Fender Factory Tour: Neck gives more sound than pickups

[Dylan61]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aL9fUomMA8Y

Fender Factory Tour: Neck gives more sound than pickups, did he say that?

[jds22]

He must work in the neck department. The neck guys and the pickup dept guys are always raggin' on each other.

:AOK

[Alainlafrance]

Yes and Mike Eldred was the Boss of the Custom Shop, so he knows.
Pick ups just emphasize the qualities or the defaults of the guitar, nothing new. The way pick ups do that depends on their conception, but they have never converted an acoustic lemon into a freaking sounding plugged guitar.

[JingleJungle]

I'll only partially agree to the previous post re the p.up factor, but I totally agree on the neck factor.
I remember when I wanted Tim Diebert (Timtone) to build me a doubleneck. Price was almost double *just because* he needed to build another neck. I think his words were "it's like I built another instrument alltogether".

Yup. The tone is in the neck and in the fingers (but not in yer' toes ;) )

JJ

[buddastrat]

This is weird, because I just swapped a CS maple/rosewood neck for a CS maple/maple neck on my strat last night. So it's a very fair comparison. Same style necks, both have hard rock, flat sawn maple and single rod vintage truss rods. Both even have the same med-jumbo frets. Both are even from the same year!! Well, I switched it over in a few minutes, detuned and slapped the neck on using the same strings. I've been playing the strat for a few hours and as soon as I played it with the new neck, HUGE difference in tone. It was a totally different guitar.

More difference than ANY pickup change could make. More difference than I've ever experienced changing bodies either. The neck has the biggest tonal influence I've seen/heard. I have two witnesses from swapping necks last night.

Again, it was drastic change in tone. Incredible.

[jazzandmetal?]

Which one sounded better?

[yannis]

So you say that for example:

One has a MIM or MIA tele/strat. One obtains a high-end warmoth neck (braz RW, etc...). One swaps the necks and the guitar improves?

Or do you still need to shop around to find "the" neck?

[WahmBoomAh]

This just in ....You can use a stratocaster as a massage tool !

[Mrgearguy]

Mike Eldred ran the custom shop for years and is now head of Custom marketing. He started out working for Grover Jackson at Jackson back in the glory days of those guitars too. He's a great player and gigs regularly with guys like Scotty Moore and with his own band. He's the guy who personally takes apart legendary guitars and specs out the replicas like the SRV and Hendrix Woodstock.

If anybody knows what makes a Strat tick, it's this guy.

[Dylan61]

Baddastrat, what where the tonal differences, can you tell something about it.

[JingleJungle]

Mike Eldred ran the custom shop for years and is now head of Custom marketing. He started out working for Grover Jackson at Jackson back in the glory days of those guitars too. He's a great player and gigs regularly with guys like Scotty Moore and with his own band. He's the guy who personally takes apart legendary guitars and specs out the replicas like the SRV and Hendrix Woodstock.

If anybody knows what makes a Strat tick, it's this guy.

A close acquaintance plunked down some serious $$$ on Fender CS, masterbuilts, etc, over the past 2 yrs .or so.
About one month ago he just woke up one morning and said to himself - let's try to do something different...
Out of his 6 strats (normal ones, CS and Masterbuilts), he ended up putting a regular strat neck on his Galuzka (spl?) masterbuilt. It now sounds "much better" (it sounded quite amazing before). His gripe?
You'd think that the fine people over at the CS would actually *care* to put on the best sounding neck on each Masterbuilt. To him the fact that a non-CS neck sounds better than the more expensive stuff just drives him nuts.

More so in the light of this discussion (i.e. that the neck is what really makes up the best part of the overall tone)....

Maybe he'll come over to vent and gripe, let's see...

JJ

[Jon Silberman]

"Better" is the ultimate subjective term. I'm not doubting your friend felt as he did. What I'm saying is whatever qualities he preferred on neck 2, it's quite possible others would have felt neck 1 was better on the same basis but with different preferences.

[John Phillips]

More difference than ANY pickup change could make.I agree that the neck has a huge influence on the tone... but if you take out your normal Strat pickup and put a Hotrails in, that's more of a difference than ANY neck change could ever possibly make.

Pickups are the most important factor. Which is not to say the rest isn't important, but nowhere near as much, possibly not even put together.

[SvenHock]

"Better" is the ultimate subjective term. I'm not doubting your friend felt as he did. What I'm saying is whatever qualities he preferred on neck 2, it's quite possible others would have felt neck 1 was better on the same basis but with different preferences.


