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7.25" Fretboard Radius
- Thread starter douglasbass
- Start date
Wouldn't a flatter board be easier for playing Barre chords? Please correct me if I'm wrong, I am very much not a guitarist but it seems like a flat radius would make strumming chords easier, not harder.
After playing nearly 55 years, I STRONGLY prefer 7.25 in a 1.75 or 1.625 width in C shape only. It's the only thing keeping me playing after 10's of thousands of playing hours. For you younger players, not as big an issue, but as you age.... Do this, allow your hand to relax, it's slightly cupped, with fingers bent, right? Now straighten your fingers, do you feel a slight or moderate strain? The flatter the neck, the more strain, especially to fret multiple strings with one finger. 7.25 still allows me to play/gig Hard Rock at 69.
Roger Sadowsky himself has some really nice insight on fingerboard radii. This entire vid is outstanding, but i've posted the timestamp link to pick up right where he speaks to radius:
A lower radius always made barre chording more comfortable for me.....less of a stress position. Again, that might be just me.
Bollocks yourself @Flaked Beans!
I will happily concede that it may be easier for you to play, but not for me, not by a long shot. My Jazz is 7.25" radius and my 5-string is 12" radius, which I consider pretty darn flat. Good news is that it has a slim neck and I can make it work, but it's nowhere near as nice to play as as my Jazz. It's a wider neck of course at 1.78" since it's a 5-string, but that's barely wider than most Precision bass necks.
So, for me, the 7.25" radius on my 60's slim C-shape neck is the best. Bear in mind, I have played a bass with that radius, shape and profile since 1965. And, since I toured for 3-years with it in the early 70's, I have played thousands of performances with that neck. Pretty much anything else is going to feel weird to me and does.
Bollocks yourself @Flaked Beans!
I will happily concede that it may be easier for you to play, but not for me, not by a long shot. My Jazz is 7.25" radius and my 5-string is 12" radius, which I consider pretty darn flat. Good news is that it has a slim neck and I can make it work, but it's nowhere near as nice to play as as my Jazz. It's a wider neck of course at 1.78" since it's a 5-string, but that's barely wider than most Precision bass necks.
So, for me, the 7.25" radius on my 60's slim C-shape neck is the best. Bear in mind, I have played a bass with that radius, shape and profile since 1965. And, since I toured for 3-years with it in the early 70's, I have played thousands of performances with that neck. Pretty much anything else is going to feel weird to me and does.
As i said before, I prefer the 7.25 '78 jazz of mine. Just said it is easier (if thats make any sense, on a 9.5'
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I have small hands and short fingers. I dont like the 7.25 at all. I had a mint condition cij mustang, but i sold it because i hate that neck!
That's interesting, I have small hands and short fingers and I always hated flat necks, just felt weird and unnatural. My first bass was an entry-level Charvel, I started to hate it as soon as I grabbed my first Fender neck, it felt way more comfortable.
The curvature of the board helps keep the high strings more out of the way, but there are various chord shapes of course.
Interesting indeed! Necks are another thread, but I'd love to compare an Ibanez with a Fender ... from what I've heard, Ibanez necks can be slim. Now I need to look at what fretboard radius they offer!
Roger is an outstanding luthier. But, his primary reasoning is that there are intonation issues (actually fretting out) when string bending happens on a curved board.
The fallacy in this reasoning is that not all bassists do much string bending. The bass simply is NOT like guitar. Admittedly SOME bassists do use string bending; but, I suspect that tends to happen more in the upper register where the board is flatter.
So, while I have great respect for Roger on many points, I disagree with him on this one; even though I do own and treasure one of his NYC 4 string instruments.
BTW, the Fender Marcus Miller V has absolutely the most comfortable to my hands lower register board of any 5 string bass guitar I have yet to play. Not sure whether it is 7.25” or 9.5”.
That Sadowsky video is interesting.
I found particularly interesting the bit on how he designed his preamp (high and low boost only) and why he's never felt the need to add mid boost (or cut).
I found particularly interesting the bit on how he designed his preamp (high and low boost only) and why he's never felt the need to add mid boost (or cut).
Idk, my impression was that Roger was talking more about guitars, with the fretting out issue. He knows an awful lot about frets and fretboards, anyway, that's his wheelhouse. I like a 7.25 radius myself, both for guitar and bass, don't have any issues the way I set up. I'm glad there are options, we're not all built the same, so it's all good.
No question that Sadowsky makes great basses and he knows what he's talking about, except for his reference of course to the vintage Fender radius being 7½" - it is 7.25" (7¼"). We can excuse that because he never puts that radius in his instruments, doesn't detract from his luthier and design skills.
I was a bit bummed though when he was talking about basses and then changed to guitars to talk about choking out notes when bending them. That certainly has no relevance to my bass playing. The only time I bend a note is when I'm at my last fret on my G string and I have to bend that D# on the 20th fret of the G string a lot to get it to that that high E. And honestly I only do that when messing around at practice at the end of a song that ends on E to hit all the octaves of it - just a fun thing.
But my main point is, IF the reason for a flatter radius is so the notes don't choke out when bending them, how is that relevant to basses. I can't think of any bass player off-hand who has a habit of bending notes on a 4-string bass. Perhaps on a 6-string when playing "lead-bass" but that's a pretty specialized occasion. About a zillion guitarist do that but certainly not enough bassist to make that the only reason for doing it.
I recall back in 1964, I had a classic acoustic guitar (nothing fancy) that I had a really hard time playing barre chords on (learned chords on guitar before I took up the bass in '65). Then a buddy handed me his Fender Strat and said, "here, try it on my guitar." And sure enough the tension I had to use for barre chords was almost entirely eliminated because it followed the natural curve of the finger. Playing open-chords on my classical guitar was fine but barre chords sucked!...I occasionally play chords on my Jazz Bass and a 7.25"radius is an advantage with that. My 5-string has a 12" radius and I do not play chords on that bass at all.
The second reason that he gave for making it flatter (12" radius) was so the edges of the fretboard on a 5-string weren't too thin. That makes sense I suppose, but why for a 4-string? And, another option would be to make the fretboard thicker overall so those edges aren't too thin, but I'm no luthier and that may throw some of his other neck-making design of wack.
Certainly there's not a lot of difference between 7.25" and 9.5" radii, but there is a lot of difference between a 7.25" and 12" radius. I was hoping to hear what the advantage was for a bass (especially a 4-string) to have those flatter radius measurements and I really didn't come away with any. Was disappointing for me.
Picked up a MIM Fender Jazz with this fretboard radius (7.25"). Yeah, I'm liking it. And the "vintage style" frets along with it. Just seems easier to articulate those arpeggios, unless my technique has also improved.
Thank you for this post! I have a 66 PBass (7.25 radius) which i love. I'm attempting to make a project P Bass with the same vibe, but with PJ pickups. Fender doesn't make anything like that. Have been looking all over the internet to see if 7.25 vs 9.5 makes any real difference and this is the only post i found that made sense to me. "When i played it, it felt like home" was the exactly the feeling i got when i playing the 66 PBass for the first time. Even Fender's $700 replacement neck has the right nut width but 9.5 radius.
After reading this i checked the MIM Precisions and they're Pau Ferro with 9.5 radius. The Professional and Vintage II series do have 7.5 radiuses (!) but no PJ configuration. The Performer Precision is PJ but 9.5 radius. Will have to find a custom neck i guess. Thanks again for posting!
