Tone: Bolt-On vs. Set Neck

[loveofjazz]

ouch

Man, I am far too simple an individual to be in here.

Besides...all this tech talk makes my head hurt.

I'm gonna go crank up my strat, then my LP...then I'll go ask my upstairs neighbor which one made her head hurt worse...

BTW, you guys rock. I hadn't had this much fun since I closed the cat's tail in the fridge...and light being immrtalized in rhyme...that's just classic.

-jimbo

 

[Zaphod B]

I hadn't had this much fun since I closed the cat's tail in the fridge...

For even more fun, try giving it a bath!

 

[ggunn]

One thing that I guess should be mentioned herein is the subjectiveness of hearing, i.e., the tendency for someone to hear a difference if that person expects there to be one. For example, I read a the results of a study conducted by Stereo Review (which is like a Consumer Reports for audio gear) where they got several "golden ear" guys to listen to the same content over the same high end audio equipment (assembled by consensus of the guys being tested) varying only the speaker cable. Some of these very guys had written glowing reviews of exotic (read:expensive) cables. The result: not a single one of them could simply by listening discern the low oxygen, exotically braided, hideously expensive speaker cable from zip cord bought at the hardware store.

 

[faderbug]

One thing that I guess should be mentioned herein is the subjectiveness of hearing, i.e., the tendency for someone to hear a difference if that person expects there to be one. For example, I read a the results of a study conducted by Stereo Review (which is like a Consumer Reports for audio gear) where they got several "golden ear" guys to listen to the same content over the same high end audio equipment (assembled by consensus of the guys being tested) varying only the speaker cable. Some of these very guys had written glowing reviews of exotic (read:expensive) cables. The result: not a single one of them could simply by listening discern the low oxygen, exotically braided, hideously expensive speaker cable from zip cord bought at the hardware store.

i'll second that.

a lot of the discussions about cables but also pick-ups, tubes, speakers, ... are total nonsense.

 

[MCI2424]

Let's say I build myself a Warmoth, and spec it to be as close to a LP as possible - mahogany body, maple cap, mohogany neck, rosewood fingerboard, proper electronics, etc.

One big difference is the neck joint, where a kit guitar is bolt-on and the guitar I'd be trying to copy has a set neck.

How would the tone be affected by the difference in the neck joint?

This stuff is recycled over so many times it makes me nauseous. I have had:
Great sounding Fenders with endless sustain
Shitty sounding Fenders with no sustain
Great sounding Gibsons with endless sustain
Shitty sounding Gibsons with no sustain.
And everything in between.

Whatever is going on here, I could care less because after 40 years playing guitars, owning all kinds and having "guitar experts" tell me about bolt vs. setnecks, all my experience tells me that the neck attachment system has nothing to do with anything, really.

 

[muttley600]

One thing that I guess should be mentioned herein is the subjectiveness of hearing, i.e., the tendency for someone to hear a difference if that person expects there to be one. For example, I read a the results of a study conducted by Stereo Review (which is like a Consumer Reports for audio gear) where they got several "golden ear" guys to listen to the same content over the same high end audio equipment (assembled by consensus of the guys being tested) varying only the speaker cable. Some of these very guys had written glowing reviews of exotic (read:expensive) cables. The result: not a single one of them could simply by listening discern the low oxygen, exotically braided, hideously expensive speaker cable from zip cord bought at the hardware store.

Psychoacoustics. Even more of a minefield than the "real" thing. There has been quite a bit of study on that as well. In blind tests of fine old Italian violins against modern handbuilt violins. No-one could pick the so called old Italian masters. Most could seperate them from the more basic student models and Chinese factory made violins. In order of the ability to pick the istrument blindfold was, last place the musicians, secound place Joe public, and first place the instrument makers. There wasn't much of a gap though. I think there is little doubt that musicians percieve the instrument to be better and often a more expensive instrument is better able to respond to the player. The performance is therefore better. As to the supposed superiority of older instruments. The Jury is out as far as I'm concerned.

