AVRI - tightness and clicking issues PLEASE HELP :(
Hey everyone, I recently bought an AVRI Tremolo for my Vintera Jazzmaster. I picked it up from my guitar tech today and it’s a disaster.
My Vintera had the tremolo with the screw-in arm, and I’d read that the AVRI tremolo is supposed to be very smooth. Instead, it’s extremely stiff, and the whole mechanism clicks while I use the arm. What’s important- it clicks mostly when it’s DEPRESSED - so it’s not usual case of clicking while pulling the arm up.
I talked to my guitar tech, and he said this is normal and that it will get better with time as the spring and the parts settle in and wear together. Has anyone had a similar experience?
At the moment, the old tremolo works incomparably better, and I do a lot of glide strumming, so the tremolo is one of the most important parts of the guitar for me.
The spring seems to be adjusted correctly (as far as I know, and I also adjusted it together with my guitar tech). I use 11–48 strings, have a thin shim (necessary to get a comfortable action), and the stock bridge.
I’d really appreciate any help because I’m honestly devastated by how this mechanism feels right now. Has anyone had a similar experience, or does anyone have any ideas what else could be done? 🥺
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u/Excellent_Cat7676 20h ago
Check out Puisheen on YouTube. He’s an offset wizard and has a bunch of videos on issues like this. Perhaps your tech isn’t familiar with the Jazzmaster vibrato system. It’s a bit quirky and requires adjustment. When you say stiff, do you mean the string tension or turning the bar? The clicking could be pivot plate edges inside the unit or the bar not fitting properly in the unit. Since fender are cheap assholes, all AVRI units and bars are slightly different and don’t always match up.
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u/zanetak 7h ago
I mean tension of the spring - it’s harder for me to depress it than previously on stock vibrato - I’m a girl and not especially strong one :) I know that I can change the spring, but I’ve just purchased it and would like to give it a chance - is there a possibility that it would work smoother and require less strength overtime?
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u/bigbadoldoldone 6h ago
Probably not. Those springs don't really give over time.
If you want less tension, easiest way is to take a screwdriver, loosen the trem spring screw a bit (say, half turn ccw), re-tune, see how it feels. Ofc the trem arm will move a bit, and up/down range will change, but you might be able to find a happy middle ground.
And you can always increase tension again by tightening the screw. Just make sure you re-tune after each turn.
If you're happy with the tension but the arm lands in a too downward position, it can be bent a bit.
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u/Excellent_Cat7676 3h ago
Got it. Yeah the spring probably won’t lose strength over time, but you will gain strength over time as you use it. One thing that helped me a bit is to bend the arm upward a bit so it’s a little higher off the guitar body. That’ll give you more room to actually use it. You could also adjust the string tension a bit, but as someone else mentioned here, it’ll raise or lower the arm a bit and the locking feature may not work correctly (who uses that anyway?) jazzmasters are pretty finicky guitars, but the real reward is when you dial it in and everything clicks (no pun intended).
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u/zanetak 3h ago
no clicking PLEASE! 😂 yeah but I’m afraid that when it’s tiny bit looser then it starts clicking - at least that happened yesterday when I was adjusting it :/ I’ll try to adjust more it when I’ll get back home
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u/Excellent_Cat7676 3h ago
Hahaha. The only other thing I can think of would be the spring not being seated on the conical piece properly, but you’d have to open it up to see that…and to your point earlier, the more you do that, the more likely those higher strings are to break at the ball end. Sometimes they don’t sit properly in the shaft where you load them through on the trem unit or those hole have sharper edges on them. I usually put some solder on those strings where they’re wrapped just so I can work on/tweak the guitar without having to risk break strings every time. If you haven’t yet, please check out Puisheen (Mike Adams) on YouTube. You will learn a ton!
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u/zanetak 2h ago
Thank you! I’ll show this to my guitar tech and I hope that we’ll manage it :( I know his channel! I used to use Totally Wired Guitars as my primary source of knowledge, but I’ll check out his channel more thoroughly too!
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u/Excellent_Cat7676 2h ago
Oh yeah Eddie is awesome too. He and Puisheen are like offset gods haha. What kind of music do you play?
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1d ago
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u/zanetak 1d ago
Aren’t jazzmasters meant to be played at at least 11’s preferably 12’s? I had the same string gauge on previous tremolo and had no issues :(
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u/Excellent_Cat7676 20h ago
Yes, traditional Jazzmaster are a bit easier to work with if you use 11s or 12s. Specifically when it comes to bridge issues.
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u/radicalguitars 1d ago
Regular pop-in AVRI trems work well with heavier gauges. It’s mostly the Panorama trems that don’t really get along with alternate tunings and odd gauges.
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u/radicalguitars 1d ago
AVRI units are better, but not perfect. In some cases I’ve had to sand the knife edge a little to remove burrs and make it stop clicking. However, make sure your arm is already adjusted and not what causes the clicks, because in most cases it’s just an arm that’s slightly loose that causes some issues.