Wow - the neck plays a huge part in tone

[JimmyR]

Well I kinda knew it did already, but never was this more evident than just now. I just changed necks on my partsocaster - it's a lightweight Warmoth swamp ash Strat body with Callaham trem and Fralin Vintage Hot pickups. I had a Fender Hotrod '57 neck on there which is a very cool neck. But I just put an Eric Johnson Strat neck on it and what a difference!

The EJ neck is a bit chunkier and it's quarter sawn. You can clearly see the difference in grain pattern, esp if you look at the end of the neck. The EJ feels great but now the guitar is more acoustically alive. It's now one of those Strats that the notes just leap out of - basically the Strat I've been looking for all this time. Amped up the tone is chunkier and fat. The bass strings are like a piano and the trebles chirp like a Tele. But the chunk factor is extremely high and I think that ash body has a part to play in that. The Hot Rod neck was great sounding but a little more polite - it didn't have quite the mass to the tone. Most guys would have been perfectly happy with it I'm sure.

At first I was worried that the EJ neck sounded a bit too "hard", but now that the guitar has settled down a bit it's not hard, but super responsive. I've had more Strats than I care to remember but this is the first that is the Strat equivalent of my Tele - fat, lightweight but heavy sounding. I always felt that it was the alder body that I didn't like about the EJ Strat and I guess this pretty much confirms it for me!

Anyway I'm pretty psyched and happy - glad that I took a punt on another neck and suprised at how much better the guitar sounds with it.