Ditto.

[DejavuDave]

Everything on a bolt-on affects tone. Neck, body, hardware, electronics, strings. That's it. Change anything and the tone changes. It might not change much but change it does, for better or worse.

[buddastrat]

I agree that the neck has a huge influence on the tone... but if you take out your normal Strat pickup and put a Hotrails in, that's more of a difference than ANY neck change could ever possibly make.

Pickups are the most important factor. Which is not to say the rest isn't important, but nowhere near as much, possibly not even put together.


No. Think of a singer singing through a PA, and then crank up the mids and gain at the mixing board. Guess what? Still the same singer.
Hot rails changes output and EQ, but not the guitar's voice and response. I've had a hot rails in my '66 strat years ago. The guitar's voice was still there, unchanged, the same string girth and string response. A pickup cannot change that.

[John Phillips]

I respectfully think you're wrong. Putting a super-midrangy, high-output pickup like that in a Strat makes it sound nothing like a normal Strat, especially with any kind of distorted sound.

(FWIW, I have a friend with a Hotrails in his '64 Strat too. It still sounds interestingly like an old guitar, but it most certainly doesn't sound like a Strat.)

It sounds more like a PRS or something than it does like a Strat. You can still hear some of the character of the guitar - it's still got a twangy, springy type of vibe to it which (say) a Les Paul doesn't, but it's still a totally different sound from a Strat. If you honestly think that's a smaller difference than changing the neck and keeping the pickups the same, I have no idea what you're listening to. All Strats with Strat-type pickups sound basically like Strats, regardless of the neck.

If you're using a singer's voice as a comparison, you're confusing phrasing and inflection with tone. (Which is the same as saying that a player 'sounds the same through any amp'.)

[clothwiring]

Cool little vid. Thanks for posting.

[buddastrat]

I respectfully think you're wrong. Putting a super-midrangy, high-output pickup like that in a Strat makes it sound nothing like a normal Strat, especially with any kind of distorted sound.

(FWIW, I have a friend with a Hotrails in his '64 Strat too. It still sounds interestingly like an old guitar, but it most certainly doesn't sound like a Strat.)

It sounds more like a PRS or something than it does like a Strat. You can still hear some of the character of the guitar - it's still got a twangy, springy type of vibe to it which (say) a Les Paul doesn't, but it's still a totally different sound from a Strat. If you honestly think that's a smaller difference than changing the neck and keeping the pickups the same, I have no idea what you're listening to. All Strats with Strat-type pickups sound basically like Strats, regardless of the neck.

If you're using a singer's voice as a comparison, you're confusing phrasing and inflection with tone. (Which is the same as saying that a player 'sounds the same through any amp'.)



You are the one confusing things. Yes a hotrails will give you a giant output which is a drastic change in electronics (we all know this!), but listen past the volume and mids to the actual string's girth and reaction, and you can hear it's still the same guitar. Whether a guitar has that richness, deepness or fast or slow response to it, a pickup cannot give this. It can only "pickup" what it's hearing.

No a hotrails will not sound like a traditional strat at all. I said you'll still hear the guitar's natural tone as it was prior to the pickup change. That fundamental tone will not change. The electronic influence will definitely change. But the old' you can't polish a turd applies here. No pickup will make a hunk a junk sound good. That is why I'm saying the wood has so much more to do with this.

You need to play an electric guitar acoustically for a long period then you'll truly know what the guitar's voice is. You'll hear the string response and string girth which is what I'm talking about. You are confusing output and EQ frequency with the guitar's natural voice. Why do some guitars sound much richer than others when you use the same strings and pickups? You can swap pickups all day and won't get that richness that comes from resonanting deeper into the wood like some guitars have. No pickup can change this stuff.

Just do a simple test, and take a strat and listen on each pickup, the guitars voice is the same on each position. The E string will be just as plinky or just as girthy as it was no matter what pickup is in.

Or look at the otherside. Haven't you ever have a guitar that sounds great no matter what pickups are in it? I have. You could put the cheapest crap in there and it still sounds great. If you don't know this with all due respect, you're the one who's confused.

[buddastrat]

Baddastrat, what where the tonal differences, can you tell something about it.


