Single piece vs multi-piece neck

[mongo2]

And even if it is stiffer, that isn't necessarily "better". Many players don't like the tone influence imparted by stiff necks.

That really is a way the wood matters...other than the inherent tonal variation in all necks made of wood, and personal tonal preference aside, I find the stiffer necks to provide much better control of deadspots.

My Allparts maple P neck is the stiffest one piece wood necks I've ever worked and has no noticeable deadspots and is very even sounding while maintaining it's "organic" tonal properties even after I reprofiled it to the original J bass neck dimensions of 1-7/16" at the nut with a very slim profile.

 

[mongo2]

Honestly, I've been playing since '83 and have yet to see/play a Fender neck that was actually twisted AFAIK.

I had a '72 Fender P all maple A neck that got so twisted at the nut and headstock it had to be replaced, but in over 40 years of working on instruments, that's the only twisted neck I've ever seen regardless of brand. I've seen more than a few warped necks and headstocks but no other twists.

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

Isn't rosewood a bit on the heavy side?

The ones I have from USACG are only slightly heavier than maple. Of course it helps that they are .800" thick. With my standard Hipshot tuners, I get zero neck dive. And the feel of the raw wood is delicious.

 

[Rickett Customs]

It’s all relative. 50 + year old Fenders still have nice straight one piece necks.

50+ year old fender necks are baseball bats as well, this is a factor.

 

[cassius987]

That really is a way the wood matters...other than the inherent tonal variation in all necks necks made of wood, and personal tonal preference aside, I find the stiffer necks to provide much better control of deadspots.

+1

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

i do, and so did Leo Fender. his design and wood choice/quality was for the neck to provide most of the strength, and the truss rod to offset the tension changes due to different string gauges. stiffer necks usually have a higher resonant frequency which equates to less deads spots (or less noticeable ones) and more stability with temp/humidity changes.

if one likes graphite reinforced necks, then they like stiffer necks too, since they add rigidity and require less adjustment over time.

I find that graphite reinforced necks are the best balance between great tone and stability/reliability. Warmoth necks with steel rods are VERY stiff and are reputed to be deadspot free. That doesn't mean they sound good, however. Many players despise them.

 

[johnk_10]

Warmoth necks with steel rods are VERY stiff and are reputed to be deadspot free. That doesn't mean they sound good, however. Many players despise them.

for me, their steel reinforced one's weight is the biggest issue. they're a bit on the bulky side too, but that can be addressed by reprofiling them, thinning down the headstock, and reshaping the contours at the heel and back of the headstock. i'm not very fond of what the steel reinforcement rods do to the tone either, so i agree, but there are others that like them.

 

[cassius987]

I find that graphite reinforced necks are the best balance between great tone and stability/reliability. Warmoth necks with steel rods are VERY stiff and are reputed to be deadspot free. That doesn't mean they sound good, however. Many players despise them.

This brings up the interesting point that eliminating dead spots completely may change the tone so radically you'd rather keep the dead spot. I've heard this said of headless basses before. When I changed the tuners on my vintage Ric to be Hipshot Ultralites, the headstock lost almost a quarter kilo of weight. That took out the "classic" dead spot on this bass and also changed the resonance of the neck so it now has a little brighter sound overall, less dark and woody than before. I imagine going headless--or having a perfectly stiff neck--would make the change in sound to extreme for me, but I'm just guessing here.

 

[mongo2]

Warmoth necks with steel rods are VERY stiff and are reputed to be deadspot free.

IME, they aren't the deadspot panacea some believe them to be.

 

[lowphatbass]

To loosely quote my favorite luthier/builder, "Where there is wood, there are deadspots".

 

[-=DanAtkinson=-]

To loosely quote my favorite luthier/builder, "Where there is wood, there are deadspots".

Yep. I have yet to encounter a bolt-on neck bass from any manufacturer that was 100% deadspot free.

 

[mongo2]

To loosely quote my favorite luthier/builder, "Where there is wood, there are deadspots".

I've found through my work with short scale instruments that they are generally more even sounding and deadspots are better controlled than with long scales.

 

[cassius987]

I've found through my work with short scale instruments that they are generally more even sounding and deadspots are better controlled than with long scales.

The CEO of a major instrument maker once told me this was probably because of the "arm length" of the neck being shorter, limiting the resonant flexing that results in a note being "sucked out", or a dead spot. It makes perfect sense to me. My dad's fake Hofner sustains "for days", while still sounding darker than other basses.

