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Neck Problem? (Sadowsky content)

TrooperFarva

TrooperFarva

Nov 25, 2004
3,244
15
New City, NY
#1
I'm extremely happy with my Sadowsky MS5. It plays and sounds awesome. The only problem with playability is that when I tap past the 16th fret, it sounds weird and buzzes. But fingerstyle or playing with a pick up there is fine, and I don't tap outside of my basement, so I didn't worry about it. Yesterday, it was very humid, and I noticed I got a slight buzz below the 5th fret on most of the strings. No big deal, a slight truss rod tweak will take care of that. So I take a look down the neck, and at first glance, it appears backbowed, which I thought was a little odd. But upon further inspection, it's almost like theres a hump around the 15th fret. The neck was almost straight until the 15th, and then angles down a little bit. So I loosen the truss rod 1/8 of a turn, and take another look. In front of the 15th fret, where it was basically straight before, there is now just barely a hint of forward bow. This cured the buzzing below the 5th fret, and had no effect on my action. But the hump around the 15th fret is still there. It's uniform, you can see it from both sides. So since I added a tiny bit of forward bow with the truss rod, if you look down the neck, it looks like a very stretched out S. Nothing extreme, you have to look carefully, but it's there, and I think it's the reason the tapping sounds off.

Now, this isn't a big deal, it doesn't have any effect on my real world playing, but has anyone else encountered anything like this? Is something like this fixable? I had to sell my Valenti to get this bass, I'm not rich by any means, so more specifically, is this fixable, for not much money? Even though it's only about a month old (the original owner, who bought it new, only had it about a week) I bought it used, so no warranty :hmm:

Thanks guys.
 
#3
We deliberately add "drop-off" in our fingerboards beginning at the 15th fret. Necks are notorious for developing "flips" or high spots in the upper register of the neck. I have seen hundreds of necks like this from doing fret jobs for 35 years. This is due to the neck wanting to flex where it looses the support from the neck pocket. We introduce the drop off in the fingerboard to counter-act this.

So what you are seeing at the 15th fret is not a high spot but the beginning of the "drop-off".

Roger
 
#4
Sadowsky said:
We deliberately add "drop-off" in our fingerboards beginning at the 15th fret. Necks are notorious for developing "flips" or high spots in the upper register of the neck. I have seen hundreds of necks like this from doing fret jobs for 35 years. This is due to the neck wanting to flex where it looses the support from the neck pocket. We introduce the drop off in the fingerboard to counter-act this.

So what you are seeing at the 15th fret is not a high spot but the beginning of the "drop-off".

Roger
Click to expand...

Wild. This is exactly one of those things that seperates the Pros from the Cons. :D

Sounds like the only people ideally qualified to help you sort out your problem, if there is one, is the Sadowsky team themselves. Lucky for you they are local (-ish).
 
#5
Sadowsky said:
We deliberately add "drop-off" in our fingerboards beginning at the 15th fret. Necks are notorious for developing "flips" or high spots in the upper register of the neck. I have seen hundreds of necks like this from doing fret jobs for 35 years. This is due to the neck wanting to flex where it looses the support from the neck pocket. We introduce the drop off in the fingerboard to counter-act this.

So what you are seeing at the 15th fret is not a high spot but the beginning of the "drop-off".

Roger
Click to expand...

Very cool. I figured there might be a reason for it.

I'm gonna restring it with steels today anyway, and mess with the action a tad to get it more where I like it, and I'll see if anything happens with the tapping.
 
#9
I have a Sadowsky Metro RV5 and it has that little "bump"@15 fret. No action problem/no buzz either.
I asked Roger and he gave me the "drop-off" answer. I didn't understand what it meant (I'm portuguese, so English is not my language), but I trust him, and when he said it was OK I was reassured.
But I would like to ask if someone can explain to me what this "drop-off" technique is all about?

Thanks,

Pedro
 
#11
pedroferreira said:
I have a Sadowsky Metro RV5 and it has that little "bump"@15 fret. No action problem/no buzz either.
I asked Roger and he gave me the "drop-off" answer. I didn't understand what it meant (I'm portuguese, so English is not my language), but I trust him, and when he said it was OK I was reassured.
But I would like to ask if someone can explain to me what this "drop-off" technique is all about?

Thanks,

Pedro
Click to expand...

What Roger is saying is that on a lot of basses, the end of the fretboard has a tendency to develop high spots, it'll pop up basically. To prevent this, the end of the fretboard is pointed down, so that even if it does pop up, it'll only be flat, at worst, instead of in the way, preventing a proper setup.
 

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