Hi Dylan. The CS 69 strat had an all maple neck, it was bright and chimey low end was shaved off and all the notes had a quick high mid attack. Very spanky and quick.

as soon as I slapped this CS rosewood/maple neck influence on tone made it much richer, deeper with a looser sound. I noticed as I was just tuning up. I could feel the low E string booming through to my gut. Treble strings sound silky, instead of so spanky sounding. When you hit the low E it booms deep with this rosewood. With the maple neck it spanked tight and not as much low resonance. Plugged in it sounded like I cranked up some bass and turned up a "girth" knob without turning up any volume.

Both are great sounds depending on what style you're going for. Imo, a pickup change would not accomplish what this did.

[Jon Silberman]

I'm with John Phillips on this one. Sure, the pickup only "picks up" what it's hearing but the difference in what it "hears" from one axe to another is commonly overwhelmed, in my view as well, but what the PUPs to do the vibrations afterwards.

buddastrat, it's no problem ever disagreeing here on this forum. If you feel the differences between what's sent to a pickup by different guitar bodies and necks within the same model of guitar affects what you hear in the end more than whether the PUPs are low output single coils or hot 'buckers, that's cool. You do understand the points John made previously and with which I'm agreeing with now, though, right?

[buddastrat]

I'm with John Phillips on this one. Sure, the pickup only "picks up" what it's hearing but the difference in what it "hears" from one axe to another is commonly overwhelmed, in my view as well, but what the PUPs to do the vibrations afterwards.

buddastrat, it's no problem ever disagreeing here on this forum. If you feel the differences between what's sent to a pickup by different guitar bodies and necks within the same model of guitar affects what you hear in the end more than whether the PUPs are low output single coils or hot 'buckers, that's cool. You do understand the points John made previously and with which I'm agreeing with now, though, right?



well, I'll agree with the Fender CS on this one ; )

I tend to separate the tone of a guitar into two categories. The fundamental tone and the electronic tone. Often people lump the two together and just say "tone" for the overall result. This is what John is doing by comparing a PRS. Of course it all matters and it's the synergy of all the parts. But you also can't polish a turd and the wood, I believe is where it really happens.


Listen to http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/Strat_Pickup_Sound_Clips_W1.cfm

look at all those pickup changes, yet imo none of them really have the richness and deepness I want from a strat tone. I'm not talking about output or bass or anything. I'm talking about "richness" which is when the note has time to resonate through the wood and that certain deepness comes with the note. When I swapped on this other neck I got that certain richness I was looking for that I hear on some strats and others don't no matter the pickup.

[John Phillips]

You are the one confusing things. Yes a hotrails will give you a giant output which is a drastic change in electronics (we all know this!), but listen past the volume and mids to the actual string's girth and reaction, and you can hear it's still the same guitar. Whether a guitar has that richness, deepness or fast or slow response to it, a pickup cannot give this. It can only "pickup" what it's hearing.

No a hotrails will not sound like a traditional strat at all. I said you'll still hear the guitar's natural tone as it was prior to the pickup change. That fundamental tone will not change. The electronic influence will definitely change. But the old' you can't polish a turd applies here. No pickup will make a hunk a junk sound good. That is why I'm saying the wood has so much more to do with this.

You need to play an electric guitar acoustically for a long period then you'll truly know what the guitar's voice is. You'll hear the string response and string girth which is what I'm talking about. You are confusing output and EQ frequency with the guitar's natural voice. Why do some guitars sound much richer than others when you use the same strings and pickups? You can swap pickups all day and won't get that richness that comes from resonanting deeper into the wood like some guitars have. No pickup can change this stuff.

Just do a simple test, and take a strat and listen on each pickup, the guitars voice is the same on each position. The E string will be just as plinky or just as girthy as it was no matter what pickup is in.

Or look at the otherside. Haven't you ever have a guitar that sounds great no matter what pickups are in it? I have. You could put the cheapest crap in there and it still sounds great. If you don't know this with all due respect, you're the one who's confused.You're talking about all the small stuff there. I never said it doesn't make a difference... it does. My friend's old Strat with the Hotrails sounds quite different from a modern Strat with a Hotrails, for example - it still sounds somehow 'vintage' and woody. But it sounds like a vintage guitar with a Hotrails in it and not like any guitar with a Strat pickup in it. You said it yourself, in the bit I highlighted.

You can talk about the detail of the character, resonance and 'voice' as much as you like, and I understand exactly what you mean, but it's simply overwhelmed by a radical change of pickups (I've worked on literally thousands of guitars and changed many hundreds of pickups BTW). Of course the pickups aren't the whole story, and they certainly can only pick up what's there in the first place, but they are most definitely the single most important factor in the amplified sound. You can't make a Strat sound like a Les Paul by changing the pickups any more than by changing the neck, but changing the pickups will get you closer. Changing the neck will just make it sound like a different Strat.

