New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

[Petros]

I replaced the old neck I had on a Squire strat. The change in tone was so obvious I had to alter the volume pot from a little over 500K to 300K to get about the same tone, and it's still a little brighter. Both necks are maple with rosewood fingerboard. Both fingerboards are unfinished except for lemon oil. Both necks have about the same gloss finish. Both have nickel frets. Here's the obvious differences:

1. The new neck has more total mass. It's thicker (distance from back of neck to top of fretboard).

2. Frets are new and unused on the new neck, so the frets are higher. The crown shape is also more round compared to original neck. The original neck had frets worn down low to the point only a wide crown was possible.

Should I have expected the instrument to have a brighter tone with the new neck?


(Scroll down for pics.)

 

[AlexR]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

Welcome to the world of construction differences. They all do something to the tone, and due to interactivity it is almost impossible to predict the final outcome on paper.

 

[greekdude]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I replaced the old neck I had on a Squire strat. The change in tone was so obvious I had to alter the volume pot from a little over 500K to 300K to get about the same tone, and it's still a little brighter. Both necks are maple with rosewood fingerboard. Both fingerboards are unfinished except for lemon oil. Both necks have about the same gloss finish. Both have nickel frets. Here's the obvious differences:

1. The new neck has more total mass. It's thicker (distance from back of neck to top of fretboard).

2. Frets are new and unused on the new neck, so the frets are higher. The crown shape is also more round compared to original neck. The original neck had frets worn down low to the point only a wide crown was possible.

Should I have expected the instrument to have a brighter tone with the new neck?

No way!! We have some nuclear Nobelists in here who claim that woods/materials don't matter.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I don't think it's necessarily the thickness or the frets. Most pieces of wood sound a little different; some can sound very different. Two necks that are spec'd the same won't necessarily sound and feel the same. Sometimes they're close. Sometimes not. I've come across this when checking out brand new guitars. Same year, same model, same everything- different personalities.

IMO necks are more important tonewise than most players seem to recognize. Based on my experiences I think neck might be more important than body when it comes to a guitar's character. I know this has been true for me with bolt-ons. Haven't changed the neck on any set-neck guitars but I imagine it would probably hold true for them also.

 

[dave74]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I'm sure there will be reasons for some why it isn't the thicker slab of maple making a difference.



Being serious though eclecticsynergy has a good point that it very well could simply be a brighter-toned piece of maple,,period.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

Do you have pics of the grain pattern for both? Wood is organic and no two pieces are identical. Also, are the fret material material the same? Stainless Steel frets (which will out-last the wood basically lol) have been accused of being "brighter."

 

[Mincer]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

Welcome to the world of construction differences. They all do something to the tone, and due to interactivity it is almost impossible to predict the final outcome on paper.

^This. I don't know if you can pin it down to one part of the neck causing it, though. It is just different. Anyone who has experimented with body woods would tell you the same thing (even the same body woods).

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I have experienced the same thing swapping necks. I think necks play a bigger role in tone than some think.

Regarding Stainless frets, Frank Falbo had a fascinating explanation on the Amps & Axes podcast, essentially explaining that the tonal difference is the strings "slapping" on the frets causing the change in tone. He fretted a guitar with Stainless in the cowboy chord area and standard for the rest and it sounded like a regular fretted guitar, EVEN when the strings were fretted on the Stainless frets.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I have experienced the same thing swapping necks. I think necks play a bigger role in tone than some think.

Regarding Stainless frets, Frank Falbo had a fascinating explanation on the Amps & Axes podcast, essentially explaining that the tonal difference is the strings "slapping" on the frets causing the change in tone. He fretted a guitar with Stainless in the cowboy chord area and standard for the rest and it sounded like a regular fretted guitar, EVEN when the strings were fretted on the Stainless frets.

I haven't A/B'd a guitar/neck that had Nickel/Silver and then was refretted to SS, so I have no clue of if they are "brighter" or not.

I do know they make string bends feel like I'm not digging into the frets and show no sign of wear at all on my guitars. (I'm a big fan personally)

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I'd like to try them, but it would probably be on a new neck rather than refret.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I'd like to try them, but it would probably be on a new neck rather than refret.

For the cost of a refret I'd go with a new neck personally...with Roasted QS Maple :smokin:

 

[Petros]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?


A full view of the front of the new neck.



You can see the difference in the thickness of the two necks (new neck is on the right). Other pic shows the back of the two necks and difference in grain (new neck is on the right).



An attempt to photograph the frets showing difference in height between the two necks. The original neck with worn down frets and wider crown is at the bottom. (Click on the pic for larger view.)


