Thin neck that sounds like a fat neck

Roland

Here's the dilemma. I like the sound of a fat neck, but my left hand prefers the feel of a thin neck. For years I played a Parker Fly, which was a perfect fit, but doesn't have the tone which I'm currently looking for. @GSPBASSES provided me with a nice wide fat maple neck for my latest Tele build which sounded marvellous, but I couldn't get my hand around it properly. As I reprofiled the neck, taking off very small amounts of wood, I could hear the tone change every time I check the feel.

I'm sure that I'm not the first to encounter this.  Is there a material, or a neck construction, which can sound fat whilst feeling thin?

octatonic

In an electric the thickness of the neck is not a huge determiner of tone- we are talking about a very small amount of mass changing- it will have little to zero effect on the tone of the guitar but people think it does because the guitar feels different.

IMHO when people think they hear a bigger sound from a bigger neck it is because they either have knowledge that the neck is bigger or they like having something big and solid in their hand (settle down you lot at the back) and when they go to a thinner neck they somehow feel it is 'less', which it is in terms of weight, but weight does not equal tone.

If you want a dark (rather than 'fat') sounding neck then make one out of rosewood- then you have the neck body balance to worry about.

Also, saying 'fat neck = fat tone' misunderstands what stiffness does to tone.

In acoustic guitars (which is what I build) the lighter you make a soundboard the more bass you get.

Guitars that are acoustically thin are overbuilt, thick backs, thick soundboards, big braces, lots of glue.

If you remove more material, use less bracing, less glue you have an acoustic system that vibrates more freely- you try to build something that is right on the verge of flying apart, although those guitars are hard to gig because they don't stand up to abuse at all.

I've thinned down an acoustic neck in the past- it had very little effect to the tone of the instrument.

JohnB

Didn't Les Paul reckon that the stiffer a neck is, the better it sustains as less string vibration is dissipated into the wood - for a given material, that probably relates to chunkier. My JB004 build has a slightly uncomfortable neck which I keep wondering about reprofiling but it also has amazing sustain that I dont want to lose

guitargeek62

Try V profiles - you get to keep the depth, but the lack of shoulder lets your hand reach further than the equivalent C would.

Evilmags

Rosewood, Zircote and other woods of that type make great thin necks. My Jaden Rose has a Rosewood neck that is almost Ibanez Wizard thin, yet sounds very full and chunky.