I have a strat with locking tuners. I was wondering if any of you strat players use the Hipshot Tremsetter? Is it useful? Is it crap? Does it work? Does it keep your guitar in tune, even with divebombs? Should I just spend a little more to get a locking bridge? Tell me what you guys think and tell me about your experiences with a tremsetter.

Well, I put one on an Ibanez Talman a few years ago, and it really does work. BUT -- that guitar isn't set up to do divebombs, so I can't tell you about that part for sure. It goes right back to pitch with "normal" medium to heavy trem use, though. It was a little tricky to set up -- there's a set screw you have to tighten down, and it might take a couple tries to get everything lined up... but once it's right, you don't have to touch it again.

Yes, it's excellent (but tricky to set up until 'the penny drops' & you realize how it works. Then its stil tricky as the set screw comes undone before you get everything adjusted) but once it's set right, then its really great. Of course, if you change string guages (or even brands where one is lower/higher tension than the ones you used before) then you gotta tweak it a little again.

Depending on the band/material, I can be a very aggressive player, & use the Tremsetter in conjunction with Graphtech "String Saver' teflon bridge saddles & trem-nut on 3 different Strats. I can not only do radical harmonic swoops & 'divebombs' (I should never have bough that Rat, hehe!) but even throw the guitars around the stage by the trem-arm without ever having to worry about them going out of tune or not returning to pitch perfectly

(I still lubricate the nut a little when re-stringing, & maybe again if the strings have been left on a while. I now only use Callaham "64" toughened steel trem arms, I've broken off over a dozen Fender ones, and its always a royal pain in the a** getting the broken thread out of the trem block...).

But - the rock-solid tuning stability isn't even the best thing about the Tremsetter...

Fitting the Tremsetter gives WAY more tone & sustain, because the brass push-rods are constantly in contact & transmit all the string energy to the body - it's virtually like the 'bonus' you get from screwing the bridge plate right down to the face of the body, but still allowing the bridge to 'float" (I set mine so i can pull the low e-string up to F#) so you can get all those great 'shimmer' effects on chords etc.

String bending becomes far easier (depending on the 'stiffness' you set up, the bridge won't sag forward when you bend a string, so you don't need to bend so far) & you don't get that annoying open bottom 'E' string dropping in pitch when you bend the top strings.

I found the chapter in Dan Erlwine's book "Guitar Repair" explains how/why it works very well, & it wasn't till I'd read his instructions on setting them up that I managed to be able to get mine (& various friends who played mine & immediuately got one for their own Strats) set up right, first time, every time.

Two thumbs up. Go for it!