Again, both are maple necks, both have rosewood fingerboards, both have nickel frets (neither is stainless). I do not know the manufacturer of the new neck. I got it from Guitar Fetish for $17.50 as a"factory buyout" clearance item. It needed lots of work (sanding, fret dress, and finish) but it's straight, has interesting inlays, has a good truss rod, and it fit the instrument.

 

[AlexR]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I have had two rosewood fretboards from a supplier that sells them in bundles - they are fretboard blanks from the same piece of lumber. Two of them I got which were adjacent in the tree tap tested 3 semitones apart from each other. Thats a serious amount for 2 bits of wood a saw kerf away from each other for 50 or so years.

 

[Petros]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I have had two rosewood fretboards from a supplier that sells them in bundles - they are fretboard blanks from the same piece of lumber. Two of them I got which were adjacent in the tree tap tested 3 semitones apart from each other. Thats a serious amount for 2 bits of wood a saw kerf away from each other for 50 or so years.

You mean three semitones will be heard as one sounding brighter than the other in the finished neck once installed?

Then maybe a major difference between the two necks I have in which the new one is making the instrument sound brighter is a matter of the type of rosewood, or perhaps the age of the rosewood.



New neck is at the top (Click pic for larger view). The original neck (bottom) may be darker because of years of lemon oil. The original neck has a date on it that says it's from 1999.

 

[AlexR]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

You cannot say quite how a bit of wood will work with another. But if we take resonant frequency of a pickup as an example I would say yes, the one with the higher tap-tone would influence the back wood to reproduce the higher frequencies slightly better.

But this can backfire if the two wood bits cancel frequencies rather than enhance them. Its all a lottery - especially as you have different bits of maple as well as bits of rosewood.
And whilst it is a nice exercise to speculate on, it changes nothing to know where your brightness comes from - only that you have a different tone that will either be an improvement or something you need to counteract.

edit - another thought - your higher frets will have most likely meant a different setup. Have you altered pickup height to suit?? Lower pickup height can thin the tone too.

 

[Davii]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

Nut material?

 

[Clint 55]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

The main thing is probably individual differences in wood like everybody's saying. There could be other things too like fret size/shape/material, nut material, finish thickness and material, and different radii.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

I do know they make string bends feel like I'm not digging into the frets and show no sign of wear at all on my guitars. (I'm a big fan personally)

That's my favorite thing about stainless steel frets also. It doesn't feel like I'm sawing away half the fret when I do bends.

 

[eclecticsynergy]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

A couple observations based on the pics- the original neck looks pretty thin; the new one has not just deeper maple but a substantially thicker slab of rosewood. Hard to tell from the pics how much heel the old one had, but the new one definitely has some and that can make for a less lively headstock and a stiffer feel. Stiffer neck usually equals brighter tone since a livelier neck will soak up some high end. (Higher frequencies are more easily absorbed since they carry less kinetic energy, that's why just about any wall blocks treble while it's quite hard to build a wall that blocks much bass.) Two of my Floydcasters are very similar (built for me by the same guy just a couple months apart, in late '79 and early '80). The '80 has more heel and it's noticeably stiffer and brighter. I've swapped pickguards between them so I know it's in the guitar itself. Might be the heel, might be the wood, might be something else. The frets on your new neck are heavier- thicker as well as taller. Even with a narrower crown, they have more mass and tend to feel smoother & give better sustain but they might also sound a little more metallic. Maybe not on every guitar though. Difference in pickup height was another good suggestion. For some pickups a change in height that's too small to see can result in an amazing change to the sound. As AlexR said, even set up for exactly the same action, that slight difference in fret depth could translate to significantly altered response from your pickups.

Can't say that any of that necessarily has a bearing on the tone difference you're hearing. I still think it comes down mostly to the individual pieces of wood.

Yet as others have said here and elsewhere, many small factors enter into the equation.

A guitar is a pretty simple device. But tone is a really complicated thing.




EDIT: Just to be clear, when I was writing this and referred to a heel making the headstock less lively, I was referring to the area where it transitions from back-of-neck to back-of-headstock, not the other end where it attaches to the body. I know some would call this a volute, but to me that term seems somehow inappropriate to a Strat type neck. Can't say why, exactly. Anyway, some necks have it to a greater or lesser degree while others don't. And IME this makes a difference in the feel and seems to affect tone too. Apologies to any who might have found my terminology confusing.

 

[ehdwuld]

Re: New Bolt-on Replacement Neck Made Strat Sound Brighter?

did the new neck get new strings as well