Steinberger Gearless Tuners

I had these put on my Firebird V11 and the improvement in tuning and general design is incredible! I play in an active working band and these make it easier to get in tune and stay in tune, I would recommend these for any guitar, very easy and quick to change strings also!

I bought an Epiphone Firebird Studio which came with these equipped. Its a great guitar with a great tone, but i had never seen these tuners before, I had no explanation on how to use them, and by trying to tune down to drop D, the tuner jammed and broke, resulting in me having to go back to the shop and replace it with a new firebird, and had the salesman explain how to use them properly. Enlightened, I have used this guitar so much, it has become my main guitar and i use it for rehearsals, gigs, or just messing with it in my room. The pegs themselves are very well designed and make for easy re-tuning and replacing. That said however, I recently snapped a string during a bend (as you do), and tried to replace it. As i unscrewed the locking peg, the peg itself unscrewed apart and now the broken string is stuck in the tuner and i cant do anything about it, meaning the guitar is now unusable. I am now seriously regretting buying this guitar as these tuning pegs are obviously very unreliable. I am now looking up how to replace tuning pegs and prices for regular tuning pegs.

Overall, the tuning pegs are easy to use and very effective, just very unreliable and fragile. I dunno, maybe I've just been unlucky, but twice now my guitars become unplayable thanks to these tuners

I ordered them because I wanted to see how they worked. I like good design and I am not blinkered into thinking guitar design stopped in 1959, and nothing worthwhile has appeared since. Liked the quirky appearance on the strat peghead. Easy to install. Drill one small locating hole. Had to ream out "vintage" pegholes to fit due to the hangover idea that the original tuners were always better. In use.....fantastic. Thread string through peg hole. Pull tight. Screw down locking T nut. Clip string off 1/4" from tuner. Tune.

It takes roughly the time it took to describe. S-m-o-o-th.....tuning 40:1! Accurate. Solid, and no possible backlash from internal gears, because there aren't any. The string in pulled down through the centre of the peg. No more sharp string ends waiting to snare you. If you are playing today's music on great grandfathers guitar, look away. You probably won't be able to tolerate the appearance of these pegs. But they do what their name implies, they...tune. They would work on a 3-a-side head-stock too. BUT they all turn the one way. Clumsy, I thought. But it makes sense. No left or right turn tuners. Any peg you grab, just turn away from you to raise pitch. Steinberers on my Les Paul Studio? Replace those snot green plastic 1950's archaic tuners? Why not?

Here's how I did it with my reissue 64 FB VII...

Uninstall the crappy banjo tuners that came on the beast. Drill out your peghead holes to 1/2" in a drill press or have your local guitar tech do it for you. You're going to need 1/2 x.375 x 5/8 nylon bushings from Lowe's, qty 6. Install the new nylon bushings in the redrilled peghead and install the tuners per the enclosed instructions with one exception...where they tell you to use a 1/16" drill bit to drill the index hole, use a 5/32" bit and point the index pin directly at the nut string slot that it matches. (The instructions just tell you to point the index pin towards the nut, but I found that if you align the index pin with a piece of masking tape that draws a straight line between the hole in the tuner with the string slot that matches it, you'll be dead on every time.) The 5/32nd bit keeps you from over-tightening the nut on the bottom of the tuner and keeps the cursing and gnashing of teeth to a minimum.

These tuners work like a champ. My 'bird now stays in tune!

Replaced the stock banjo tuners on a Firebird VII with these. They look great and the tuning precision is unbelievable. (Some assembly required. Drill not included).

Used these on my Telecaster clone. Look great and work even better.

I have a set on a 24.75" Telecaster. They have worked wonderfully for medium and light gauge strings and the tuning ratio is unmatched, However it should be noted that they get harder to turn as you go up in string gauges. Its noticeable when you use strings larger than a set of 11s.

I wanted these because I use a MIDI pickup on this guitar and it is really sensitive to the intonation. I have a Floyd-Rose on this guitar, and I don't like the locking nut on the Floyd-Rose (it's crazy to have to loosen or remove the lock plates on the nut to switch strings or do a good tune up), so I was very happy to find these locking tuners were available. They work great and allowed me to remove the locking plates altogether. They keep the strings in good tune for quite some time in spite of a lot of string stretches in my playing.

They are very smooth and comfortable to adjust. They look really sharp--everyone who sees the guitar now comments on that. They are a little tricky to install. You need to drill a small hole on the front of the head stock next to the mounting hole for the tuner to keep these aligned with the string. The hole is tiny (1/16" diameter), and it is very near to the circumference of the mounting hole, so it is tricky to line up the drill bit and not have it slip into the mounting hole as you proceed. It takes some caution and patience, but once you get through it it's great.

The hole that the strings pass through in stringing the guitar using these tuners is tiny, and it is hidden from view during the installation. It is even difficult to see it once it's all set up and it is exposed, and for a while I had myself convinced that they had missed the step of boring those holes on my set! The instructions could be a little clearer about what to expect, but stick with it, and you will find they are worth it.

One other thing: they advise using the tremolo bar to raise the bridge when you put on the high E string because of the string's tendency to stretch, but they don't give a good idea of how much to raise the bridge and it is tricky to do in the first place--having to raise the bridge, insert the string, hold it taut, and cut it to length is tricky with 2 hands! It would be handy to have an assistant available. I also over-did it on the stretch the first time around, and as I tuned the guitar up, the high E popped out of the bridge, and I had to start over on that string. That was very tricky to do once I had already cut the string to length, but I managed with some perseverance. I would just advise not getting too carried away with how high you raise the bridge to make up for the stretching of the high E string.

What's not to like? Relatively easy installation, less weight, and improved tuning stability - just as advertised!

I've been using these tuners for nearly 10 years now. I can't fathom any serious complaint. Lightning fast on the restring. Hold tune regardless of style ( forget slippage issues). A bit slow to string at first but once you get the fundamentals (simple & quick) you won't go back to standard machines.

You do want to make sure the peg holes are spaced correctly. Easy on the wrist, no strain tuning. I can' figure out why these have not become the standard. Honestly they make traditional machines outdated. the 40:1 ration is precision tuning at it's best Oh yeah, techs hate them cause they can't put the old drill with key adapter on to de & re string a guitar. I don't want a drill going close to my headstock anyway ( or a tech for that matter). Ok I' rambling , buy them you'll like.