Are Carbon Fiber Rods Necessary?

I'd have to say that you'll never go wrong adding stiffening rods.

You'd hate to finish the neck and find it not being stable/strong and then wishing you'd added the rods.

If you can't add the carbon rods due to cost then add steel rods, the weight is negligible. Or is there another reason you don't want rods in it?

 

how many strings?

If its a 4 string they are pretty much unnecessary, but definitely wont hurt anything. You can get away with not using them on a 5 string also. But 6 strings or more I would absolutely use them.

 

As a player, I have a vague and unfounded feeling that they improve stability and evenness, but detract a bit from the resonance and character of the sound.
Am I completely off-base?

 

If you can, do it - never been happier, my fender has them, and and my synapse, has a complete composite carbon fretboard and big rod under it - REALLY REALLY STABLE ... and when compared to my warwick ... well ... i sold the warwick

 

Spalted maple is only good for guitar tops, do not use it for a neck, its much to unstable.

 

Putting in different mass of truss rod and other rods will definitely make a difference. You can easily hear that by putting in different existing necks. How much and whether good or bad is a different matter.

I don't think it'll be needed for most basses. The way I see it the rods are popular in mass-produced instruments to keep the RMA rate lower. If you are willing to deal with the occasional dropout you should be fine.

 

Necessary is a big word. Basses were made without them for decades.

They're useful. They improve things, stability and strength-wise. In some cases they reduce dead spots. Necessary? No, they're not necessary and many very fine instruments have been made without them.

 

I'm guessing you meant to write "unnecessary"?

Otherwise, I'm confused.

 

Yeah, fixed it. Sorry.

 

I don't tend to like how basses with rods in the necks feel and sound.
Lefay basses are the exception

 

I made it a point to not talk tone any more because everyone has their own opinions and nothing anyone on the internet says, can sway them.

But I have to ask, how does a neck feel any differently with rods vs without? I would understand if the neck was thicker because of the channel the rods are in, but I have gotten necks plenty thin with rods in them.

 

Contrary to popular belief and IMO......graphite rods have one purpose, and that is to provide a stable fingerboard as possible with as few to NO dead spots as possible. They provide no strength to the overall neck - you're doing that by having a mult-laminate neck. IF the wood you're using is quality dryed and seasoned wood...you've done the best one can do

 

The thing is, it is really hard to formally proof whether something makes a sound difference or not, especially to other people. Even soundclips don't do much.

So, is it possible the extra rods change the sound (or a heavy truss rod for that matter)? Absolutely. Can you guarantee that it does, and if so, can you guarantee that it will be audible? No.

So the only way to go is to aggressively try a couple different necks on the same body, pickup and strings until you get a "feel" for what neck changes are like. I did that (more with guitars than basses) and the differences are huge. In Fender style instruments the neck matters more than the body, that's what I ended up being convinced of.

So myself I pick the risk of later deformation over rods, and that's why I can't have Warmoth bass necks. I am unconvinced that extra rods help against dead spots, though.

 

I have never seen anybody proving anything like that. In particular I don't think that a neck has one resonant frequency and that "the" dead spot happens when it's the same as that one resonance frequency. Just the fact that there are instruments with several dead spots (not caused by frets) disproves that.

It's safe to say that the less you rely on wood and the more on hard, predictable material the lower the chance of dead spots is.

 

And that would be...?

 

I beg to differ. The CF rods are MUCH stiffer than the amount of wood they replace. Take a CF rod and a piece of maple of the same dimensions and try bending them.