Mystery brand Floyd Rose style (now confirmed as the old style of ABM)

Several years ago, I saw and won an eBay listing for a used fulcrum-style bass tremolo that looked almost exactly like a Floyd Rose. It featured fine tuners, used regular springs and a claw, and it pivoted on two points on the front of the bridge plate. It did not resemble any of the bass tremolo systems we have listed here. It was totally unique, and I have never seen one like it.

The seller couldn't tell me much about it, other than he thought it had come from Germany. I threw it into a cheap bass I had for experiments, and I never could get it to settle or behave properly. The tension was really high both on the fine tuners and in general usage, and since the pivot points were worn out, it didn't travel too smoothly. I ended up getting frustrated with it, and eventually I sold it on eBay.

Looking back, I wish I had kept it even if only for the novelty aspect of it. Sadly, I never did get a picture of it, and I have no record of it in my eBay history since this was so long ago.

This is the one you were telling me about a few weeks ago?

True shame, on all counts of no record of it and is unusability, always wanted a floyd rose bass style....

The very one, Bill. It had a lot of potential, but it was almost impossible to tweak the fine tuners, and even just using the bar almost broke my arm!

If I had it now, I would take the time to refine it, and try to improve it's functionality. But alas...I let it go.

Sounds like the knife edges were shot. Maybe someone in the trem's history tried to adjust the stud heights while it was under tension or the excessive tension just destroyed the unit itself. That sucks...but in the words of Vince Offer, "you know the Germans make good stuff"

I wish Floyd would do a bass model...............

Agreed, my friend. Although Kahler is fantastic...*drools*

A search indicates that they did make at least one custom bass floyd...........

What???

Where did you see that, Bill?

Can you post the article or the link?

EricHaven wrote:

What???

Where did you see that, Bill?

Can you post the article or the link?

Here's what I got.....a floyd rose for bass is there such thing???

Here's the meat and potatoes, as there is no pic,

Quote :

Actually, Floyd Rose did make at least one custom tremolo for bass. It was used by a guy who went by the mono-moniker Foley, he was playing piccolo bass with Miles Davis at one time. I seriously doubt they made many - if any - others, so finding one is most likely out of the question.

Wait for it..........













Wait for it............














A little sleuthing and delivery!

Seems to be using a standard nut too, btw.

Wow! Great find, Bill!

That resembles the one I had, but I am certain it isn't the same one.

I remember seeing that page. That's wacky looking. I wonder how it feels, especially with such thin strings...

I think the one you're talking about Eric,was made by ABM.They used to make one that had finetuners and were mounted on the bass just like a Floyd Rose !!

Huh...I wonder what became of those. They seem to have come to a very different type of design now.

When I ordered my first ABM tremolo,that was the one i expected to receive.I was surprised when i opened the package and received their new design.

You may recall that Eric ordered a stringlock from ABM. The string lock went with their first bass tremolo design.

Ah! That would make sense, Hans! The guy did say it came from Germany, but that was all he knew about it.

And yes, as Hans indicates, I did have one of their toplocks at one time, but the blasted thing stripped out almost right away. I might still have the nut frame for it somewhere. It was a rectangular block with holes for the strings, and the way it locked was through the use of these little plates that fit inside the block, and were compressed down (or up....I can't remember exactly) onto the strings using the top screws. The plate on the D and G strings stripped out almost at day one, and I decided not to mess with it anymore.

One of these days, I will design and build a working toplock for bass!

Huh...bass strings can be pretty feisty to keep in order. Where guitar strings submit, bass strings plow on through...

Speaking of ABM Mueller, I went searching for their website, and all I got was a bunch of blank screens with the single line "domain abm-mueller.com is not available". Upon further digging, I found this:

http://www.vis.de/abmmueller/index1.html

So is Allparts now handling ABM's business?

Hans? Any insight as to what is going on?

Here is the link to their website http://www.abm-mueller.com

hmmm ... website is very ... eh ... german. kinda sterile cold and only enuff info to tell me what they have. i mean ... is everything they sell the same color ... chrome and white?

their bass trems look cool ... i'de like more specs. (and a black one)

Actually MadMike, Hans owns one of their bass trems in chrome, so he can tell you quite a bit about them.

That's weird, Hans. When I tried that link, it gave me that error message saying the domain wasn't available. Probably a quirk in the bloody web again, I reckon, but I'm glad to see the site is still up. Thanks, Bro!

Hans had already mentioned that he thought the mystery brand I had found on Ebay all those years ago was in fact the old design of bass trem that ABM made. He just sent along a picture of his which absolutely confirms this. This is indeed the same design I had, and now Hans is lucky enough to have one:

The bass in the blurry picture is the so called custom Blue Marble Bass, made for Joseph "Foley" McCreary who played with among others Miles Davis. I'm not sure if the trem is in fact the old ABM style, perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't, maybe you can get more information on youtube from some Foley clips like this one:

Foley with tremolo

Edit:

The custom bass was made by a company called A-bass from Albey Balgochian. On this site:

A basses

It is said by the company that they made the tremolo custom in a Queens metal workshop.

Another mystery solved

It NEVER ceases to amaze me just how you Guys manage to find this stuff out! Thanks for clearing all of that up, Jim!