"My neck is nice and straight"

ggvicviper · #1 01-09-2012, 09:44 AM

So, since the moment I started playing bass in my mid-teen years, I've been hearing about people needing their bass's necks to be straight, and that's the right way. I believed this for a long time.

One day I started noticing that my basses would have fretbuzz on the lower frets. I never really knew why.

Eventually I did research on this, and saw the scientific reason why my bass had fretbuzz - the strings need room to vibrate along a neck, and there needs to be a slight bow in the neck to allow the strings to vibrate in a radius appropriately along the neck without crashing into the frets. The neck is not supposed to be as straight as a line to do this. Likewise, too much bow will let the upper frets get buzz, and worse yet warp the neck eventually.

Since I've learned this, I've adjusted all the necks on my basses to have a little bow. Not a huge amount, but enough so that the action still stays fairly low and the strings remain their tension. You can only see a little bow looking down the neck, which is really good. It says it on guitar tech sites, and it even says it in several bass owners manuals that this is the proper way of doing this.

Yet, day after day, I hear about how proud people are of their straight necks on their basses. I even hear guitar techs talk about straight necks and how that's how it should be. There were times when I have tried to sell a bass to say, Guitar Center (just looking for a price), and they whined that the neck is not straight. Meanwhile, I walk into the Bass area, and not only are there straight necked basses that play badly, but several other basses have necks that are back-bowed!

Why do people think that straight-as-a-line necks are so great????

Jay2U · #2 01-09-2012, 12:05 PM

I guess a bowed neck sounds like a compromise. I fully agree with the OP. A bass (as so many stringed instruments) needs this tiny bit of space for vibrating strings. Depending on strings and playing style a relief of 0.008" to 0.016" is required. That is, if the frets are all level. A good bass is constructed with this little relief in mind, regarding intonation and fret positions.

sratas · #3 01-09-2012, 12:18 PM

many folks simply know nothing about the whole acoustic-electronic thing called "bass". But be aware that sometimes, when experienced people talk, straight neck may indicate "correctly bowed towards strings neck", in other words not overly bowed or the contrary. For example, a relief of 0,35 mm from the E-string to the 7th fret below when the same string is hold down at the 1th and last fret, is a correct bow for a Fender jazz, and so on.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ggvicviper

So, since the moment I started playing bass in my mid-teen years, I've been hearing about people needing their bass's necks to be straight, and that's the right way. I believed this for a long time.

One day I started noticing that my basses would have fretbuzz on the lower frets. I never really knew why.

Eventually I did research on this, and saw the scientific reason why my bass had fretbuzz - the strings need room to vibrate along a neck, and there needs to be a slight bow in the neck to allow the strings to vibrate in a radius appropriately along the neck without crashing into the frets. The neck is not supposed to be as straight as a line to do this. Likewise, too much bow will let the upper frets get buzz, and worse yet warp the neck eventually.

Since I've learned this, I've adjusted all the necks on my basses to have a little bow. Not a huge amount, but enough so that the action still stays fairly low and the strings remain their tension. You can only see a little bow looking down the neck, which is really good. It says it on guitar tech sites, and it even says it in several bass owners manuals that this is the proper way of doing this.

Yet, day after day, I hear about how proud people are of their straight necks on their basses. I even hear guitar techs talk about straight necks and how that's how it should be. There were times when I have tried to sell a bass to say, Guitar Center (just looking for a price), and they whined that the neck is not straight. Meanwhile, I walk into the Bass area, and not only are there straight necked basses that play badly, but several other basses have necks that are back-bowed!

Why do people think that straight-as-a-line necks are so great????

guroove · #4 01-09-2012, 12:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ggvicviper

Why do people think that straight-as-a-line necks are so great????

Because usually the correct amount of bowing is usually hard to see, and also because a lot of necks tend to bow more with time. If it's correctly bowed, it's straight in comparison with a lot of the badly bowed basses are, and it shows that someone actually took the time to set the instrument up.

ggvicviper · #5 01-09-2012, 01:12 PM

If some pros do say that straight = correctly bowed, I wish they would use different terminology. But a little story for you guys...

About 7 years ago, I owned my first MIA Jazz Bass V. It had some issues, so eventually I started giving a little relief to the neck and discovered that it started sounding a little better. I didn't really know what I was doing, so I took it to my local music store guy to make sure I wasn't breaking anything. He gave it back later that day, said "oh, the problem was your neck wasn't straight. Here ya go!"

