Graph Tech PRL-8341-C0 Ratio Electric 3+3 Locking Tuned Machine Heads - Vintage Style / Chrome Finish Reviews

Coming from someone who is not at all a fan of how vintage tuners usually look ... these are great. Great Tuning stability the gear ratio feels great and they look good. These will be going on all my guitars! love them!

These tuners are pretty awesome. They come with mounting plates that allow them to be used as replacements for a few brands of tuners. These plates are easy to install and look good, once installed. Their appearance is very similar to a locking version of a brand that I will not name here, but you will see the resemblance.
If you have Gibson Deluxe tuners and are looking to get some locking tuners to replace them, these are an easy install to replace them.

I installed my first set of Graph Tech PRL-8341-CO Ration Electric Locking machine heads on an old Gretch guitar that I have owned for years. Over time the heads wore until it just would not stay in tune and my old friend got frustrating to play. I installed these new heads and it is better than when it was new! So good in fact, that I am back on the site to buy 2 new sets for other guitars! One is an antique solid body electric and the other is my Gibson ES-339! These heads are outstanding!

I wish I had bought these things years ago. I have a Les Paul that has always been great to me but never felt like it was giving me its best. I had my A tuning nut just recently break so I decided to upgrade to these. This made my guitar a whole different animal. The sound is sharper and tuning is a breeze. I highly recommend these for anyone trying to make their guitar be all it can be.

I installed these tuners on my ESP LTD EC-256 guitar and it hardly goes out of tune. Even when i'm bending on the G, B and E strings. Glad that i invested in the tuners.

I have a Cort CR250TBK (basically a Les Paul clone) that I have already done several upgrades on (pickups, bridge saddles). Installing these tuners were the most recent upgrade and they made a HUGE difference! The job got farmed out to the techs at our local shop as the headstock holes had to be drilled out to 10mm to accept the tuners (great guys who do great work, by the way). Now the Cort enjoys stable tuning and quick, easy string changes. Zero regrets. Highly recommend!

Had many guitars in my lifetime but none that had locking tuners...was on fence which to get...so i talked to 1 of the sweetwater reps about em and he has them on his ax and loves em...so why not...i ordered them...when they arrived and i read the installation directions they made it sound very complicated and drills needed and all that krap...said screw it and chucked directions in trash and applied common sense...installed quickly with no drilling...will give another review down the road to see how they hold out...great looking and luv the gear ratio set up...thanx sweetwater for advice...!!! You guys have been a lot of help over the years and thanx...

These Locking Tuners are awesome, There is no slippage whats so ever since they make the gears with the specific strings. The gaskets that come with the tuners will fit almost any guitar, even the older models, In some cases you may have to mike the holes alittle bigger but again it all depends, my 2013 Epiphone Les Paul i had to, but well worth doing so.

Installed on 2SG's. One with Grover tuners and one with old replica tuners. Required different bottom plates, that were included, and all went well. Easy installation, no drilling or mods required.

They brought my Gibson sg back from the dead

I purchased a Gibson CS-336 a few years ago through Sweetwater. The guitar was beautiful and sounded amazing. The problem was that I just could not keep the darn thing in tune. I was very frustrated, having spent the cash for a CS guitar, but having to re-tune after every song. I then saw an add for the Graph Tech Ratio tuners, and I figured "What the heck? I really like the Graph Tech string saver bridges that I've used for years, so I'll give the tuners a try". The results were amazing. I literally can play an entire gig without having to re-tune. These tuners should be stock on Fender/Gibson guitars, but until the "Big Guys" realize how great these tuners are, I guess we'll just have to order them as aftermarket add-ons. These tuners will make you love your old guitar!! lol!

Love these new locking tuners. All guitars should have these. Install was easy. I was really lucky that I didn't have to enlarge the hole. These fit perfectly. Also, the back plate fit perfectly too. I kept the original screws. Took me about two hours. Went very slowly b/c I didn't really know what I was doing, plus it was dinner time. They're a little heavier than the originals I took out, but it's not noticeable. Not top heavy or anything.

I saw these and figured I would give them a try; I am glad I did. The were pretty much drop in place using the plates that come with the tuners for my Grover screw point. They really allow you to get an accurate tunning and the guitar stays in tune once the strings are stretched. They also look really nice, much better than the kidney tuners that came on my guitar.

READ A BIT ABOUT THE RATIO TUNERS, AS I SEEN THEM ON A WASHBURN ACOUSTIC. WAS HAVING ISSUES WITH MY 93 LES PAUL SO I DECIDED TO TRY THEM OVER THE PLANET WAVES, WHICH I LOVE. I HAVE BEEN VERY IMPRESSED. GREAT TUNER, STABLE AND WELL MADE.

