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Neck Question

iriegnome

iriegnome

Bassstar style
Supporting Member
Nov 23, 2001
11,262
5,574
61
Kenosha, WI 53140
#1
Unlike most of you, I am searching for "The Perfect" bass for me. Yes, that was a joke. Anyway, I think after 35 years of playing I got a clue to solve my puzzle. I am a big fan of tight string spacing. 17mm on aveage. I have been playing a Modulus Bassstar 5 string (prototype) for the last 5 years. I love it. Someone mentioned to me that my bass is kind of unique in many ways, but the neck especially. Not because of the graphite, but the width. From the nut to the heal, there is very little width change. On my Modulus Genesis the nut width is 1-5/8" and the heal is 3", but on my Modulus Bassstar the nut is 1-3/4 and the heal is 2-1/2"
 
#3
In the early days of five string basses, a lot of manufacturers just squeezed five strings on to a four string neck and body. Which is what you've got - 2.5" is standard Fender bass heel width, 1.75" is standard nut width for a P bass.

Wide fives didn't really become common until the mid nineties or so.
 
#6
Rickenbackers also feature very little change in width from the nut to the heal, ~1-11/16" at the net to about 2-1/2" at the heal. String spacing, as I recall, was about average at 19mm (3/4") at the bridge.
 
#7
I've got small hands, and I've found that there aren't any 5-strings that I would consider slim. You can convert a Jazz or Rickenbacker to 5-string, but there isn't really anything available off-the-shelf for the small handed player. The Ric runs a little wider at the nut, but narrower at the heel. Might be closer to what you're talking about? Still, with a 1, 11/16" nut width, even that's on the wide side.

I'm currently in discussions with a luthier to build me a 5-string that's narrow both at the nut and the heel. Because of the tighter spacing, it will be strictly a picker's bass. But, I'm more of a pick guy, anyway, and I figure that I'll just do all my finger picking on my 4-strings. I'll share the results here on TB, when I get it. It's going to be a hand-made custom, so it's going to be a few months, yet. But, I'll be sure to follow through.
 
#8
19mm spacing at the bridge is wider than I prefer. Also, converting a 4 string into a 5'er would be an expensive project that I don't think I want to pursue at this point, but not a bad idea. However, if I went that far, I would just have one built.
 
#9
I do not have small hands. I just prefer the smaller tighter necks. There has got to be someone out there making a bass with a slim neck in a 5 string. With all of the makers out there, it is odd to me (IMHO) that there isn't one or two making a slim taper neck.. I guess we have a challenge to find them now..
 
#10
HeavyRockBasser said:
I've got small hands, and I've found that there aren't any 5-strings that I would consider slim. You can convert a Jazz or Rickenbacker to 5-string, but there isn't really anything available off-the-shelf for the small handed player. The Ric runs a little wider at the nut, but narrower at the heel. Might be closer to what you're talking about? Still, with a 1, 11/16" nut width, even that's on the wide side.

I'm currently in discussions with a luthier to build me a 5-string that's narrow both at the nut and the heel. Because of the tighter spacing, it will be strictly a picker's bass. But, I'm more of a pick guy, anyway, and I figure that I'll just do all my finger picking on my 4-strings. I'll share the results here on TB, when I get it. It's going to be a hand-made custom, so it's going to be a few months, yet. But, I'll be sure to follow through.
Click to expand...

Have you ever tried a 5 string Ibanez? My SR 370 is amazingly slim:)
 
#11
I've done a pretty extensive search. You might look at Carvin and Ibanez. Those are about as narrow as you'll find. Tobias, too, but for what you would pay for a real one, you might as well have something built. A 1, 3/4" nut width is pretty much the standard for a narrow neck 5-string. I've found a couple listed smaller, but they turned out to be typos caused by cloning the 4-string info over to the 5-string specs.
 
#12
The most obvious bass with this feature is Alembic (earliest Bassstar necks had a logo including Alembic and Modulus, hence the connection).

You can order most Alembics with either "classic taper" which is what you describe, or "comfort taper" which is closer to the common taper. It's probably similar to the taper on a "spanish" guitar.

Unless you ask for regular string spacing, Alembic will cut the bridge slots so that the edge-to-edge distance between strings is X mm. At the nut, string spacing is the regular center-to-center, but with classic taper the spacing at the nut is a little wider than with comfort taper.

Your fretting fingers land on the top of the string, the fingers on your other hand strike the strings sideways - it feels a bit different this way, and it's quite comfortable, but it might throw you off a bit initially.
 
#19
On the neck-through models, they will make the neck to your specifications.

You can even send them the neck (with or without the body) and they will copy the exact shape for your instrument.
 

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