Necks


BaylorGuitar
Registered User
Joined: 03/01/04
Posts: 13
BaylorGuitar
Registered User
Joined: 03/01/04
Posts: 13
12/23/2004 2:50 am
Hello, what do you guys think are the best necks. I'm making a custom guitar, and I want a neck that plays really easily but still sounds really good. What necks are the easiest to shred with?
# 1
Lordathestrings
Gear Guru
Joined: 01/18/01
Posts: 6,242
Lordathestrings
Gear Guru
Joined: 01/18/01
Posts: 6,242
12/23/2004 3:46 am
[font=trebuchet ms]I refuse to believe that "plays really easily" should be in any way a detriment to "sounds really good". "Plays really easily" is usually a result of low action. Low action is usually a function of controlled neck stiffness. Neck stiffness enhances the ability of the guitar to carry and sustain the vibration of the strings. And that means that it "sounds really good"!

To play well, it is important to avoid building up tension anywhere in your body. That means that anything that causes your fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, or back to stiffen up, is going to impede your ability to move quickly, smoothly, and with the needed control. At this point I part company with the mainstream belief that only a thin neck is 'fast'. Bull****!!

I find that a thin neck forces my thumb and fingers too close together to be comfortable when fretting the strings. If I hold my forearm approximately horizontal, and my fretting hand with the fingers and thumb pointed up, my thumb naturally relaxes to a position about an inch away from my fingers. To fit me well, the neck should be this thick, or slightly thicker.

I have two versions of the Washburn Stage series guitars. One is an original A-20CS. The neck profile is a deep V that tapers to a C profile at the nut. This neck is a lot thicker than the other guitar, which is an A-10 Stage Series Re-issue. The original is comfortable to play for five or six hours at a time. I find that I get tired of the newer one after about an hour-and-a-half. And yet most people who see them side-by-side, comment on the 'faster neck' on the newer one.

It isn't faster - it's just thinner. And does nothing to improve your ability to play unless your hand is predisposed to be comfortable on a thin neck. When I play on a thin neck, I find that my thumb tends to move up past my index finger instead of pressing against the neck at a point directly through the neck from my finger. This causes problems with tension in my hand, fatigue in my hand and forearm, [u]and it slows me down[/u]!!!

One of my favourite gutars for playing fast, accurate riffs on, has a thick, wide neck. I mean much wider than most necks. This thing actually takes a while to adjust to after palying any of my other axes. But because the string spacing is so much broader than most guitars, I don't have problems with accidently slapping a partial hammer-on to the string next to the one I want to hammer. I don't accidently mute some of the strings on chords. And because I don't have to devote so much of my attention to those problems, I can play faster, more accurately, and with better sound.

So, before you lay out a chunk of your hard-earned money on a custom-built guitar, be very sure that the neck profile you have in mind really is the one that suits you best.

This is a good time to visit the shops and pull some guitars down off the racks. This is like buying your first guitar, except this time you have a much better idea of what your're looking for. And because this time, you call the shots, you can probably get 'this' neck, with 'that' body, and 'those' pickups, with 'such' controls, and 'so' type of bridge.

The fact that you even ask about what kind of neck is the best, shows that you aren't yet ready. This is like getting some clothes made-to-measure. This guitar has to fit [u]you[/u].[/font]
Lordathestrings
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# 2

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