I have an ESP guitar that kept going out of tune, called James/Sweetwater Tech and he quickly suggested the Ratio locking tuners. These are the best.....they come with universal mounting brackets, no drilling,etc. I changed out in about 30 minutes...EASY! I put them through a workout bending strings beyond....they made a huge difference and they work. I have a Les Paul and a PRS SE with minor but still annoying tuning issues....call James...he checked the same ones will fit mt LP and PRS........Now I can't put my ESP down...it just SINGS!!!!
Guitar Gary

Installed on my new Les Paul Standard without issues. Everything went smoothly and they look great!

I love the locking tuners and the different gear ratios are brilliant. These tuners are GENIUS!

I have nothing negative to say, only that you need to buy these right away!

This is my 3rd set of these Machine Heads, 3rd review. These are great Heads, stay in tune, easy to install, & make tuning as easy as it can be. Warning: They will spoil you for any other tuner! Thanks GraphTech for a great product, Thanks Sweetwater for the Great service.

These locking tuners are the perfect solution for replacing worn-out old style tuning keys. They're well made, heavy-duty, and look fantastic on my Gibson SG Standard. I highly recommend this upgrade whether a 3 + 3 or an in-line configuration.

I have now used these as replacements on three (3) guitars, a Gibson Les Paul Jr., Gibson Les Paul Special, and a Gibson Custom Shop CS339. All of the aforementioned guitars came with "other" tuners that had so much backlash, I was difficult, if not impossible to keep them in tune. Now, tuning stability is a breeze, they were easy to install, and in the case of my CS339, they look so much better than the tuners that came stock on the guitar. Thinking about using these on my ES335, they work so well!

I did a review on these back in Feb stating how much I liked them. Well it 5 months later & I like them even more. They are absolutely the BEST machine heads I've ever used. They will spoil you from using any other heads. I play minimum 1 hour a day, every day. (Retired) These Graph Tech's just stay in tune. Period. I have High quality heads on all my guitars, & they work good, Graph Tech's work GREAT. IMO, the best improvements you can do to a guitar is installing these heads & a Graph Tech nut. They are worth every penny spent. I have over 50 years of playing rock guitar as well as being my own Tech, and Tech for my two Grandsons. I know what I'm talking about. Try them, you won't be disappointed.

Very easy to install without having to drill any additional holes in your guitar. I was having a lot of tuning issues with my 2019 Gibson sg standard and these did the job ! Very big improvement from the stand grovers highly reccomend!

I wanted to upgrade my tuners on my new Epiphone to be locking tuners. I was recommended by Sweetwater to install the RAT:O Multi Geared Precision Tuners. While the installation wasn't a direct replacement, it was close to an easy job. I had to enlarge the pre-drilled tuner holes slightly (1/16") to accommodate the Ratio tuners. Once that was done, it was a straight replacement, including being able to use existing mounting screw holes. In total, the installation took about an hour. I would call this an easy installation. Thanks to Sweetwater for very suitable replacement tuners. I am beyond satisfied.

I installed these a week ago, replacing the Korean "Grovers" on my Epiphone 335. I didn't want to drill any new holes & wasn't sure that new Grovers would fit right. After checking with my sales rep at Sweetwater (Aaron Vidusek) he suggested these Graph Tech machine heads. Thanks Aaron!

1) The mounting plates provided fit the headstock perfectly, installation was quick and easy. They come with 4 different sets to fit almost any guitar.

2) I've never used locking tuners before, these work great with no slipping. Guitar came up to tune in about 90 degrees of the post turn. Installing new strings was a breeze, didn't have a need for my peg winder. The strings stretched in a lot quicker then with the non-lockinjg type.

3) The Ratio heads are great, allowing the fine tuning of all strings. I have 2 tuners, a clip on & a Boss TU-80. Both came up up to tune without any flicking back & forth, straight to 440 and stayed there when I stopped. To my ear, I think the guitar sounds brighter with more sustain then before.

All & all I love these machine heads, and will be changing out my other guitars to this model in the future.

I spent $300 on a used Epiphone 339. Loved the neck but it was impossible to keep in tune with the stock tuners. The guitar is in "GREAT" condition but I was going to get rid of it 2 months after buying it, which brings me to these GraphTech machines.

Installation: Couldn't be easier
Appearence: Very Nice
Quality: First rate, couldn't be happier

Bottom line, I couldn't believe the difference these machines provided. I know the string change helped the tone and these tuners make it rock solid. My cheap, ES-339 joins my line up of my Music Man James Valentine Signature, my PRS S-2, my 4 American Fenders (2) Strats, Tele and Jazzmaster.