FWIW, I'm not even certain the neck is the most important factor in the actual acoustic sound of the guitar - the bridge type makes more difference, I think. A Strat and a Tele sound substantially different acoustically, and one does not sound like the other if you swap the necks.

[Dylan61]

Like here we always try to understand the influence from the wood, pickups, body etc. but what about the pickguard?

I have a one ply flabby pickguard around my '60 Strat pickups, wondering what it might do when you change that..

[buddastrat]

You're talking about all the small stuff there. I never said it doesn't make a difference... it does. My friend's old Strat with the Hotrails sounds quite different from a modern Strat with a Hotrails, for example - it still sounds somehow 'vintage' and woody. But it sounds like a vintage guitar with a Hotrails in it and not like any guitar with a Strat pickup in it. You said it yourself, in the bit I highlighted.

You can talk about the detail of the character, resonance and 'voice' as much as you like, and I understand exactly what you mean, but it's simply overwhelmed by a radical change of pickups (I've worked on literally thousands of guitars and changed many hundreds of pickups BTW). Of course the pickups aren't the whole story, and they certainly can only pick up what's there in the first place, but they are most definitely the single most important factor in the amplified sound. You can't make a Strat sound like a Les Paul by changing the pickups any more than by changing the neck, but changing the pickups will get you closer. Changing the neck will just make it sound like a different Strat.

FWIW, I'm not even certain the neck is the most important factor in the actual acoustic sound of the guitar - the bridge type makes more difference, I think. A Strat and a Tele sound substantially different acoustically, and one does not sound like the other if you swap the necks.


Bro' lets not do apples to oranges. No one said a neck change will make a strat sound like a Les Paul or PRS or tele. That huge chunk of mahogany and shorter scale is what makes a Les Paul sing. Stick to apples and apples or strats to strats.

Put it like this. I've had strats with thin sounding E strings, and after putting a hot rails in, those E string still go "plink" just like they did before. Moving through all the positions on the switch I hear the pickups influence such as the throaty front single or the glassy chime but the string's natural girth and quickness/sluggishness will remain unchanged. This right here, is the most important part of the tone. The wood's ability to do what I want it to. Pickups are the icing on the cake.

Yes a hot rails will not sound like a traditional strat. No one's arguing there. But say you want a meaty, percussive fast responding low E string sound. If the guitar has a sluggish response, or a thin response, A hot rails or any pickup will not magically transform it into something else. The guitar has to have it to begin with.


Want another example of a strat to strat comparison? I took an EJ guitar and this 69 strat and swapped necks. Left the body, bridge and pickups alone. The EJ neck made the 69 sound just like an EJ strat. I left the pickups alone.

Just go listen to the acme pickup clips. While you can definitely hear a bunch of differences, a neck will make a much greater change than the ones I listened to.

[Jon Silberman]

No sense :horse any further. I think, in the end, we all will just have to agree to disagree on this one.

[Dylan61]

http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/Strat_Pickup_Sound_Clips_W1.cfm

[83stratman]

From my experience of bolting together, swapping parts, changing pickups, building parts guitars, etc for the past 25 years, I will have to agree with buddastrat on this...pickups can not polish a turd. I would like to add that the body can make a big difference as well.

[Giraffecaster]

hmm... so neck, body, and pickups... i've read elsewhere that bridge, strings, potentiometers, tone caps, and tuners and even string tree vs no string tree all have some change in sound.. not to mention those who say nitro is better than thick poly.... what's left??

I think we should come up with a list that everyone agrees on of parts that do not effect the sound.
1) strap buttons
2) output jack
3) neck bolts/plate?
4) decal
I can't think of any more that doesn't bring controversy.

Seems to me that everything has some change whether better or worse is up to the ear of the beholder.

[The Everlove]

a bit off topic, how does one get a job there?

