Neck wood or Body wood

[WhoFan]

i've been hearing from some Youtube clips that the solid body guitar most important part for tone is the wood in the neck... more important then the body wood.... Robert Godin believes this to be true.... so i wonder if you try to improve a dead sounding strat by using a new neck would it make a massive difference... i may pop the neck off another strat that sounds great and see if it makes a huge difference.... and i'm talking high quality strats here... USA and Custom Shop parts

so what do you guys believe... body wood or neck wood more important in making differences in tone?

 

[dreadguard268]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

I read somewhere that its like 70% neck and 30% body when it comes to that. I'm not sure if I completely believe this, and I'm not entirely sure where I read it, but in some kind of way it makes sense, in my head at least lol.

 

[Jocelyn]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

I feel the fretboard has a lot to do with the tone.More than the Neck wood. I do believe the body wood does affect the over all tone too.

 

[verbotenco]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

If it's electric guitar with full effects and amp, it doesn't really matter. Different thing if it's acoustic.

 

[elelpe]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

so i wonder if you try to improve a dead sounding strat by using a new neck would it make a massive difference...

I did that with great result (a new neck for my dead sounding thinline). I have swapped necks and bodies (with same pickup, electronic and parts and also same amp settings) and I tend to believe that.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

It all works together and it makes a difference, and I believe that the neck is the most crucial thing on any guitar regardless of construction type. Last week i swapped my tele neck for my strat neck. Tele lost its mojo and became very bland sounding. But that strat neck on my strat sounds great.

Problem is you dont know if you are making an improvement or not until you try it.

 

[Mr. B]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

It all works together and it makes a difference, and I believe that the neck is the most crucial thing on any guitar regardless of construction type. Last week i swapped my tele neck for my strat neck. Tele lost its mojo and became very bland sounding. But that strat neck on my strat sounds great.

Problem is you dont know if you are making an improvement or not until you try it.

Strat neck pockets are rounded in the corners and tele neck pockets are squared off... How did you get them to fit ??

 

[JeffB]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

Strat neck will fit on a tele, but not vice versa.

 

[Gypsyblue]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

It's EVERYTHING: body wood, neck wood, fingerboard wood and also how the neck is attached. Also the bridge, tailpiece and tuners. A great guitar sounds resonant from the get go - I've never been able to make a dead sounding guitar sound great by swapping parts. A guitar either rings like a bell and has "it" or it doesn't - regardless of what it's made out of.

 

[JollyRoger523]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

Strat necks are easy enough to change. If you have another neck readily available then give it a try and you will know for sure.

 

[That90'sGuy]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

I'm a firm believer that everything counts as well. It's all about finding the right match for the body to the neck. I think on the dead sounding guitars, they simply don't resonate properly from the body to the neck. It would seem (to me anyways) that swapping out one or the other would yield similar results. That said, it makes more sense (in theory to me) that the body has a more important effect on the sound in electric guitar (especially where pickups are mounted directly to the body instead of free-floating). Then again, if you're a builder with the amount of experience Godin has, it really makes you think twice.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

I'm a bit sceptic to the idea that neckwood is more important in the tone equation (at least with electric guitars) than bodywood.

 

[idsnowdog]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

It depends on what you mean by neck wood? Fretboard material makes a big difference, but I'm not so sure that the underlying wood makes much of a difference? Every time I have thought I had a dead sounding body changing the fretboard material made a world of difference.

 

[DarkMatter]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

The reason most believe (myself included)that the neck matters more is because on an electric guitar the only way wood can change the sound at all is through the the dampening of string vibration. The neck is long, narrow, and unsupported in the middle, which gives it more compliance than the body. On most electrics, if you strum across the open strings and lightly touch the neck you'll feel more vibration than doing the same on the body.

 

[drpietrzak]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

I think for a given player it is the the amp, speaker, pickups other factors. In that order.

 

[TheLivingDead]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

It all matters... But neck construction, material and quality makes a bigger difference imo.

 

[Myaccount876]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

They ALL work together. Also, construction method of the body or neck is almost always overlooked in what contributes to the overall sound. Thickness/cutaway(s)/hardware/solid-chambered-semi hollow-hollow, all of which make a HUGE difference. In some cases, the neck will make the biggest difference, and in others, the body. It all depends on A TON of variables, including but not limited to: amp, genre/playing style, cables, pedals, strings, fingers, picking touch, frets, nut, etc.

Though for the most part, each wood has a characteristic, and everything works together. Though as a little info for all the other builders on the forum, oak is a great and durable/stable tonewood to use. It has quite of a bit of a darker sound, close to mahogany, maybe darker. Matches very well with a maple neck. I just need to experiment with it more in different styles of guitars. I used it in a telecaster, maple/maple neck, Floyd Rose, Alnico II pickup wound to 8.4K (42 AWG wire), if I remember correctly. Has a lot of sustain with very nice decay. Has beautiful cleans.

 

[astrozombie]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

Most of my guitars have been fenders. they have all basically had the same kind of neck (rosewood+maple) except my tele which was all maple.

they sounded nothing alike.

 

[frankfalbo]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

Agree or disagree: "A Les Paul with a Maple neck sounds more like a Les Paul than a Les Paul with a Swamp Ash or Alder body."

This is like saying "Pizza tastes different if you replace the cheese with carrot shavings" while your friend replies "No, it tastes more different if you replace the sauce with strawberry pie filling" and then some ignoramus on YouTube says the crust might as well be particleboard because all its doing is carrying the toppings.

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Neck wood or Body wood

Agree or disagree: "A Les Paul with a Maple neck sounds more like a Les Paul than a Les Paul with a Swamp Ash or Alder body."

This is like saying "Pizza tastes different if you replace the cheese with carrot shavings" while your friend replies "No, it tastes more different if you replace the sauce with strawberry pie filling" and then some ignoramus on YouTube says the crust might as well be particleboard because all its doing is carrying the toppings.

I like that.