Bottom Line: I bought a used guitar that had a great neck and looked great but was otherwise useless. I then spent more that 33% of what I paid for the guitar on new tuners I could easily install myself and the Ax now rocks!

I always thought Grover were as good as it gets. WRONG.
*The different ratios DO make tuning a breeze.
*These are for more stable for tuning than anything else I have ever used. You have to try them yourself to understand.

I am replacing all of the Grovers on my current guitars and future guitars.

Bought these to replace my Gibson Les Paul 2017 HP with G-Force Tuners. They fit with no reaming, came with all types of back plates that required just a single screw (I hate drilling a beautiful guitar so one holes better than two). The different Ratios worked perfect to hold my guitar in tune. Yup, they cost more but well worth the investment. My sales engineering Chris was great at instantly responding and shipping them out.

Best $... I"ve spent! Swapped the factory klusons on my Les Paul and what a difference. Tuning is more stable and they look great as well.

Be careful with these! Until you get the hang of using them you may break a few strings! I broke 3 A strings till I came around to the conclusion I was "man handling" too much. Literally once you lock the string tight, a slight turn and you are in tune! Really amazing and cool. They stay there too! I put mine on my new PRS! Looks fantastic! Works great! Wonderful product!

Graph Tech Ratio Locking Tuned Machine Heads -3+3 Vintage Chrome are awesome piece of engineering. They are the 2nd I buy and I love the precision and control over the strings. Best of all they stay in tune. I recommend them 100%

Bought an inexpensive '05 Epi SG (with a PERFECT neck for me) a while back, fully intending to upgrade all the parts eventually. Started with the GT Ratio tuners and haven't changed anything else since. They improved everything about the guitar (well, except for the fwd roll out). I had figured they would just stabilize the tuning - and that alone would be worth the expense. While they did, in fact, do this, they also improved the tone of the guitar. So I ordered a second set for my '77 Gibson LP Deluxe (after putting up with that sloppy G string for WAY too many years). Same thing happened on this guitar too - all for the better. Highly recommended!

I"ve never given thought about changing my tuners and not even a clue that tuners like these existed. Wow where have I been. It wasn"t until I recently purchased a guitar from Sweetwater which came with locking tunersi realized it was time to update existing guitars and very glad I did. Once new strings settled in the guitar stays in tune for much longer periods of time. As far as the time it takes to change strings it is cut in half and takes the hassle out of leaving strings on longer a no brainer. I will be changing out more tuners for all of my arsenal of guitars. The tuners are awesome and read the directions first particular tuners are special for each string for a reason. Buy buy buy!

Just as the advertise. After 3 years of Gibson G-force tuners it was time to part ways. A fitting replacement on a Les Paul standard HP. Now it really is the total package for me. More time playing and less time tuning.

Put these on a project Les Paul and was weary on the price. If you"re feeling hesitant, just do it. These things are absolutely amazing for what they are! Can"t recommend them enough.

First off, these are very well made, precision tuners. I replaced the tuners of my PRS SE Custom 24 with them (PRS SE tuners are just ok -- probably the weakest link in the guitar). It's an amazing improvement. And it's pretty much as advertised: Every full turn is a full step difference in pitch making it incredibly easy to do alternate tunings quickly.

What will initially blow you away is how easy it is to install them. They says it's simple and it really is. They provide a really generous number of InvisoMatch mounting plate sets. Remove your old tuners, pick the right set of mounting plates, install the new tuners, done. It took maybe 30 minutes start to finish to replace them and required NO holes to be drilled in the guitar.

Ratio tuners are worth every penny.

Do what they say, removed the robot tuner on my LP traditional hp. Had to drill unfortunately because there were no pre existing holes. Was un-nerveing, but got them on succesfully. Took some skill and time, probably 30 min. But overall I like them, the look good. Theyre good quality, and the gearing certinly is better.

My first ever guitar mod !
I installed the Graph Tech Vintage 3 +3 Tuners on my 1969 Gibson SG . Having never modified any gear in my 68 years on this planet , I was amazed to find that they nearly installed themselves. Folks buy this item if your guitar"s tuners have lost the will to tune!

