Callaham Tremolo Blocks

Callaham Tremolo Blocks

A friend calls, he knows I am a pack rat of sorts when it comes to guitars parts and accessories.
Knobs, bridges, straps...I have many.
Pedals, effects, still a large pile.

He wants two of my pedals, and would like to trade.
I know the music community is small and local, but this is nuts! I make a trade with one friend in town a month ago and now I get a call for another trade offer. How's about a gig, instead?

I'm open, I'll listen. It's his dime. (Actually, that phrase no longer applies, notice?)
After he beats about the bush for a minute or two he names two Danelectro pedals of mine, one of which is a bit of a 'find.' The two together are worth $150 new, these are well used.
I'm thinking half.

Would I take a Callaham Trem Block and fitted 64 arm in trade? They are worth $80 new. These are NOS (New/Old Stock) unopened but not exactly new.

Frank, have you been peeking at FB? (I had posed a question in a group I am part of; The Guitar Players Association about brass versus steel blocks) As a matter of fact, no. Frank is one of the very few people I know not on FB or so private he tells no one. Chalk it up to timing.

We agree on the trade and he promises to make it out here one day this week.
We shall see. On all counts.

As far as the block itself and the theory behind such things:

That perforated block of cast zinc that the bridge is standing upon is the tremolo block. Through it the strings are anchored in the body of the guitar. The more dense the material, the fewer vibrations from the strings will be lost as heat in the block - more energy applied to the strings...an increase in sustain. The other sales point, and this one is not verified by any means, is that the material adds in some way to the sound of the guitar, usually the adjective is "resonance."

I am all for seeing that as voodoo or a placebo effect, however I did in fact, notice a change in the harmonics when I changed the springs attached to the tremolo block. The dynamic range was greater and the effect was very noticeable.
You can see the one pictured is tapered as well, less mass than a "squared" off block. The change in material from steel to zinc as well as the taper were done to reduce costs in manufacture.

The large holes are for the strings, the small ones hold the springs.

Now we are talking about something like this, instead. Cold rolled steel that is machined and the mating surface is polished to a mirror finish to ensure a good surface to surface mating.

They go further and make a new type of connection with the tremolo arm itself, the threads are anchored in a delrin plug and angled and shallow. The arm is tight as  a result even when turned away. A regular strat arm when not in use, flops around.
I like this...

"If you have an import guitar, your block is more than likely zinc (pot metal). Zinc kills both sustain and clarity and your sound. If you have a U.S. made guitar, you may have a steel block but it is either a hot rolled leaded steel, or in the case of the American Standard bridges, a soft cast steel block.

We guarantee you will hear the improvement after installing our block in both sustain and clarity."

Normally I would be arguing a change in material would have such a small effect as to be negligible, at least as far as human hearing in concerned.

But I keep coming back to the springs. The counterbore for the string end is at the bottom of the block by the springs and not at the top by the bridge. More of the strings pass through the block. The block is more dense than the Zinc cast block. 

We.shall.see.

Remembering Who We Are

In the midst of the week's events it is easy to fall prey to feelings of revenge. An eye for an eye.
On Facebook, that bastion of social discourse, the calls for summary execution are there along with various calls for torture, suspension of rights, et cetera.

What separates this part of the world from the rest is the rule of law.
A foreign national, arrested on our soil has the rights that we have. The exact same rights. There are no distinctions for where they were born or what their race or religion.
The exceptions is for enemy combatants in a time of declared war.

When something we find repulsive occurs, our worst, basest instincts come to the fore.
Fear, I think, being the prevalent emotion.

We recoil when a thief in Saudi Arabia is punished by having his hands lopped off. Refer to them as "barbarians" when they use beheading as their form of capital punishment.
So what makes us better? Stronger? Morally superior?

Not very much at the moment.
We are humans; ruled by emotions. Lately we have been trying to meld our emotions and our ability to reason. To improve the species.

And then a couple of these fallible, frightened humans does something so twisted that we cannot comprehend. We try very hard to pigeonhole them. Provide easily digestible reasons for what they have done.
How can you explain a mind so different than our own sensibilities? You don't. You dismiss them as, "twisted," "mad," "insane," and on & on.

It is now, more than ever that we need to adhere to our principals of the nations founding. That the law applies to all, equally.

Exercise Balls - STOP LAUGHING

Okay.
It is a small ball with more than one axis within a larger ball. A string wound around the central sphere, a tug and the inner sphere is spinning. Now, twist your forearm. The sphere is using friction to accelerate.
Think of hula hoops, but for your wrist and forearms.
So now you are holding up to 38 pounds (depending on how fast you get the ball spinning) of force in your hand. Torsional force, by the way...twisting force.
And so the more you twist, the more friction is generated the ball continues to spin.
A workout for your hand, fingers, wrists and forearms.

In the video you can hear it go from mechanical motion to an engine, so much so it can power the LEDS without batteries.
Thankfully I found one without lights, or a built in speedometer, or a spinning station for those who find the starting via string method taxing or beyond their grasp. (I see what I did there)

As a kid I recall having two small balls (enough with the snickering) of differing hardness and a regime of exercises I followed daily. They were easy, could be done while I was engaged otherwise...In short unobtrusive and they produced results very quickly.

So if this proves beneficial I shall have to plan for the metal versions which are $100 or more.
It can be a point of focus and discipline and beneficial to my playing as well.

I found the one in the top photo on Amazon for $17.29 with a 15% off coupon (only available to customers in this country it seems), which brought the total with tax and shipping to $15.98.
As I am fond of saying - we shall see.

04/17/13 I feel the "burn" after a simple five minute workout. I do thirty seconds with each hand and then switch. It's not quite a pain, more of every muscle in my arm is tight, in use.

Delay Pedals

Delay pedals afford the sound referred to as, "slapback," "echo," all the way into "self oscillation."

First called "Vibrato" on Fender amps, we were introduced to delay as distinct echo.
This, to differentiate it from "Reverb," short for reverberation - which is the echo of playing in a large venue. Faint and not to repeat more than once.

Delays can repeat many times, depending on the technology used, digital can virtually go on forever with no degradation in the signal other than what the initial sampling removed.
Digital delays can also be manipulated in many more ways than an analog signal.

In an analog device, a series of capacitors with transistors in strategic places transfer the signal from one group to another in a chain like fashion. The further down the chain, the more noise that has been introduced, and the more of the original signal lost until eventually it is no longer usable.
The name for the technology in the 1960s was aptly put, "Bucket Brigade."

Today, there are both digital and analog delay pedals. There are also hybrids that use analog technology in the signal path but digital to run the show.
It's hard to hold up old technology and find virtues to extol. And the digital world is far less costly. The chips used to make delays are not run-of-the-mill items that are in everyday use. Volume use has not driven the price down.

So when you enter this morass, you find everything is hyped and there are far too many types to choose from. More and more they combine delay with other cousins, such as chorus and phase. All innocuously labeled as "Modulation." In an effort shoehorn even more in, the digital offerings can also function as "Loopers." Pedals that will record short musical passages that can be successively layered upon until a lush song has been constructed by one person.

And these buggers can run from half a hundred dollars to well over a thousand for a tape based, "Echo-Plex." The granddaddy of all separate delay pedals.

While selling a neighbor an unused wah pedal I spied a vintage delay known as the Way Huge (name of the firm) Aqua Puss - who names these things? We came to an amiable exchange - I took cash and the pedal.

We shall see.