phenomenon, that’s it that makes this little crunch which is just a lightning fast vibrato.

In order to remove that effect that can be unwanted and to make the floyd more balanced, that’s not the lenght of theoriginal tremolo arm that’ve been changed but its weight, this way the Ultralite Tremolo Arm keeps the same form and we have the exact same playing comfort that we had on the previous version.

The grip :

A new thing is the grip that has been added, the so-called Carbon Graphite Arm Grip. It is vert lightweight because of the material it’s made of, the graphite, and it makes easier the hand/tremolo arm contact compared to the black paint of the previous version, this is very important because of the fact that sometimes Satch grabs it with his left hand when he’s doing his harmonic wizard things.
One more good feature is that the paint doesn’t leave because there’s no paint, the JS owners really know what I’m talking about, it’s no very embarassing but it seems a little bit used. The lifetime is enhanced with the Ultralite Tremolo Arm.

Because of the Carbon Graphite Arm Grip that surrounds the tremolo arm, his diameter is enhanced too, it’s more thick but not heavier!

Compatibilities :

Sold with the new JS2410 and JS2450, and included since 2013 with the JS1200 and the JS2400, the Ultralite Tremolo Arm also can be purchased alone. This high-end tremolo arm is comptible with the following Ibanez tremolos :

• Edge
• Lo-Pro Edge
• Edge-Pro
• Edge-Zero
• SynchroniZR
• ZR-2 tremolo system

The Ultralite Tremolo Arm on Ibanez website.