I bought these Graph Tech Ratio tuning machines for my Heritage H-535. I wanted a nice vintage vibe with modern ratio technology. They look great! Most impotantly, however, the quality is top notch with solid constuction and super smooth tuning. I was a little hestant to upgrade because I didn"t want to mess up the headstock during installation.. I worried for nothing. The machine heads slipped right in without any drilling with the help of perfect fitting mounting plates.
In short, a great product

I love my Gibson LP Traditional. (Also purchased from Sweetwater) Having said that, the idea of spending less effort tuning and staying in tune was appealing. I recently purchased these from Sweetwater and I installed them Sept 13, 2018. and this product is right on the mark!. Installation was easy: there was no drilling since one of the included sets of mounting plates was a perfect match for the LP. A few minutes with a small Philips screwdriver and a 10mm wrench was all it took. If you're looking for ease of tuning, improved stability, and simple installation, these tuners offer a superb option.

As always, service from Sweetwater and Ryan Sloan was exceptional. They're the best!

Replaced the stock "robot tuners" with these on my Les Paul and couldn't be happier. Just ordered another set for my acoustic. I would recommend them to anyone!
Really makes tuning much easier and faster.

MY SALES ENGINEER RECOMMENDED THESE FOR MY LES PAUL. BOUGHT THEM SEVERAL MONTHS AGO BUT WAS HESITANT TO INSTALL (DIDN'T WANT ANY PROBLEMS AND LOSE MY PLAYING TIME) BUT FINALLY TACKLED IT LAST SATURDAY AFTERNOON. STARTED WITH ONE AT A TIME #6 (YES THEY ARE NUMBERED FOR YOU) THEN ON TO 5 THEN 4 BY THEN WAS A PRO.. *L* REMOVED 3 THROUGH 1 INSTALLED NEW TUNERS WITH NEW BRITE WIRES 9 TO 42 TUNED HER UP AND WHAMMO BAMMO READY TO ROCK AND ROLL AS THEY SAY.. EASY INSTALL, FIT LIKE A GLOVE AND WORK LIKE A CHARM. LOVE EM. NEXT MY PRS GUITAR. MY STRAT PLUS ALREADY HAS LOCKING TUNERS.. ONCE YOU HAVE LOCKING TUNERS THAT IS ALL THAT WILL DO AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THESE THEY ARE NOT ONLY AWESOME BUT SO POSITIVE AND DON'T HAVE TO TURN FOR DAYS TO GET THE TUNE YOU WANT...

Works great, looks great.

These Bad Boys do everything as advertised. Will definitely recommend them to all my fellow musicians. And they fit my Ltd EC-1000FM perfectly. No drilling holes required. I will be getting another set for my other LTD soon. And remember staying in tune means everything!

They work as advertised. HQ and eye candy on your guitar.

They are so smooth to turn and the needle practically stops when you stop turning so there is little to no play so you don't have to chase the note. They worked wonders on my Gibson Tribute T

Balanced tension is the way to go. These are truly next gen. Love the ease of installation.

These tuners were easy to install and work beautifully! I have several different guitars with various locking tuners and the consistent problem (regardless of gear ratios) is fine tuning the low E and G strings. With ratios of 39:1 and 35:1 the E and G are easy to tune up without going sharp. The price may seem steep compared to other brands but they are worth the coin. Hopefully they start making 7 and 8 string versions.

I purchased an import Gretsch with somewhat cheap tuning machines. The installation was very straight forward (even for someone who's never replaced the tuners). The mounting plates made it very easy. I thought about drilling some extra screw holes to make it more secure, but that seems overkill. The most difficult part of the install was reading the numbers on the tuners you need to put the correct tuner at the correct position.

So far they seem great and the style goes well with my gretsch. I particularly like the different gear ratios, definitely makes a usability difference. May post an update after I've used them for a bit.

This was suggested to me by my sales engineer on behalf of Sweetwater's guitar parts team. I've got a Les Paul Studio that I've spent the last decade customizing (almost no stock parts anymore), and to go along with my son's ever-growing guitar collection, I decided to throw a new nut and machine heads onto it as part of the process of changing it over to a pseudo-baritone so it could fill the "low end" slot of the various tunings my son has on his guitars; the original nut didn't work great with the thicker strings, and I figured if I was going to have to restring it anyway, why not just get some locking heads at the same time?

As far as the installation went, it was an absolute breeze; I was warned that the shafts might be a little too thick to fit through the original holes (and thus require some reaming out), but that proved to not be the case, and the cool mounting plate setup for these heads made installation a breeze. In fact, the only issue I ran in to was that my low string - what with it now being a thick 72 - didn't quite fit into the string hole, but luckily I had a cylindrical metal file that fit perfectly into the hole, so I was able to carefully ream it out the little necessary to get it to work. (It was literally probably just a couple thousandths too tight for the 72, so even if you are using thickest of drop-tune-but-not-baritone strings, I doubt you would have this "issue.")

