My 74 Jazz does not have a very tight neck pocket.On either side I have room for almost the thickness of a business card.So the neck has to be screwed down pretty tight so it doesn't shift.
Would it improve the resonance of the instrument if I made the neckpocket tighter by laminating some veneer into the spaces?
I've glued in a bit of veneer to stop the neck from shifting on a number of basses. It didn't improve the sound however. It's easy enough to do yourself so give it a shot.
In fact, luthier Attila Balough did that for me on my new '73 Jazz one time. Solved the problem.
I am glad 69 put in his comment because I have two basses with loose neck pockets and one I fixed. The sound did not change on the on I fixed at all. The other two with the loose pockets are not so loose that the neck shifts on me. The one I play the most is not loose all the way down to the bottom of the pocket. It gets tight in the last 1/8" or so. The other one has a gap of about .020" on each side that I shimed with hard phenolic/fiberglass tape once but quit doing that after it made no sonic difference. I guess I would fix it if the neck actually shifted on me while tuning/playing. Otherwise, no.