[The Everlove]

you know I've wondered about these clips.... while it is the same guitar, same EXACT pup heights... doesn't the perception of the human brain play into this as well?


http://www.acmeguitarworks.com/Strat_Pickup_Sound_Clips_W1.cfm

[Jon Silberman]

From my experience of bolting together, swapping parts, changing pickups, building parts guitars, etc for the past 25 years, I will have to agree with buddastrat on this...pickups can not polish a turd. I would like to add that the body can make a big difference as well.
So I'm sure I understand you, stratman, is what you're saying that a neck change, alone, on a guitar that is otherwise a turd, WILL polish it? Because if not, I'm afraid I truly don't understand why your point - with which I happen to agree, by the way - is even relevant to the initial point of the thread. :confused:

I also have to say, I don't understand who dragged the turd into the discussion or why. :eek: Why base a conversation of this nature on either the best possible or worst possible example of a guitar? My position remains that, for your average-type guitar, it is not even a close call: holding everything else equal, you can vary the tones much more by replacement PUPs than replacement necks (and as to why I'm continuing to beat this horse, even I no longer can fathom it!). :D

[83stratman]

There was a turd refrence somewhere in this thread...I guess my point is that to make a inherintly crappy sounding guitar sound good you need to change the neck and or body. A pickup swap in the majority of cases will not changed the fundamental good/bad tone of the guitar, only color it/chnage flavors one way or another.

[hunter]

FWIW if you listen to the video carefully, I believe you'll find Mr Eldred is saying the wood (both neck and body) is more important than the pickups. Not just the neck. Beyond that, I mostly pick em up and play em. No neck swapping and very seldom pup swaps. There are way more good guitars than dogs. I don't need to sweat the details.

I can tell you that swapping the MFD bridge pup in my ASAT Classic (the thin MFDs) to a Fralin made a difference in the amplified character of the guitar. Went from crunchy to twangy. I'm not sure anyone would identify it as the same guitar. Similar maybe.

hunter

[Tone_Terrific]

There is nothing you can do to alter the sound of an electric guitar more than changing pups, other electronics aside. If there is, do tell!

Changing the neck is, roughly speaking, changing 1/2 the guitar. You have set up a new batch of variables. So now the above statement applies, again.

You are into the apples/oranges, one more time.

[Jon Silberman]

There was a turd refrence somewhere in this thread...I guess my point is that to make a inherintly crappy sounding guitar sound good you need to change the neck and or body. A pickup swap in the majority of cases will not changed the fundamental good/bad tone of the guitar, only color it/chnage flavors one way or another.
OK, that I understand and can grok. :)

[WordMan]

I have a deep respect for the posts of John Phillips - I just changed a habit I have maintained for years based on some insight of his.

My $.02 is that I respect both points of view but feel that Buddastrat is closer to my perception. I very much hear what John is saying, too - i.e., swapping a pickup can have an obvious, clear impact on how the guitar sounds - I don't think anyone questions that. But - to me and without trying to get too cute - there is a difference between affecting how a guitar sounds and affecting its fundamental "tone fingerprint" - I can step on the footswitch of my two-channel amp and change how my guitar sounds, but haven't changed its fundamental tone fingerprint.

I believe that John is commmenting that the way a guitar sounds can be radically altered by switching pickups. I also believe that Buddastrat is saying that a pickup change does *not* change the guitar's fundamental tonal fingerprint - but that a neck or body swap *will*. And I happen to agree with both...

Just processing what I am reading - hope this makes sense...

[WordMan]

Because I am feeling all tone-geeky, I am going to elaborate. I suppose the key question coming out of this thread - and certainly my previous post - is: what needs to change for the fundamental tone fingerprint to be effected? When have you crossed the line of changing the sound to changing the tone fingerprint?

Honestly - I am not sure. I happen to think that if you modify the fundamental components - neck, body - or alter its fundamental design - e.g., rout and mount a floating trem, or hack off some of the wood - that will do it - you've crossed the line, for better or worse. But given that with bolt-on neck guitars, you can swap necks more easily than pickups, why should changing the neck be considered more fundamental than a pickup?

I guess because I think of the pickup as a modifier of the fundamental tone, not a creator of it. Sure, if you use a heavy dose of distortion you can lose sight of the fundamental tone the body/neck produces but its in there, buried within the crunch.

Another issue is gear - after playing tons of amps and guitars and currently fortunate enough to have some really great-sounding gear, I can say that if you don't invest a lot of time listening to a great sounding guitar through a high-quality tube amp with little/no effects in your chain, it can be very hard to "dial in" and really hear the fundamental tone of the guitar. I in no way claim to have better ears than anyone else, only experience listening to and working with good gear. My point is that if folks base their perceptions on living with different gear, they are going to have different opinions about what affects tone.

I doubt there is anyway to really get to the bottom of this in an online forum, but it is an interesting topic and one I think about quite a bit...

