Through/Thru neck guitars

Kittyfrisk

I have 3 through neck guitars & I love them all.
Schecter Classic C-1; Epiphone Spotlight Nouveau ; MIJ Strat type thing
Anyone else like through necks?

lysander

I have an Ibanez RGRT421 neck through that is very well made and has an awesome neck, but it sounds a bit dull acoustically and lacks some attack, compared to other similar guitars I have in bolt on format.
I don’t know if it’s related to the construction but it’s the only neck through guitar I have and the difference is quite striking.
So my current stance would ‘not sure’
I will try a different bridge to see if it improves things.

I had never seen these epiphones, looks pretty cool !

Daiganzen

I have 2 neck Through Guitars An ESP FM-200 and an Ibanez RGT42. What I love about these guitars is How stable they are. They never go out of tune Both Have Floyd Rose trems as well. I also love how durable they are. My Ibanez had a chunk taken out of the finish by a terrible accident where my strap gave out during a gig but when i picked it up And Checked for tuning is was still all good. If you can Grab Either they make a great Shell to make an awesome super strat

blobb

yup, neck thru for me all day long.

Kittyfrisk

lysander said:

I have an Ibanez RGRT421 neck through that is very well made and has an awesome neck, but it sounds a bit dull acoustically and lacks some attack, compared to other similar guitars I have in bolt on format.
I don’t know if it’s related to the construction but it’s the only neck through guitar I have and the difference is quite striking.
So my current stance would ‘not sure’
I will try a different bridge to see if it improves things.

I had never seen these epiphones, looks pretty cool !

The Epi is a 1980's guitar that attracts a lot of rumour & conjecture.
This is a fairly reasonable article  https://www.myrareguitars.com/1988-epiphone-spotlight-electric-guitar

sweepy

Love my Through-Neck Bass, imho the most stable construction for them
https://i.imgur.com/S0aAgvJ.jpg

sawyer

Gibson reverse Firebird V I've had for years.Bit of a beast but looks awesome.  Been playing it this week and getting back into it. Getting some good sounds out of it. 

Kittyfrisk

sawyer said:

Gibson reverse Firebird V I've had for years.Bit of a beast but looks awesome.  Been playing it this week and getting back into it. Getting some good sounds out of it. 

I'd love a Firebird, preferably a VII... dream on 
As @Daiganzen notes, the tuning stability Is great & it's fun not having to mess around with truss rod adjustments, although that is a very minor point.
I have found my through necks to be nicely balanced & very resonant with great sustain.
I get that they are more costly to manufacture, but in terms of value for money they are hard to better IMHO.
As for EMG Select passive pickups being 'crap'  have a listen to this (sadly not me playing)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQz09gTszpU

tabano

I always thought a thru neck would be the ultimate design for playability and tone but after owning a few ( the best one being an esp ) I realised they don’t sound quite right to me, playability yes ,they are great for upper frets access
but they deliver a kind of “compressed” sound I don’t enjoy too much, particularly the more affordable ones I’ve had,

lysander

@tabano interesting that you say that as it seems consistent with my somewhat limited experience in this.

Daiganzen

tabano said:

I always thought a thru neck would be the ultimate design for playability and tone but after owning a few ( the best one being an esp ) I realised they don’t sound quite right to me, playability yes ,they are great for upper frets access
but they deliver a kind of “compressed” sound I don’t enjoy too much, particularly the more affordable ones I’ve had,

Each Guitar sounds different And so sometimes what is actually needed is pickups that work with that guitar

Kittyfrisk

Daiganzen said:

tabano said:

I always thought a thru neck would be the ultimate design for playability and tone but after owning a few ( the best one being an esp ) I realised they don’t sound quite right to me, playability yes ,they are great for upper frets access
but they deliver a kind of “compressed” sound I don’t enjoy too much, particularly the more affordable ones I’ve had,

Each Guitar sounds different And so sometimes what is actually needed is pickups that work with that guitar

Good point. It's a bit like saying 'I don't like Stratocasters/Les Paul's (insert brand of choice) because I tried one & didn't like the sound'.
Far too many other variables to list, apart from the pickups. Still, it makes for variety & something to discuss here :-D

skullfunkerry

My Jackson has a thru neck, and I love it. Upper fret access is excellent, tuning stability is excellent and I think it looks really cool too. My wife noticed the heel on one of my other guitars and was shocked at how big and clumsy it looked

hollywoodrox

Does a through neck have to go all the way through and have wings , would the other version that joins nicely without just be a set neck . I love my SLX neck access is outrageously good 

tabano

Kittyfrisk said:

Daiganzen said:

tabano said:

I always thought a thru neck would be the ultimate design for playability and tone but after owning a few ( the best one being an esp ) I realised they don’t sound quite right to me, playability yes ,they are great for upper frets access
but they deliver a kind of “compressed” sound I don’t enjoy too much, particularly the more affordable ones I’ve had,

Each Guitar sounds different And so sometimes what is actually needed is pickups that work with that guitar

Good point. It's a bit like saying 'I don't like Stratocasters/Les Paul's (insert brand of choice) because I tried one & didn't like the sound'.
Far too many other variables to list, apart from the pickups. Still, it makes for variety & something to discuss here :-D

Well,
I did swap pickups, plenty times actually, BKP, Seymour, EMG’s.. and even bridges but the outcome was pretty much the same,
the new pickup would bring a new eq spectrum but the compressed quality was always there,
I tried low output ones (much better) but then the guitars were just too bright for me..
I removed the pickups and use them for another guitar, a set neck esp eclipse and that compressed sound wasn’t there....
my neck thru guitars were an esp horizon, esp eclipse( a custom shop neck thru ) Jackson USA king V and a few ltds both M1000 and horizon models...
so a good bunch of them..
just my opinion and experience..

