- Jul 11, 2005
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Fender Fatfinger -- my two cents
- Thread starter sumeursault
- Start date
This is interesting - given the fact that tuning to drop D can affect dead spots, could changing string gauge/tension/brand also affect this?
I had a few cases where there was a mild change in resonance, but changed strings and gauge and everything was great. I always just chalked it up to strings having spikes and dips, but wondering if it was just finding the right string for that bass.
Mind you, those were mild cases, I played one yesterday that went dead around the 6th fret of the G. I mean dead. That I wasn’t taking out the door. Sounded super great everywhere else though.
I had a few cases where there was a mild change in resonance, but changed strings and gauge and everything was great. I always just chalked it up to strings having spikes and dips, but wondering if it was just finding the right string for that bass.
Mind you, those were mild cases, I played one yesterday that went dead around the 6th fret of the G. I mean dead. That I wasn’t taking out the door. Sounded super great everywhere else though.
I suppose you could try putting a small C-clamp on the headstock (with felt pads or something to protect the finish) and see what it does. If it helps then the Fatfinger might well mitigate that problem.
It’s perhaps worth noting that the reason Ned Steinberger originally designed his namesake bass guitar as a headless instrument was because he wanted to eliminate the potential resonance problems that are inherent in having a headstock at the end of the neck.
The worst dead spot I have ever encountered on a bass (by far) was on a headless bass - the A open string was a dull thud, without even a sense of a note. The lowest resonance of a cantilevered bar (what a neck on a bass is) is not usually a problem on a bass, because the antinode of that mode appears at the end of the neck, where a string isn't attached. On a headless bass, the strings are ALL attached there. The usual dead spot on a Fender neck is not the same resonant mode - it's a higher mode, where the antinode occurs further up the neck.
Snort answer: Headless construction is not a cure for dead spots. It changes where and at what frequencies they might occur, but it won't make your bass immune.
Interesting -- my dead spot is also on open A (although not nearly as severe as you've described here), but the bass has a headstock.
Indeed it can. I had one bass -- long before FatFinger became a thing, that had an impossible dead spot, in the usual place. Nothing I tried on the headstock made any difference, so in desperation I not only put on lighter gauge strings, I tuned them down by a whole step. Bingo! All the notes on the bass trued out.
I've never used a c-clamp on a bass headstock, but before Fatfinger I have used plain old hex nuts -- in varying sizes and weights -- from the hardware store. In fact, I still have a bolt-neck Epi Thunderbird that has two hex nuts on the reverse of the headstock, to correct a dead ninth-fret B on the G string.
The thing with Fatfinger is that, while it can be moved around until optimum effect is located, it still can be in only one place at a time. So the player often is reduced to giving up on eliminating the dead spot and settling for a "usable note" on the dead spot location. And there still is the matter of placement. On Fender-style headstocks I usually start at three o'clock just above the nut and walk the Ff around the headstock until I fined where it has the most effect. On 2+2 headstocks the "magic place " consistently is twelve o'clock high. And those dead spots just get disappeared; if they simply get moved. I have no idea where.
But there also are times when Fatfingers just flat-out fail. I've got a marvelous luthier-made ABG that had a dead zone (not just a dead spot) centered around that seventh fret D on the G string. The zone was bad enough to make the instrument virtually unusable. So I tried a Ff at twelve o'clock high. It made no difference. I moved the Ff to one corner; no difference. I moved it to the other corner of the headstock; no difference. I put Ffs on each corner of the headstock; no difference. I added a Ff back to the headstock at twelve o'clock high, so there now were three Fatfingers on the headstock of that bass. All of this had absolutely no effect on the dead zone.
I figured I was out of options. Couldn't put anything on the body and risk marring the finish. But in my shop I have a "flotsam box" of "headstock weights," and poking around in it I found a couple of Woodruff keys from the hardware store. The only place I could find to attach these was at the extreme ends of the bridge plate beyond the termination of the saddle. So each end got its own Woodruff key.
Miracles do still happen. Dead zone? Gone!! Each note now trues out as well as the notes in the non-dead zone. The only negative ( a minor one and one that was entirely unexpected) is that now that ninth-fret E on the G (which to me is the ideal reference note for comparing degrees of sustain) approaches wolf note status and would sustain forever if I did not stop it manually. A small price to pay.
The thing with Fatfinger is that, while it can be moved around until optimum effect is located, it still can be in only one place at a time. So the player often is reduced to giving up on eliminating the dead spot and settling for a "usable note" on the dead spot location. And there still is the matter of placement. On Fender-style headstocks I usually start at three o'clock just above the nut and walk the Ff around the headstock until I fined where it has the most effect. On 2+2 headstocks the "magic place " consistently is twelve o'clock high. And those dead spots just get disappeared; if they simply get moved. I have no idea where.