[Jon Silberman]

Another issue is gear - after playing tons of amps and guitars and currently fortunate enough to have some really great-sounding gear, I can say that if you don't invest a lot of time listening to a great sounding guitar through a high-quality tube amp with little/no effects in your chain, it can be very hard to "dial in" and really hear the fundamental tone of the guitar. I in no way claim to have better ears than anyone else, only experience listening to and working with good gear. My point is that if folks base their perceptions on living with different gear, they are going to have different opinions about what affects tone.
Excellent point, WordMan - very true.

[buddastrat]

Yes Wordman you put it well. Your moniker fits you. Exactly what I'm trying to say. The fundamental tone is what I consider very important and listen to the guitar a lot sometimes with my ear right on the neck and those specific frequencies and type of attack is what I hear when I plug in. A pickup can compliment or detract from that. Even with a fuzz on or high gain, that personality of the guitar will be there and I hear it. If it's one I don't like, it bugs me to no end and no pickups will cure that (for me!) BTW, I think the bodywood can make quite a difference too. But in the last year, I've done a bit of serious neck swapping and that really changed the whole personality of the guitar. Of course, like others said, it's really 1/2 of a new guitar. But the neck changed the personality of the instrument.

[buddastrat]

There was a turd refrence somewhere in this thread...I guess my point is that to make a inherintly crappy sounding guitar sound good you need to change the neck and or body. A pickup swap in the majority of cases will not changed the fundamental good/bad tone of the guitar, only color it/chnage flavors one way or another.


+1000

[Jon Silberman]

I've swapped some necks in my day (the last one was a replacement for my Godin LGX-SA) and have never experienced the epiphany moment of "really changed the whole personality of the guitar" (not even close!). In each case, though, I replaced the neck with another one intended for the same basic model of guitar. Are you guys who found your neck changes "really changed" the guitar's basic tone really saying that you replaced one bolt-on maple with rosewood board neck with another, same scale maple with rosewood board neck and it changed the whole personality of the instrument?! If yes, can you provide an example, e.g., I replaced the stock neck on my '87 Fender Strat with _______? I'd really like to understand this.

[buddastrat]

Jon, maybe it was an extreme case with the one I did the other day, but I liked it. The rosewood neck I put on was a very thin lam fingerboard. So it was almost all maple compare to all maple. Both were flatsawn as I said earlier.

But the other swap I did was the EJ 1/4 sawn all maple neck vs. the flatsawn all maple on this same guitar. All three necks that were on this same body and pickups, were very different sounding.

[Lance Romance]

This may be a dumb question: If Fender thinks that the neck is so important to the tone (Which I agree) then why do they still Bolt them on?

Why dont they build the best sounding guitars that they can? Why give us the same old strat, when they can give us a BETTER strat with a better neck tenon?

[WordMan]

This may be a dumb question: If Fender thinks that the neck is so important to the tone (Which I agree) then why do they still Bolt them on?

Why dont they build the best sounding guitars that they can? Why give us the same old strat, when they can give us a BETTER strat with a better neck tenon?

I wouldn't call it a dumb question at all, but I would say it is not central to the core topic here. The core topic is whether swapping a neck affects tone more or less than swapping pickups. The fact that Fender necks are bolt-ons makes the experiment more immediate and easy to test.

To your question, it contains assertions as to whether set-neck guitars objectively sound better or function better than bolt-ons. I am a Les Paul kinda guy myself, but I find either assertion wrong. A bolted joint is capable of mechanically transferring vibrations as efficiently as a set neck, and perhaps even more so if the bolt-on joint has more, better wood-to-wood contact (I am looking at you, short-tenon with all that room to rock in the joint).

Beyond the mechanics of it, bolt-on necks sound like...bolt-on necks. Fender guitars have been used for so much seminal, brilliant music that they define one of the great tones. I don't accept that a set-neck Fender is somehow better - it wouldn't produce the essential Fender tone, better or worse.

My $.02...

[Rich T Fingers]

Back to the video for a second - great stuff. I hadn't seen it before. And nice to see the legendary Abigail Ybarra in person.

[WordMan]

Back to the video for a second - great stuff. I hadn't seen it before. And nice to see the legendary Abigail Ybarra in person.


Agreed - very fun. Interesting to here the host, John Ratzenberger, take AY's comments and state "so the pickups are the soul of the guitar" - when a few minutes earlier we heard the guy who has been on point for the Custom Shop mention that the neck is more critical to overall tone...

I say put 'em in a ring and let 'em duke it out! :munch