Thicker block on Gotoh Floyd. Opinions?

[Birdman642]

I recently got a Gotoh Floyd Rose. I have one on another guitar I put together and loved the build quality on it. I replaced the block on the first one I got with a thicker brass block. The stock block on the Gotoh is brass and the replacement would also be brass. The only difference between the two blocks is the thickness of the material. Can anyone tell me if it’s worth it to buy a second, thicker block for the new one I got, or if it falls to the law of diminishing returns?

[BeKindRewind]

Well, it's hard to say because I did own a Gotoh Floyd (great unit btw!) Although when I bought it, it had already been upgraded with a bigger brass block so I can't compare with the original. What I do know is that in the guitar I put it in, that Gotoh sounded noticably thicker, denser and with more sustain , likely thanks to that big chunky block. It really did sound very nice compared to the original Floyd Rose it replaced. So I'm not sure how much bigger the upgrade was, than what Gotoh uses stock, but that sucker was thick.

My only complaint with the bigger block, was that it seriously hampered the ability to pull upward on the tremolo for anything more than pretty light vibrato. I ended up blocking this Gotoh floyd up after a while, and it damn near sounded and resonated like a fixed bridge afterward

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[Top-L]

I prefer the OFR block vs the upgraded thick brass. With the thick brass block, the guitar (acoustically) seems to have less upper frequencies, less sizzle, just sounds more dead, more fundamental tone acoustically. I didnt do a ton of testing plugged in, but I suspect that the big brass block gives the guitar a "U-shaped" eq curve relative to the OFR block when plugged in. More bass, more treble, not as warm.

One other thing I did which changed the tone slightly was to install brass anchor screws. You can get them from Home Depot to test out.

[Masta' C]

law of diminishing returns

This

[alex1fly]

Are you doing it just to do it, or are you doing it to solve a problem? Sounds like you already have a good quality block in there. You can't expect mods to give you the same result on different guitars - might get a tonal improvement on guitar #1, but not on #2. But then, it's fun to tinker too

[Birdman642]

Are you doing it just to do it, or are you doing it to solve a problem? Sounds like you already have a good quality block in there. You can't expect mods to give you the same result on different guitars - might get a tonal improvement on guitar #1, but not on #2. But then, it's fun to tinker too

I’m not doing it to solve a problem per say, I know that when I put that first new Floyd in there with the thicker block, it made the guitar sound much fuller than the original. Both guitars are functionally identical (the original is a full blooded Jackson DK2M, the new one is a DK2M body with a JS32 neck) When I had the stock trem on there, it tended to have fret buzz, even after a good setup.

Edit: Tinkering is quite fun as well. I’ve missed modding a lot.