Cables and hi-fi, I have no real experience of the really high end stuff but I don't think I'd be able to tell them apart. I just get the best I can afford.

Pickups I think are an important part of shaping the sound of a finished instrument. I have my favs, but it is a lot easier to imperically seperate them in terms of impedence, wire gauge, turns and magnet etc. It does get a little murkier when people start talking about the merits of one years humbucker against another of what is essentially the same pickup..If anyone says they can tell them apart thats good enough for me, but most times I can't.

 

[muttley600]

Whatever is going on here, I could care less because after 40 years playing guitars, owning all kinds and having "guitar experts" tell me about bolt vs. setnecks, all my experience tells me that the neck attachment system has nothing to do with anything, really.

Thats fine if it works for you but my 30 years of building, repairing and playing instruments tells me the opposite. How much it effects the finished sound is debatable..

 

[ggunn]

Thats fine if it works for you but my 30 years of building, repairing and playing instruments tells me the opposite. How much it effects the finished sound is debatable..

And that, as well as MCI2424's commentary, is anecdotal evidence. That's not to say that there isn't extensive experiential anecdotal evidence out there, or that it isn't worth anything, but it's still opinion when you try to apply it to the general case.

 

[muttley600]

And that, as well as MCI2424's commentary, is anecdotal evidence. That's not to say that there isn't extensive experiential anecdotal evidence out there, or that it isn't worth anything, but it's still opinion when you try to apply it to the general case.

Well my opinion is "anecdotal" but the laws of physics and mechanics are not. There is more evidence to prove a bolt on and a set neck will have different charactoristics as opposed to none that I am aware of to suggests it will have no effect. How much effect it will have is debatable. What is experimental anecdotal eveidence?? I'm unclear what you mean there??

 

[Jouni]

How many here claims he can spot a Gibson les paul or a Strat/tele or my ibanez destroyer apart behind a distortion/overdrive scene?... Clean, perhaps..
Or a real tube amp from a good modeling box?..

I'd be clueless.

More important yet.. what percentage of your targeted audience has a frickin' clue of that......??

Especially after all the eq, compressing and whatnot done in mixing/mastering...

Someone with a lot of gear should really make a "guess the setup"-thread.

 

[32-20-Blues]

More important yet.. what percentage of your targeted audience has a frickin' clue of that......??

You're right in that regard. Unless you plan on becoming 'a guitarist's guitarist,' some things are undeniably less important than most would have you believe.

However, I suppose the crux of the issue is that you will know what you're playing, and, if you are comfortable with a particular set-up, you will consequently play better.

 

[ggunn]

Well my opinion is "anecdotal" but the laws of physics and mechanics are not. There is more evidence to prove a bolt on and a set neck will have different charactoristics as opposed to none that I am aware of to suggests it will have no effect. How much effect it will have is debatable. What is experimental anecdotal eveidence?? I'm unclear what you mean there??

To what evidence are you referring? At the start of this I asked if there was any hard data, and I thought that the answer was that there wasn't any. Did I miss something? I may not have read every entry in this thread.

Experimental anecdotal evidence means you tried something and got the results you expected, but there's no proof that you got the results you wanted strictly because of what you tried, i.e., there may be other uncontrolled and unquantified variables at work which influenced your results.

Also, understand that I have not taken a stand on this issue. I have taken many physics and materials science courses (I hold two technical degrees, one in the pure sciences and one in engineering), and the intuition I developed in doing so tells me that there shouldn't be much if any difference between gluing two pieces of wood together and bolting the same two pieces securely together in terms of their capacity to exchange vibrational energy, but that's anecdotal, isn't it? ;^)

 

[TelePaul]

guitar schmitar, thats what I say....

......

 

[Slowrider]

It all depends on the Quality of the joint. Done right, it can be everybit as solid as neckthru. Hell, the strings don't know or care about how they are strung. Think of structural steel joints. They had better be done right or that building will fail.

 

[32-20-Blues]

guitar schmitar, thats what I say....

......

I agree. The guitar is firewood.

Now, the ukulele will emerge from the shadow of it's larger antecedent, and assume it's rightful position as a tool in the hands of millions.

