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neck: thinner than a jazz??

heavyfunkmachin

heavyfunkmachin

Jan 21, 2005
1,276
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#1
hi, everybody taks about how thins the jazz bass necks are. but i was wandering if there´s any neck thinner than a jazz bass. and if the jazz bass themselves have any kind of different necks... or if the "contour" changes, or maybe the way it "fattens" upper in the neck.
 
#3
Well there's thin and there's narrow. Often those old wide P-bass necks are thinner front to back at the nut than a lot of narrow necked basses.

The narrowest and tightest string spacing I've seen on a 4-string is on those vintage jazz basses with bound necks. They're only 1 3/8 inches across to start with, but the binding means the string spacing at the nut is even tighter than normal.

I saw one on Ebay recently where the seller had included a picture of the nut with a steel rule for comparison. The string spacing centre to centre was about 27mm from E to G. That's tight!
 
#8
I had a Peavey that I gave to a youngster to use that had a smaller neck, both at the nut and from front to back than any of my Jazz's ... I have played a Geddy Lee, and I think it was even thinner than that ... cant remember what the name of it was, but I think I still have it listed in my profile if you want to check that ... was a great little bass, for like a hundred bucks used ... I think they made them in a P or a J pup configuration too ...
 
#9
floopy said:
Well there's thin and there's narrow. Often those old wide P-bass necks are thinner front to back at the nut than a lot of narrow necked basses.

The narrowest and tightest string spacing I've seen on a 4-string is on those vintage jazz basses with bound necks. They're only 1 3/8 inches across to start with, but the binding means the string spacing at the nut is even tighter than normal.

I saw one on Ebay recently where the seller had included a picture of the nut with a steel rule for comparison. The string spacing centre to centre was about 27mm from E to G. That's tight!
Click to expand...

Can't say anything about the bass you saw on eBay, but most every bound/blocked Jazz neck I've seen was a full 1.5" across, and the string spacing at the nut was the same as it is on unbound, unblocked necks. Both 70s Jazzes I've owned were 1.5" at the nut. Of course, the nut itself fits inside the binding, so it is narrower than the nut on an unbound neck, but what usually happens there is that the slots are cut a bit closer to the edge of the nut to maintain the same string spacing.

To the threadstarter: I have owned a Peavey Patriot bass that had an incredibly narrow-feeling neck. I never measured it, but it certainly felt narrower than any Jazz I'd ever played. You may want to look into the older Foundation basses- they have thin necks and are great sounding, US-made basses that didn't get anywhere near the publicity they deserved.
 
#11
say i have an old t-40. i love the thing. i love the sound. but i hate the neck. i love the feeling on my mim jazz bass and i was thinking about changing the t-40 neck to more comfortable one.

i was thinking about a "standart" jazz neck, but then i start thinking about the avaliable options. i thought that if i could find a slightly narrower and thinner neck, hey, it could be great. so i´ll try to find a vintage... and white block inlays fits the looks of the t-40.

...by the way. i think my "perfect" neck would be a "slim" c-shaped jazz bass neck, maybe longer than 34"... but not 35" (yes, im kind of picky.. but that´s the idea of "perfect") and not too heavy, so the neck doesnt dive (well.. t-40 body is kind of heavy)... any idea of how could i get close to this?
 
#12
Auriaprottu said:
Can't say anything about the bass you saw on eBay, but most every bound/blocked Jazz neck I've seen was a full 1.5" across, and the string spacing at the nut was the same as it is on unbound, unblocked necks. Both 70s Jazzes I've owned were 1.5" at the nut.
Click to expand...

This was a 1969 jazz bass, and was definitely under 1.5" at the nut - that's what caught my attention :D
 
#14
Geddy Jazz and Jaguar are close, but the Geddy seems a wee bit thinner. 4-string Ibanez SR basses are notoriously small. I was picking around on a newer SR500 at Guitar Center this weekend. Sounded great, body wood looks really fake though, neck is obscenely small.
 
#16
heavyfunkmachin said:
i think my "perfect" neck would be a "slim" c-shaped jazz bass neck, maybe longer than 34"... but not 35" (yes, im kind of picky.. but that´s the idea of "perfect") and not too heavy, so the neck doesnt dive (well.. t-40 body is kind of heavy)... any idea of how could i get close to this?
Click to expand...

Get a luthier to shave the neck making it thinner front to back.
 

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