The topic of cryo tuning or cryo aging of guitar parts has been in the guitar industry for a long time. It is undisputed that it leads to a mechanical and sound improvement, but unfortunately very little is explained about it, which is why it unfortunately seems like nonsense to many. We want to change that here with a detailed description and are happy to provide an insight into our cryo process.

In technical jargon it is called cryogenic or low-temperature technology. This is a type of temperature treatment of components with extremely low temperatures, down to almost minus 190 degrees Celsius. This process has been used in mechanical engineering for some time. There it is used to make components generally more wear-resistant (such as gun barrels or engine parts) or to increase the service life of tools. Cryotreatment can increase the service life of tools (such as cutting tools or indexable inserts) by 200 to 400%! This is of course also a desirable effect for our guitar parts.

In our cryo tuning, components are cooled very slowly and gradually to minus 180 degrees during a controlled process. This extreme temperature is achieved using liquid nitrogen, which, thanks to the machine designed for this purpose, never comes into direct contact with the components and cannot damage them. In the machine, short cooling and warm-up phases alternate again and again within a specially tailored process. After more than 20 hours, the components are slowly brought back to room temperature and can be removed. So it's a very lengthy, complex and, above all, cost-intensive process.

But what exactly happens within the material? To do this, we will take a short excursion into physics, which can clearly explain the process to us at the atomic level. Physics tells us that it's the metal structure that matters! More specifically, it's about the carbides in the metal. Carbides are metal-carbon compounds that are formed during the production of the metal, more precisely when it solidifies. These are usually distributed unevenly in the metal and affect the material properties. The cryotreatment causes microstructural changes in the metal and the carbides are rearranged so that they are evenly distributed throughout the metal. This gives us more wear-resistant components and in terms of sound development we can clearly see an improvement in response, sustain and balance in the sound. After treatment, components have the same properties as decades-old and stable parts. That's why, with parts from our Silverback Vintage series that have been cryo-treated, we can deliver THE vintage-correct tone in addition to the vintage-correct dimensions and materials!

We are the only manufacturer in the world to successfully subject tremolo springs to cryo tuning. You can clearly feel and hear the effects. See for yourself, it's not for nothing that we give a 60-day Mon(k)ey Back guarantee on all of our products! More cryo-treated products will of course follow.

Click here for our pre-CBS Vintage Tremolo Springs.