But there also are times when Fatfingers just flat-out fail. I've got a marvelous luthier-made ABG that had a dead zone (not just a dead spot) centered around that seventh fret D on the G string. The zone was bad enough to make the instrument virtually unusable. So I tried a Ff at twelve o'clock high. It made no difference. I moved the Ff to one corner; no difference. I moved it to the other corner of the headstock; no difference. I put Ffs on each corner of the headstock; no difference. I added a Ff back to the headstock at twelve o'clock high, so there now were three Fatfingers on the headstock of that bass. All of this had absolutely no effect on the dead zone.
I figured I was out of options. Couldn't put anything on the body and risk marring the finish. But in my shop I have a "flotsam box" of "headstock weights," and poking around in it I found a couple of Woodruff keys from the hardware store. The only place I could find to attach these was at the extreme ends of the bridge plate beyond the termination of the saddle. So each end got its own Woodruff key.
Miracles do still happen. Dead zone? Gone!! Each note now trues out as well as the notes in the non-dead zone. The only negative ( a minor one and one that was entirely unexpected) is that now that ninth-fret E on the G (which to me is the ideal reference note for comparing degrees of sustain) approaches wolf note status and would sustain forever if I did not stop it manually. A small price to pay.
Downtuning a whole step is why that worked. Changing the tension on the neck doesn’t change its resonant frequencies.
Not so much scale length, but the length of the neck is part of what determines it's resonant frequencies. My regular basses are all 34 inch scale 5's, with 22 frets (the more frets, you typically get a longer the neck in a given scale length). They're all roasted maple, graphite reinforced, they use ultralite tuners - I've done a lot of things that move the typical dead spot resonance up in frequency, which makes the G string dead spot a non issue in playing, but if you know what to listen for, and go looking for it, there is an area with reduced sustain - it's just far less obvious, and it's up a couple frets (you really can't move a resonance very far, unless you change things A LOT - it's in the Physics.
OK, all that said, I have a Squier Bronco. It's a toy - in my hands it feels like one at least. Short scale (30 inches), a whopping 19 frets, and the neck attachment area is pretty long for that scale length. From the nut to the body, my "big" basses have 21 inches of neck (at least the part that your hands operate on). The Bronco? it's 4 inches shorter in scale, but the corresponding part of the neck on that thing is 16 inches - a full 5 inches shorter - if you simply scale down one of my long scales, 18.5 is what you would get for that dimension. That bass has other things that I don't like about it, but in terms of a neck where the areas of reduced sustain are hard to find, that thing is fantastic. But...on the flip side, the worst dead spot I've ever encountered was a 32 inch scale headless. Scale is a factor in where the neck resonance ends up, but there isn't a simple rule like "shorter is better" that you can apply - there are a bunch of factors that play into this.
So then if length (not scale length) is a factor, does neck-through construction make a difference?
Changing the tuning also loads/tensions the neck differently, which changes everything. One of the benefits of having more strings is that the increased tension on the neck makes it behave as though it's stiffer (because now it is, like a big truss). Tightest sounding bass I ever owned was a Conklin 7-string, and that thing didn't have any dead spots I could ever identify. That's also why 35" scale is so great for tone.
John
If adding tension to a neck changes it's stiffness, then we're in a plastic deformation scenario, which means the neck is going to, over time, warp. So...no, adding tension does not really alter the stiffness of the neck (and it does not alter it's resonant frequencies).
Does your 7 string have less obvious "areas of reduced sustain"? I wouldn't doubt that - as I've discussed prior, my 5 string necks (bigger cross section means stiffer) have less obvious "areas of reduced sustain", so my guess would be that a 7 string would go more in the same direction. Your 7 string neck is stiffer not because of the string load, it's stiffer because it has a bigger cross section. Stiffness goes up directly with the width, and with the third power of the thickness - a neck that is thicker from front to back is much stiffer than you would guess when compared to a thinner neck.
35 inch scale, assuming the same cross section and number of frets, makes a neck that is less stiff - not a lot less stiff, but it definitely moves in that direction. It would not be something I would go to to reduce the likelihood of dead spots, as it goes the wrong direction. It will also (assuming everything else equal) give you a bit less sustain than a 34 inch scale neck - a small difference, granted, but it's moving towards less sustain.
I have a bunch of really great sounding 5's, and they all have 34 inch scales and decently thick necks - with the right B string, they have "great B strings" - floppy B strings are a string problem, not a neck problem. But I digress.
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Not as much as you'd guess. A neck is a clamped bar/cantilever, and a bolt on bass is well clamped - in terms of stiffness*. The thickness of the neck is much more important than any tiny effects from neck through vs bolt on.
*strength is another matter - continuous grain is where a neck through would have an advantage - if it's a Gibson, we know all too well that not having continuous grain (though the headstock in that case) is a distinct strength disadvantage.