He gave it back, indeed it was straight. I took a trip right back to Old Fretbuzz City, NY. My low-income college butt paid for that "fix", as well. Now that shop is out of business.

Anyway, I just wanted to vent, because I see this "straight neck" nonsense everywhere. I'm glad a lot of people here know better.

testing1two · #6 01-09-2012, 01:25 PM

Semantics. I think you are misunderstanding what is meant by straight. A "straight" neck isn't just referring to the relief in the middle of the neck. A straight neck is free from inconsistencies like twists or bumps or the dreaded rise at the heel often called a 'ski jump.' Also, a straight neck infers a true, level fingerboard and level frets...which the vast majority of production basses lack.

Also, relief is not a constant. It should be set to match the player and the strings being used. Heavy handed players need more relief, as do players that use low tension strings or drop tunings where the string has a larger than normal vibrational path. Other players are more comfortable with virtually no relief (i.e. less than ten thousandths of an inch / .010).

So yes, necks do need to be straight & without defect and that allows you to precisely adjust the relief and action to taste.

ggvicviper · #7 01-09-2012, 03:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by testing1two

Semantics. I think you are misunderstanding what is meant by straight. A "straight" neck isn't just referring to the relief in the middle of the neck. A straight neck is free from inconsistencies like twists or bumps or the dreaded rise at the heel often called a 'ski jump.' Also, a straight neck infers a true, level fingerboard and level frets...which the vast majority of production basses lack.

Also, relief is not a constant. It should be set to match the player and the strings being used. Heavy handed players need more relief, as do players that use low tension strings or drop tunings where the string has a larger than normal vibrational path. Other players are more comfortable with virtually no relief (i.e. less than ten thousandths of an inch / .010).

So yes, necks do need to be straight & without defect and that allows you to precisely adjust the relief and action to taste.

You are absolutely right about straight also not referring to the neck warped in any way, rather than relief. Different people can mean different things with the term "straight". I also never said relief was a constant. It needs to be adjusted to each instrument and player's touch to have them play well, but even owners manuals say there should be some relief.

What I was getting at was how a lot of people I have talked to about this know far less about how relief works (which was more my original point), and simply refer to how straight the neck is with the strings pulling it - with relief ALWAYS being a very bad thing. They just see it as bent, which means bad. To many inexperienced people, straight is correct under all circumstances, regardless of buzz. You and I obviously know the details of actually setting up an instrument to player preferences, but there are many people who claim to know that simply do not know what they are talking about at all.

Hell, there are even some players who actually like that. On New Years Eve, I sold a '51 Precision reissue that I set up myself. I told the guy I sold it to that I had a little relief to keep the buzz off. He looked at me, told me he would straighten the neck to his preferences, and that he "loved to hammer in the fretbuzz". There might be people who even like backbowed necks. Subjectivity is always a killer in this forum. I'm just expressing frustrations of my experiences with people who don't really know about instrument set up. Not intending to offend, because I know there are a lot of smart bass professionals here that have probably had similar experiences.

96tbird · #8 01-09-2012, 03:37 PM

It's all a matter of taste. Some like a lot of relief and high action. Some guys are serious that they run with no relief, but I don't get it. Physics say it will buzz. There has to be a tiny bit even if you are the best player on earth. Or so it seems to me, YMMV.

Turnaround · #9 01-09-2012, 10:26 PM

There is a well-respected maker of high end basses I know that was quoted in BP as saying that he likes the necks to be "dead straight, with just a little relief". I always wondered what he meant. Which way is it? Straight or with some relief?

It was an unfortunate quote. I know he always puts a little relief in his necks and the exact amount is consistent. At least on all (many) of this basses I have checked on their arrival.

john grey · #10 01-10-2012, 08:35 AM

If someone has a very light touch and especially if he strung the bass with light diameter strings he could feel very comfortable with a truly dead-straight neck. But if this strings get changed (say up from a 90/E to even 100) there is a good possibility he'd see a minor relief simply from the tension increase. That same person's touch may not be affected. The same is may true of some string sets that have a heavy D & G as it would "even up" some of the tension minutely and the neck may have a straighter plane than others. I had thought I had a fairly light touch but some people are VERY light & it appears to work for them.