Moses Graphite Necks and Fender Warranty

[Ltrain]

I have a MIM Fender Jazz bass that is less than a year old. The neck has a twist i.e. nice curve on the G string side and flat as a pancake on the E string side. Hence, I can't set the action as low as I would like. I've been considering replacing the neck and have been looking at the Moses Graphite necks. The black would definitely compliment my color scheme on the bass. I bought the bass through Musicians Friend and could send it back as it is still under Fender warranty and hope for a new neck. Has anyone had experience with Musicians Friend/Fender warranty work. Is is a pain in the butt to get them to work with you on a problem. Thanks for any advice you can give!

[Hambone]

Originally Posted by Ltrain

I have a MIM Fender Jazz bass that is less than a year old. The neck has a twist i.e. nice curve on the G string side and flat as a pancake on the E string side. Hence, I can't set the action as low as I would like. I've been considering replacing the neck and have been looking at the Moses Graphite necks. The black would definitely compliment my color scheme on the bass. I bought the bass through Musicians Friend and could send it back as it is still under Fender warranty and hope for a new neck. Has anyone had experience with Musicians Friend/Fender warranty work. Is is a pain in the butt to get them to work with you on a problem. Thanks for any advice you can give!

I personally would stay away from the Moses products (bad, bad experience here) but I can heartily recommend MF's response to my complaint - I got the Moses from MF. The problem arose with Moses and not customer service at MF. By all means take advantage of the warranty with Fender.

[Ltrain]

Thanks for the advice Hambone. I finally did call Fender and they refered me to a local store that has a Fender Certified tech. I didn't even consider this store since they aren't a Fender dealer. The Fender dealer in my area won't look at your guitar if you didn't buy it there. I'm curious as to what kind of problems you ran into with your Moses. Thanks!

[Ltrain]

By the way - checked out your site via the link. Beautiful stuff! I hope to do some building some day.

[Hambone]

Thanx for the compliment.

The Moses I got from MF came damaged. So did the second one after my admonitions to MF about the substandard packaging. Because the necks were a closeout item, MF stepped in between me and Moses and did a little negotiating. Long story shortenend, I wound up sending the second damaged neck to Moses directly for repair. When it returned after several weeks, the repair was, to say the least, unusable. While Steve (Moses) was open to further discussion to set things right, I declined hoping to get the neck into use quicker.

I fixed it myself.

[62bass]

I bought a Moses neck direct from Steve years ago. I got what I wanted in short order. There was a blemish problem that appeard on the back after a week or so. I called Steve and he offered to fix it or replace it free of charge. Or he said I could try fixing it myself with very fine grit wet and dry paper. I went that route and it worked fine. The neck worked well. It was a Moses made for a Stingray. I don't care particularly for the added zing that the graphite neck seemed to give, but it stayed in tune forever and worked well. Also you never need to adjust the truss rod. You will have to do a little fret levelling if you want super light action.

[kid_squanto]

Could you elaborate a bit on what the zing did to the sound of the bass?

[62bass]

Originally Posted by kid_squanto

Could you elaborate a bit on what the zing did to the sound of the bass?

With the original rosewood fingerboard and maple neck, the sound was quite warm, or at least, as warm as a Stingray gets. It sounded like a Stingray in other words. This was the Ernie Ball model from 1990 which, in my opinion, doesn't sound as warm as the original Leo Fender Musicman.

The graphite neck and fingerboard added a bit of high end that I didn't particularly like that also accentuated fret noise. I found I had to dial down the treble a bit to get a sound I liked. It was for sure brighter than the original neck. I don't care for that myself. However, I loaned it to a friend of mine visiting from out of town, who is a slap and pop fiend. He played it at a jam for 4 hours straight and couldn't put it down. He owned a Musicman of similar age with a maple fingerboard. He said this was the best sounding Stingray he'd ever played.

There was slightly more sustain, the lows were a bit more even with less peaks. There were no dead spots, although the original wood neck didn't suffer from any either.

I recorded with the bass several times and was able to get a very good sound. The "zinginess" didn't come through much in the recorded sound when mixed properly in the track.

I'm not a huge fan of graphite necks after the Moses neck and the Modulus ones I've tried. I guess I just prefer a woodier sound. I think the Moses neck is a good product. It fit the neck pocket properly and all the headstock hardware went on without a glitch. You must instal the neck with threaded metal inserts and bolts, rather than the wood screws used for most wood necks. If you have some experience with woodwork this is easy enough to do. You can order the inserts and bolts from Moses and he also includes a handy homemade insert tightening tool.