2023 - New lies, prohibitions and commandments ...
2023 - New lies, prohibitions and commandments ...
Decree of 10.01.2023: Moving and staying on squares, streets and sidewalks without carrying a cell phone in one hand may be punished by fines of up to € 50,-.
The new trussrod side adjuster is under development!
We had already installed this sophisticated toothed gear in the mid-80s for neck adjustment in the Duesenberg guitars of the time.
The advantages: It's a round rod adjustable in both directions - in other words, the design found on all vintage guitars of the '60s. And quite a few fetishists claim that this kind of trussrod is beneficial to the sound. Whether this is true, we will leave undecided. The double trussrods used today work fine, and I can't perceive any difference in sound. But: If you move the set screw to the other end, i.e. to the body side, the predetermined breaking point at the top of the head is eliminated considerably, because the cutout for access to the truss rod nut is omitted. In addition, adjusting the neck curvature from the side is much more elegant.
After all, popular companies such as Warmouth and Mr. Frank Deimel use a similarly functioning, quite complicated part, which was manufactured by the Japanese company Gotoh, but is now probably no longer offered.
The moving parts of our much smaller adjuster see above. (gear wheel and worm shaft) are made of sturdy steel.
The street musicians in Cádiz ...
Carnaval de Cádiz
And again an incredible spectacle in all squares, streets and alleys. In costumed groups of various sizes, the carnavalists celebrate musical performances with mostly politically critical content, accompany themselves with various instruments - percussion, kazoos, guitars, mandolins, etc. and sing absolutely professional four-part on the point. In addition, there are competitions in various categories, which are held in the Teatro Falla - just around the corner from us - until late at night. Live TV broadcasts throughout Spain included. On Youtube there are videos without end under "Carnaval de Cádiz"!
Should it be like this?
Or like this?
The divine Norfried Baum with his Bluesbenders
Just discovered in Youtube! A cool solo with one of my prototypes, equipped with two Split King pickups ...
Two sounds out of one pickup! My very personal project ...
Iñaki Antón (Ex Extremoduro)
Iñaki was the guitarist of the legendary Spanish rock trio Extremoduro. Before that he played with Fito and his equally legendary band Platero Y Tu. An exceptional musician! And now he only plays Duesenberg. 16 pieces he has! And he wanted more sounds - realized here by a 5-way switch.
Besides guitar ...
Into guitar ...
Well, they don't really grow out of the ground. And in Hanover we have a large CNC machine and the PLEK, both for more final work. The preliminary work, however, is done in our phenomenal factory in Croatia, the land of Modrić, Savić, Rakitić, Perisić and many other international soccer stars, so from raw wood to perfectly lacquered blank. The assembling, in turn, takes place by the finest hand in Hanover. Our factory is run by brothers Arijan and Alan Sabić, who grew up in Frankfurt, two crafty guys who build their own machines and have been involved in guitar production for ages, with the two of them having supplied us with blanks before and Arijan also being present with us in Hanover at times for various years. We have kept this a production secret over the years. But there are always these rumors started by evil, begrudging people that our guitars come from China or somewhere else. This has to stop now! See for yourself! Here is our fantastic video:
https://youtu.be/rpB3m-P2ZuQ
Another Video ...
Now it's getting Spanish-surreal! This video here I had produced primarily for the Spanish section of my website, but in the end I inserted it on all three versions. I am imitating the ex-king Juan Carlos, who often and secretly used to fly to Africa to look for elephants. During his last hunting trip, he unfortunately broke his hip and returned to Madrid visibly battered, whereupon the whole elephant story became public in all media. So he had no choice but to apologize publicly with the following embarrassing words: "I'm very sorry. I made a mistake. It will not happen again ..."
And soon: The G-Trem
And sports ...
Pots stiff in operation ...
I do not understand this. In a test report, the pots are criticized for their stiffness. On the other hand, the top guitar manufacturers boast that they use CTS pots, which are also highly praised in test reports. But CTS pots turn extremely stiff. What kind of logic is that? Can anyone explain this to me? It should be said that I prefer smooth-running pots in any case, as we also use them in all Duesenberg guitars. A poti must be as easy to turn as possible!
And on top of that the same nonsense with these oil cap capacitors for the tone pots! They may look a little more appealing, but cost a lot more useless money and no one could explain to me so far that there is a different sound when you turn back the treble. On top of that, tone pots are not used at all by the majority of guitarists!
And another one of my annoyances:
These now ancient CRL 3- or 5-way switches with this little coil spring for concrete fixation of the switch positions work, as you know, just fine, especially regarding the feel. The engagement positions are well defined - not like the many Asian cheap switches where you almost have to look to find the desired position, especially with 5-way switches!