As far as the variable gear ratio goes, beyond it being obvious that each head rotates at a different "speed," I have no clue if the whole "one whole turn equals one whole tone pitch" marketing claim works or not; I didn't pay any attention when stringing it, and I don't feel like testing it on new strings for the sake of an already lengthy review. :) However, I can say that getting each string finely tuned seems a lot easier than before - no more back-and-forth knob turns to try and get right on-note - and even though I have a TP-6 tailpiece, it sure seems like it is now easier to fine-tune the strings (for sure on the lower ones) using the new machine head knobs than using the tuning screws on the TP-6, which was definitely a little shocking to discover!

All in all, the only "con" I can give for these tuners is their cost; they are nearly twice the price of most locking machine heads and are the most expensive available, period. As someone who seldom changes his tuning (especially now; see above), I'm sure I could have gone with one of the less-expensive sets and have been as happy. But having these installed, I've got to say that I don't feel like I spent too much or am in any way unhappy with choosing these: even without making full use of the individual gear ratios the more precise/easy tuning is definitely a "nice to have," they are definitely high quality machine heads, and with the selection of mounting plates I know that if I were to get a new "favorite" guitar I could easily just shift these over to that one.

These replaced a the G-Force tuners on a 2017 SG HP.
They were a perfect fit.
They work great.
The mounting screws are somewhat fragile, so you will need to drill the holes in the head-stock the full length of the mounting screw.

Just put these on a 1995 Gibson "The Paul II". The fact that theycome with numerous universal mounting plates meant no drilling. Had ro re-use the original mounting screws as the ones shipped with the mew tuners were a smaller size and didn"t grip the mounting holes. String changes can be done so much faster and the guitar stays in tune much better. Love they look as well. Hope they stay shinny as they are now.

Very well designed and well made. Took around 15 minutes each and they were on my old Guild and Alvarez Yairi with no drilling. I was totally sold on these about 10 minutes later. Half a star deduction because of Graph Tech's pricing, but man, they are sweet. Very solid feel and very easy to fine tune. Happy with my purchase and yes, I would recommend these to anyone that needs new machine heads.

I really enjoy these machine heads. I have never had Locking ones before, and these do not disappoint. The locking mechanism makes restringing my guitar a breeze, and it VERY easy to quickly tune a guitar up or down in pitch with very little turn. Thanks Aaron Swaidner for helping me pick it out!

I like the tuners, but I did not like the fact that I did not see anything in the instructions that I would have to enlarge the holes in my guitar to install them. I have a 1996 Gibson Les Paul 1960 Classic and the tuners would not fit in the old tuner holes. The tuners require a 7/16 inch hole and the holes in my guitar were about 5/16 inch and I only had a 3/8 inch drill to use to enlarge the holes.

I was disappointed to find out that I was one of the few that would have to bore out (drill) the hole to get these to fit. I was really looking forward to dropping them right in- 2005 Gibson Les Paul Standard.
After expanding the holes (holding my breath on each of the 6) they did then drop right in and were easy to install. I do like the ratios and it feels like the same tension on each string when tuning, which is really nice.
Overall I am pleased with these and time will determine my overall happiness, but I'm thinking they will be perfect.
This would be a 5 star review if they fell right in. Because of the drilling and initial disappointment, its only 3.

These locking tuners do what they say however the cheap looking mounting plates they send are crap. Beautiful finish on the tuners themselves but mounting brackets, which do protrude from underneath, look like crap. then after reading through the documentation they send they want you to spend more money to buy the DELUXE plates? At this price they should have included decent looking plates to start with instead wanting you to spend more money. Disappointed to say the least.

I like Graph Tech. I think they are a company with many quality products but, these did NOT work for me. I put them on a '89 Gibson LP Standard, played a half dozen or so gigs with them, and ultimately returned them and put on a great set of Grovers. Every time I pulled it out of the case, the G string tension button was loose. I tightened it as much as you would want to. One night I went to tune the G string up, and it wouldn't tension. It just kept slipping. I used my backup LP to play the whole night. I know Gibson is notorious for "out of tune" G strings, the result of their unwillingness to use the proper degree of angle on the archtop (something PRS has learned and mastered) but, even so, these should have helped correct the tuning issues. They didn't. The keys also turned a lot stiffer than what I believe a high brow key should turn. I realize, over time, they probably do loosen somewhat. But for what they cost, I kind of expected an easier turning key. I'm actually bummed. On paper, these looked amazing and a great concept. In the field, not so much. So, if you're interested and use a LP, you might want to try to find someone who already has them on that guitar and take a closer look. Thank you Sweetwater for your outstanding customer service and for helping me find the right replacement tuners.