S
Scot
Active member
Took some time last week to make a chunky brass block for my stock trem (player 2 HSH strat). Not trying to fix anything, just curiosity. The finished block’s about 50% heavier than the oem zinc block (12oz vs 8oz).
Without diving into every nuance, there’s alot to like after installing the brass block. Particularly what seems an upper mid bump using high gain that’s really nice. Trem arm’s no longer floppy and there’s considerably less vibration through the guitars body using the heavy block so more energy to the strings, definitely. Great sustain & more chime from an already chimey guitar, so check - physics works.
Guitar sounds terrible splitting the hb’s but really good using the full neck hb, especially playing clean. The bridge hb using lots of gain - bass is good, highs are good and upper mids are great but it scooped the lower mids b/c they are gone. Gone to the extent it’s like using a similar but different pickup in the bridge altogether. Playing chords especially is just hollow sounding & there’s virtually no body or punch compared to the zinc block. Amp tweaks help but it sounds unnatural and forced trying to use bass to put muscle back into what I perceive to be lean (but familiar) low mids. Maybe the block’s too heavy and some fine tuning’s warranted but most likely it’s back to the zinc block for me. Definitely interesting and not quite what I expected. Also of course, YMMV.
Now I can’t help wondering what block saddles (made from billet brass) would do instead of switching out the zinc block. Maybe a brass nut would be a less dramatic means of getting a little upper mid bump? All comments welcomed.
Without diving into every nuance, there’s alot to like after installing the brass block. Particularly what seems an upper mid bump using high gain that’s really nice. Trem arm’s no longer floppy and there’s considerably less vibration through the guitars body using the heavy block so more energy to the strings, definitely. Great sustain & more chime from an already chimey guitar, so check - physics works.
Guitar sounds terrible splitting the hb’s but really good using the full neck hb, especially playing clean. The bridge hb using lots of gain - bass is good, highs are good and upper mids are great but it scooped the lower mids b/c they are gone. Gone to the extent it’s like using a similar but different pickup in the bridge altogether. Playing chords especially is just hollow sounding & there’s virtually no body or punch compared to the zinc block. Amp tweaks help but it sounds unnatural and forced trying to use bass to put muscle back into what I perceive to be lean (but familiar) low mids. Maybe the block’s too heavy and some fine tuning’s warranted but most likely it’s back to the zinc block for me. Definitely interesting and not quite what I expected. Also of course, YMMV.
Now I can’t help wondering what block saddles (made from billet brass) would do instead of switching out the zinc block. Maybe a brass nut would be a less dramatic means of getting a little upper mid bump? All comments welcomed.