Funkfingers

I wouldn’t want a 4001/4003 built any other way. 

Kittyfrisk

tabano said:

Kittyfrisk said:

Daiganzen said:

tabano said:

I always thought a thru neck would be the ultimate design for playability and tone but after owning a few ( the best one being an esp ) I realised they don’t sound quite right to me, playability yes ,they are great for upper frets access
but they deliver a kind of “compressed” sound I don’t enjoy too much, particularly the more affordable ones I’ve had,

Each Guitar sounds different And so sometimes what is actually needed is pickups that work with that guitar

Good point. It's a bit like saying 'I don't like Stratocasters/Les Paul's (insert brand of choice) because I tried one & didn't like the sound'.
Far too many other variables to list, apart from the pickups. Still, it makes for variety & something to discuss here :-D

Well,
I did swap pickups, plenty times actually, BKP, Seymour, EMG’s.. and even bridges but the outcome was pretty much the same,
the new pickup would bring a new eq spectrum but the compressed quality was always there,
I tried low output ones (much better) but then the guitars were just too bright for me..
I removed the pickups and use them for another guitar, a set neck esp eclipse and that compressed sound wasn’t there....
my neck thru guitars were an esp horizon, esp eclipse( a custom shop neck thru ) Jackson USA king V and a few ltds both M1000 and horizon models...
so a good bunch of them..
just my opinion and experience..

You really have been unlucky. I'm not so sure I'd have continued trying a similar design quite so many times after realising that it wasn't working out.
By the way, I'm not a cheerleader for through necks, I enjoy mine & was curious as to how others have found them.
Clearly we don't all have the same experiences, but that's the way these things are.

TTony

No*


A custom build (from WezV)



My self-custom build;


And a Kawai or 3






*I might be lying.

tabano

Kittyfrisk said:

tabano said:

Kittyfrisk said:

Daiganzen said:

tabano said:

I always thought a thru neck would be the ultimate design for playability and tone but after owning a few ( the best one being an esp ) I realised they don’t sound quite right to me, playability yes ,they are great for upper frets access
but they deliver a kind of “compressed” sound I don’t enjoy too much, particularly the more affordable ones I’ve had,

Each Guitar sounds different And so sometimes what is actually needed is pickups that work with that guitar

Good point. It's a bit like saying 'I don't like Stratocasters/Les Paul's (insert brand of choice) because I tried one & didn't like the sound'.
Far too many other variables to list, apart from the pickups. Still, it makes for variety & something to discuss here :-D

Well,
I did swap pickups, plenty times actually, BKP, Seymour, EMG’s.. and even bridges but the outcome was pretty much the same,
the new pickup would bring a new eq spectrum but the compressed quality was always there,
I tried low output ones (much better) but then the guitars were just too bright for me..
I removed the pickups and use them for another guitar, a set neck esp eclipse and that compressed sound wasn’t there....
my neck thru guitars were an esp horizon, esp eclipse( a custom shop neck thru ) Jackson USA king V and a few ltds both M1000 and horizon models...
so a good bunch of them..
just my opinion and experience..

You really have been unlucky. I'm not so sure I'd have continued trying a similar design quite so many times after realising that it wasn't working out.
By the way, I'm not a cheerleader for through necks, I enjoy mine & was curious as to how others have found them.
Clearly we don't all have the same experiences, but that's the way these things are.

Exactly right,
but we change..maybe I bite the same cake again and it tastes differently...

HarrySeven

I clearly remember - back in the dim and distant past of the late ‘70’s/early ‘80’s - when I first picked up the guitar, that pretty much the only instruments my friends and I had ever seen had bolt-on necks (including - obviously - Les Paul copies).

NB. In those days, the likelihood of your local small-town music shop having a ‘real’ Gibson was far, far less than today. When it did happen, word would spread and people would come from miles around to admire it. Actually getting to touch or - gasp - play it was usually a treat reserved for the select few.

Generally, viewing guitars was mostly paper-based (primarily, Bell’s catalogues - and the loose-leaf dealer binders full of Columbus, Satellite, Avon and Antoria examples from JHS, FCN, Rose Morris, Rosetti, et al - that the local shop owner might let you drool over in a generous moment). @guitars4you will recall this fondly.

This led to a very brief misconception that bolt-on neck guitars were somehow superior to set/through neck ones - and why wouldn’t they be?  Didn’t almost all guitars have them?

Bolt-on necks seemed to make sense in that they could be removed to fanny about with (essential for hacking guitars about a la Pete Shelley - or chopping the horns off an Antoria Strat and covering the remaining vaguely-teardrop-shaped residue in green tartan fabric - which I actually did at one point).

Fortuitously, this myth was soon dispelled - particularly when it was realised that our heroes (SLF’s Jake Burns, Magazine’s John McGeoch and The Skids’ Stuart Adamson) all played through/set-neck Yamaha SGs. @spark240 - feel free to chip in here!

However, that subsequently led to further confusion - contemporary mores informed us naive punks that Japanese guitars were ‘shit’ and that only American examples were aspirationally worthy...but that’s another story...

Milk

Never really had a Through neck guitar. but i have to say that MIJ strat is gorgeous.