Steinberger ZT3 Custom TransTrem

This is a very feature rich guitar, one of my band-mates calls it a James Bond guitar - see the website for the spec's, but this thing is loaded and it has the capability to tune up or down a whole step using the TransTrem. That is one of the principal reasons I bought it, the bad news is, as mentioned by a previous reviewer, the mechanism to shift the trem to other tunings just isn't deterministic enough. I can wrestle with it and eventually get it to change and it is perfectly in tune as advertised, but the mechanism is just to unreliable to count on for gigs. Come on Ned this is a great guitar and a great feature - add a lever or switch to make the TransTrem dependable.

As for the rest of the guitar it plays beautifully, with the neck feeling closest to a tele and the pickups sounding like a Les Paul, but with coil tapping. The intonation is amazing and I have never owned a guitar (and I've owned all the classics) that stays in tune this well.

It's a tone machine and you can cover about any style you want with the pickup options available. Rolling back the volume pot also creates some really great tones.

It is well made and the finish is flawless but the color choices are very limited - blue, black (charcoal gray & dopey looking) and supposedly red, but I couldn't find a red one anywhere.

So far so good. I had to get out the Allen wrench and tighten down a couple of screws that seemed too loose when I got it, but no troubles since.

Anyone who buys this guitar will instantly be confronted with trying to figure out how the magical TransTrem feature works. The manual is useless, but there is a video of Ned Steinberger demonstrating it while the guitar is on a bench. He makes it look effortless, but unless Ned wants to come to my shows and switch tunings for me between songs he owes me a workable solution. This guitar truly would be the PERFECT guitar if that feature could be counted on and it was available in a variety of finishes and colors. I still gave them a 7 because it is really more of a design problem than support.

This is a great guitar and if you want a premium axe that plays and sounds great, that never goes out of tune, even after whammy abuse this is it. Forget the TransTrem feature, it just doesn't work properly. As stated above they missed the perfect guitar "by that much."

This is a brand new guitar, 2009. I got it from House of Guitar in Rochester, NY. Ordered it Tuesday 2/3/09 and got it the following Tuesday. It has 2 humbucker pick-ups. It has 1 volume and 1 tone control. Each control knob is a push/pull to split the coils. It has a 3 way pick-up selector. It is very small and it is located between the volume and tone switch. It should be on the other side of the strings where it is on my Les Paul or at least bigger like on a Strat. The finger board is all composite. It plays great. The sound is very good. With both pick-ups on single coil running at the same time, it is janglie like a Strat but thicker and more full. The tremelo arm works great for vibrato but I don't have a lot of luck transposing keys from "D" up to "F#". The video makes it look so simple but it's like catching an eel in a barrel of snot. It comes vith a gig bag. Why not something nicer for the price. I got it and couldn't get the trans-trem to work. Nobody at the House of Guitar could tell me how to work it. The owners manual was vague at best. I called customer support at Gibson, the parent company and they sent me an in depth link on Ned Steinberger setting the tuning of the guitar. Nothing on how to use the trans-trem. I giged with it last night going thru my Orange Tiny Terror and a Marshall 4X12 bottom miked. It sounded like a truck. It was great. I inadvertantly turned the volume on the neck pick-up down several times while playing. That is annoying. Then the 10 "E" string broke in the 2nd set. That was short lived. Probably less that 2 hours of total play time. I guess for features, as I have seen here many times...more is not better.

Great. I guess I got carried away in the first topic. This makes a sound that will suit ANY style music.

Fit and finish were very nice on my blue model.

As a volume or tone knob, the controls are fine but small. When you pull the knobs out, they don't instill alot of confidence. Almost flimsy.

As previously stated, you have to call Gibson. They do not give support over the phone. I can get sex over the phone for $1.99 a minute but Gibson can't tell me how to work the Transposing Tremelo on the Flagship of the Steinberger line of guitars. Joke!!! I called one of the local stores that Gibson listed as a Service Center. Although they never heard of a Steinberger, they would take a look at it for me. NOT!!!

I've played since 1964 off and on. I have a '75 Gibson Les Paul Custom, a 2 or 3 year old Epiphone Les Paul Ultra with Seymore Duncans (very nice for the price). I have a Tiny Terror, THD Univalve, Vox AC15, and Soldano Hot Rod 50 Plus. This ZT3 is a good guitar. If you never owner a Steinberger, I would not recommend you buy one on-line. You need to play it in a shop. Get the explanation how to use all the little nuances. That Trans Trem unit is a beast to recalibrate.