Some years later, however, the then US company OAK developed new, differently designed 3- and 5-way switches, whose positions snap into place by semi-circular leaf spring - if well made, haptically exactly the same! These switches were a lot less expensive. However, this OAK company was bought out (by whomever) and their switches were dropped from the product line in order to continue to make ruinous profits on the now virtually unaffordable CRL switches.
For some years now, however, copies of the former OAK switches have been available in this world from other companies, at least some of which are in no way inferior to the originals. They serve the same purpose, work perfectly and are quite affordable. So why continue to throw expensive money down the throats of the Americans, especially since all CRL switches have long been produced extremely cheaply in Mexico? Fight the American greed!
And graphite lacquer: another nonsense!
Brushing the electrical compartments with this black paint is also often praised in test reports, but unfortunately it is completely useless!
The End of Enjoyment or: The Emergence of Playlists
Enjoying rock music back in the day started with brave editors on the radio. You simply chose the station that gave you the hottest songs.
You were quickly hooked and fascinated, and soon bought a record player and your favorite vinyl singles. And shortly thereafter the so-called long-playing records. And one feverishly awaited every new album of the Stones or Beatles. And when you finally held the thing in your hands, it was played over and over again until you knew all the songs by heart. And you also knew every crack on the record.
And the few vinyl records you could afford back then were like shrines. Putting on and playing these almost sacred items was like a ritual, slow, deliberate and reverent. So listening to all the songs pressed into the grooves became a pleasure. Well, sometimes more, sometimes less. But it was the music of a favorite band and no song deserved to be skipped. Hardly anyone at that time lifted the tone arm and moved on to the next track!
And isn't it fascinating to this day that sound frequencies with all their subtleties were transferred to the grooves of a plastic disc, and that to this day there are fetishists who claim that reproduction by diamond needle sounds more authentic than later digitized reproduction?
Then they came, the first tape recorders, with which one could record music from the radio speaker via microphone. Those who could afford such a device were saved in a way. These first tape recordings via microphone were of course of extremely poor quality, had a loss of high frequencies and were noisy, but you had that for yourself which turned you on and with which you could identify.
Then came the cassettes: you could record your favorite songs from the record player or tape recorder onto the narrow tape tracks of a cassette using a diode cable. After all, an albeit "illegal" way to enjoy music for yourself without buying the original. But "reproduction for private use" was the back door ...
And a very important point: For the first time we could be something like "our own disc jockey". The LPs were all great, but there were two or three of the ten or twelve titles that one particularly favored. So we created our very own collection on cassette! Sound compromises were gladly accepted and we listened enthusiastically to our own "list" via the cassette slot in the car radio. Of course, after a short time we also knew the place where the cassette ended too early and the song stopped because of that.
Then came the CD: So let's have a CD player! Most of them had remote controls right from the start. For the first time, you could click from one song to another and skip everything you used to enjoy in its entirety, just as you pleased. Enjoying music became more hectic, music on a cheap plastic disc, covers and booklets in mini format.
Then - oh further illegality - you could download the CDs to your computer, select tracks and burn them on Blanco CDs. So everyone was all the more his own disc jockey!
And this was - of course to the disadvantage of the copyrights of the musicians greedily commercialized like everything in this world. Today you stream or create playlists, let it run in the background or click after twenty seconds to the next song. Actually, you don't really get anything anymore.
What happened in the end? We've gone from slow, devotional enjoyment - like an artfully prepared menu at a high-end restaurant - to an ominous fast food chain. That's degrading, wasted time, and inconsequential.
Here it is - our Trussrod-Side-Adjuster!
Lady - first Prototype!
And here it is, one of the first fine prototypes. Now it's going into series production!And the development continues, the new SPK-90 pickup is just around the corner ...
Guitar Summit, Mannheim
Finally a worthy and much better replacement for the Frankfurt Messe!
The göldo Better-Jack
The disadvantages of standard jack sockets
1) Standard jack sockets have an unnecessarily large outer diameter of approx. 20mm, with the contact and solder tongues located directly next to the cable. If you mount these in the usual 22mm hole in the guitar body, you have to be careful that the contact tongues do not hit the wall of the hole when inserting the jack plug, which means that the plug can no longer be plugged in. In addition, the cable can become entangled in the tongues or lead to short circuits.2) Tubular sockets: The contact tabs are extremely unstable and do not offer a pleasant feel when you press the plug in. And they soon wear out.
3) The "English" jacks, which are more commonly used for amplifiers and speakers, have an even larger diameter and ugly plastic nuts. Completely useless for guitars!
My solution: reduce the outer diameter of the jack to 15mm for more space in the jack hole, always offer it in stereo and move all soldering tongues to the back so that there is no possible contact between the moving parts and the cable. This means that both tongues together have enough force and the haptic feel when plugging in and unplugging is simply perfect. In addition, the insulation washers are made of Pertinax and the metal parts are perfectly platinum-plated for the best soldering flow.
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Wraparound Bender
Recently ...
Just found it - from 2005 after all