 

[mongo2]

The CEO of a major instrument maker once told me this was probably because of the "arm length" of the neck being shorter, limiting the resonant flexing that results in a note being "sucked out", or a dead spot. It makes perfect sense to me. My dad's fake Hofner sustains "for days", while still sounding darker than other basses.

That's one way of putting it...I just say the shorter neck is inherently stiffer for a given set of materials and construction type.

 

[edpal]

My vote is for multi-piece being inherently stronger and less likely to twist. Manufacturers of all types of items glue/weld/solder different materials together because they have a different "bend coefficient". Two weak materials, bonded together, can become stiffer and stronger than the simple sum of their stiffness. Copper is soft, solder is soft - put solder on copper wire and WOW, that's stiff. The magic of bi-metal. Plus, laminates can just look darn purdy. BTW: I've never had a one piece neck twist....good wood is good wood. I am always mystified when I am at Home Depot and some guy is just grabbing any old twisted 2X4s..

 

[pasco jacorius]

Oh yeah. This thread was before Sire V7.

 

[°v°]

And even if it is stiffer, that isn't necessarily "better". Many players don't like the tone influence imparted by stiff necks.

-----------------------------------------
Hi there,
having tried many basses and owning several of them, I notice that the necks with laminated design do indeed tend to be more stable, not requiring as many seasonal truss rod / action adjustments. But on the other hand the tone has sort of a "stiffer" character, with less bounciness and not quite as pleasing low end. I thought it was a matter of wood type, pickup or bridge design, but ended up noticing this is systematically the case for instance with Japanese made Matsumoku Vantage or Aria basses claiming superior design laminated necks, although the body and bridge are not always comparable. Even my Wal mkI with laminated neck sounds somewhat stiff. So I ended up wondering whether this neck stiffness issue - while undeniably good for stability - would also be the main reason for the somewhat unpleasantly stiff tonal response character... My Fenders P and J, and Musicmans are nowhere near that kind of tonal rigidity, sounding fairly more pleasant to the ear, yet with an undisputed trademark aggressiveness not just coming from the mere rigidity. I guess if laminated design were the culprit for neck robustness without any drawbacks, Fender would have long gone for it. But they haven't...
Any thoughts ?

 

[micguy]

Multi-lam is stronger.
Stronger is better.
No?

Stronger is better, but multi-lam doesn't make a neck stronger or stiffer. Depending on the grain runout, a multi-lam can be weaker, but with straight grained wood (what we hope they use on our necks, it usually works out to be about the same as one piece of wood.

A multi lam does, if you use the wood grain right, reduce the likelihood of it twisting or warping. Wood comes out of the tree with stresses that, over time, will relieve themselves. With a laminate, you can (if you choose or cut the wood properly) make the various parts of the neck tend to warp against each other, so the net result is a straight neck. Another way of keeping a neck straight is to anneal it via Roasting - done properly, that process relieves the stresses in the wood, so that when you cut the neck from it (you anneal the blank, then cut the neck), the neck is stable.

A place where adding another piece or two of wood does help with strength is in an angled back headstock - a scarf joint joining an angled piece of wood (so there isn't grain runout behind the nut) can make that kind of neck stronger than a neck made from a single piece of wood, because the grain is running the right direction where it counts.

+1
Multi piece necks also help if not totally eliminate dead spots.

Again, using two pieces of the same species of wood, and gluing them together, doesn't change the stiffness of the result, so no, it doesn't help with dead spots. If you use a LOT of laminations, and a LOT of glue, you might introduce enough damping to help out a bit, but the way most necks are made, you're not going to materially change the vibration pattern via laminating a few pieces. Graphite rods can help some - they are stiffer than wood, so adding them to a neck will change the way it behaves, often (but not necessarily always) for the better.

 

[Rnr..........4]

The Steve Harris Precision Signature bass Fender makes uses a one piece neck but reading all these comments.. I wouldn't want to pay the asking price for one if the neck could potentially be unstable over time despite it being a thick D shaped neck. I was considering just buying a Fender Player Precision with the laminated maple fretboard on maple neck (aka 2-piece).

 

[Lucca]

I haved noticed that multi-piece necks tend to handle the additional tension of heavier gauge strings better than one-piece necks. Please share your experiences regarding a neck's handling of heavier string gauges so that I''ll better understand whether my thinking is accurate or not.... Thanks bass friends!!