Question: Tremolo bridge in old Silhouettes

[lcsbn72]

Hi! Many years ago (1988, I think), I've read the first test on a Music Man Silhouette: in the photograph of the guitar there was a tremolo bridge that took my attention... it was a non-floating locking bridge. It had the dimension of a vintage bridge, but with fine-tuning system, and there was also a locking nut... I would like to know what kind of bridge was it?!? Anybody can help me?

[John C]

Those original Silhouette bridges were made by Schaller; they had roller saddles, fine tuners, and pivoted on a long knife edge that fit into a metal bracket attached to the guitar. They had a behind-the-nut string lock similar to what Kahler used, but it worked in the opposite direction (instead of the locking part pushing down and locking the string to the bottom of the string clamp the locking bolts pulled up and locked the string to the top of the string clamp).

Those bridges were also used (and sold by) Schecter here in the USA from say 1984-1986 (essentially the Dallas years for Schecter). If I'm remembering correctly after 25 or so years, the Schecter installation was not floating and only dropped pitch while the EBMM installation was floating and allowed you to raise pitch (not like a routed Floyd Rose installation but had more upward movement than a floating vintage trem). I could be mistaken on the EBMM installation; I only briefly played an early Silo with this bridge but knew a person back in the day who had a couple of Schecters with their version of the trem.