 

[TelePaul]

I agree. The guitar is firewood.

Now, the ukulele will emerge from the shadow of it's larger antecedent, and assume it's rightful position as a tool in the hands of millions.

I'm currently running my tenor Uke through a JCM 800 full stack....unreal sound. I cranked it to the max with a TS808 and levelled the local orphanage. Ukes RULE!!!

 

[muttley600]

To what evidence are you referring? At the start of this I asked if there was any hard data, and I thought that the answer was that there wasn't any. Did I miss something? I may not have read every entry in this thread.

Experimental anecdotal evidence means you tried something and got the results you expected, but there's no proof that you got the results you wanted strictly because of what you tried, i.e., there may be other uncontrolled and unquantified variables at work which influenced your results.

Also, understand that I have not taken a stand on this issue. I have taken many physics and materials science courses (I hold two technical degrees, one in the pure sciences and one in engineering), and the intuition I developed in doing so tells me that there shouldn't be much if any difference between gluing two pieces of wood together and bolting the same two pieces securely together in terms of their capacity to exchange vibrational energy, but that's anecdotal, isn't it? ;^)

I haven't accused you of taking a stand either way, but if anyones understanding of the transfer of phsical tranverse or longitudinal waves through solid anistropic materials of a known mass per unit and the action of sound propagation on boundary materials within acoustic models, leads them to beleive there would be no effective difference you'd be wrong.. The evidence is there in everything from the basic Cladni plate experiments and the later work done by Carleen Hutchins right up to the work done by Curtin and others examining the impedence of acoustic materials used in instrument construction. I posted some links earlier in the thread which is a good start point for examination

Anyone can deny the findings and accuse it of being "anecdotal evidence" but that dosent stop the laws of physics and mechanics from holding true. At the boundary of both joints soundwaves will experience different levels of damping or impedence, diffraction, refraction and reflection. Every basic physics course that covers wave theory often starts with the manner in which sound waves behave and what is taught in them can explain all of the above without going into detailed analysis.

I happen to agree that an awful lot of the research done is published with very unsound conclusions and often very far from the original abstract, That dosent mean that things arnt going on that are worthy of further study.

Boundaries in acoustics has also been widely research in the aircraft and military but with objectives other than refining sound rather they wish to eliminate it.

I have qualified all along the real debate is how much the sound is effected at the body joint not that is isn't.

It all depends on the Quality of the joint. Done right, it can be everybit as solid as neckthru. Hell, the strings don't know or care about how they are strung. Think of structural steel joints. They had better be done right or that building will fail.

Structural steel joints arn't generaly required to propogate soundwaves effectively so I'm not sure how that applies. Sure they need to work from a structural point of view but so does the neck joint of a guitar and both joints work well. Just as an aside take a look and see what happens when a structural engineer gets his wave theory wrong. The Tacoma Bridge Fantastic..

 

[Elton Bear]

The only thing I have to say on the subject.. You can't bend a straightthrough!

 

[ggunn]

Just as an aside take a look and see what happens when a structural engineer gets his wave theory wrong. The Tacoma Bridge Fantastic..

A large photo of the ruins of the Tacoma Narrows bridge was up in one of the Engineering buildings at UT (Texas) when I was in school that had the caption:

MISPLACED DECIMAL POINT? NO PARTIAL CREDIT!

You know a lotta buzzwords, muttley, I'll grant you that! ;^)

 

[muttley600]

You know a lotta buzzwords, muttley, I'll grant you that! ;^)

Nah, I just gotta useless Masters Degree in Musical acoustics.

Misplaced decimal point Something similar happened here in London when they built the Millenium footbridge. They took ages to find out what was happening as the bridger started to violently wobble as people crossed it. The Engineers in question were called and explained there calculations and sure enough everything was fine.. A while later and after much head scratching they found out the public were to blame. Turns out that without knowing it you fall into step with others as you cross a bridge by just feeling the slightest acoustic response. Put a bunch of people on the bridge and they would set it into motion.

Much money and time later they built damping into it and all is well.