What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

[Fusion1]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I'm surprised I'm the first to say this in the entire thread. For me I prefer wider necks and the thick or thinness is second nature. My favorite neck on an electric is the one on an Ibanez 540PII the pseudo "Alex Skolnick" model, which has a 1 7/8" width compared to their normal 43mm neck widths.

I'd prefer a 7 string neck width only for 6 string guitar. Probably why I bothered to buy a couple of 8 strings for the wider necks as they feel right in my hands.

I always wondered why there weren't classical 2" width necks with no radius on at least 1 electric guitar. That would do it for me!

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I'm surprised I'm the first to say this in the entire thread. For me I prefer wider necks and the thick or thinness is second nature. My favorite neck on an electric is the one on an Ibanez 540PII the pseudo "Alex Skolnick" model, which has a 1 7/8" width compared to their normal 43mm neck widths.

I'd prefer a 7 string neck width only for 6 string guitar. Probably why I bothered to buy a couple of 8 strings for the wider necks as they feel right in my hands.

I always wondered why there weren't classical 2" width necks with no radius on at least 1 electric guitar. That would do it for me!

 

[Progbusters]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I guess you all will like the 2015 Les Pauls. FWIW my Baja Tele has the soft V thick neck and I can dig it.

 

[B2D]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I guess you all will like the 2015 Les Pauls. FWIW my Baja Tele has the soft V thick neck and I can dig it.

I dunno what Gibson was thinking but the new crop of Les Pauls with those metal nuts have one of the most uncomfortable back contours I've ever felt on an instrument.

 

[DreX]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

My theory about the prevalence of thin necks: thin necks are more conducive to the "thumb over" style of lead guitar, especially with blues style playing popularized by Hendrix and SRV. If you're just playing chords then neck thickness doesn't usually matter one way or another, but if you're playing lead and fanning your fingers out to reach all over the fret board, having your thumb wrapped around a large neck seriously inhibits your maneuverability, and in this case a thin neck frees up a lot more "hand". If you have your guitar low slung down by your belt line, this further decreases your reach since there's now a more dramatic angle in your wrist and you can't articulate your arm as much, either. Traditionally, guitars were held higher up, wither with a strap or by virtue of being in a sitting position, and the thumb was to be placed at the back of the neck, not over it, and in that context a thicker neck is not a problem, hence the classical guitar neck, which is like the ultimate thick neck.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

Your theory needs some reworking. Both SRV and Hendrix played C shaped necks which are middle of the road in terms of thickness. I wouldnt call them thin. Thinner than a 50's baseball bat..sure... but they are sure as hell thicker than like an Ibanez wizard or Jackson speed neck. Thin necks were really born out of the 80's and the shredder movement.

 

[DreX]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I didn't say a thin neck was necessary to play Hendrix/SRV, I said it was more conducive to it. If thin necks owe to the 80's shredding, why didn't thin necks diminish along with 80's shredding, or why isn't it at least a feature exclusive to Super Strats and other shredder guitars, like say, Floyd Rose's?

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

But they did diminish? Even Jackson and Ibanez put out fuller more rounded necks now. Even on shred sticky looking guitars. The newer iterations of the wizard neck are a good bit thicker than the first version. Show me a vintage styled strat with a thin shredder neck. Not a 60's C neck but an actual thin U shredder neck.

 

[DreX]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

You're talking thin and thinner, it's all in the same ball park. The OP from 2012 was saying he'd have to get a GE Smith sig Tele to get the fat neck he wanted, so that's the scale we're talking.

I don't have a lot of points of comparison, but I do have some 335 style guitars and a Zematis with a neck that feels like a baseball bat, along with other guitars that have much thinner necks, and I can easily observe how changes in music styles popular from the late 60's onward are easier to execute with the thinner neck.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

Its semantics... To me a 60's C neck is a medium thickness neck.

I do agree that as the musical styles have evolved so has the neck shape. But interestingly in the last 10 or so years there has been a resurgence of interest in huge baseball bat sized necks. In the 90's would have been almost impossible to find a .900 thickness neck on a production guitar now you have options available.

Where I dont agree is that it was Hendrix and SRV thumb over style playing that propelled the change in neck shape.

 

[firebirdguy72]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I really am not a fan of thin C necks. At least with the slightly more curved fretboards. Like my classic vibe neck. It's got a pretty Damn thin C and a 9.5" radius board. Can't stand it. To me a thin back needs a flat board. Otherwise it's just not comfortable for me.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

My theory about the prevalence of thin necks: thin necks are more conducive to the "thumb over" style of lead guitar, especially with blues style playing popularized by Hendrix and SRV. If you're just playing chords then neck thickness doesn't usually matter one way or another, but if you're playing lead and fanning your fingers out to reach all over the fret board, having your thumb wrapped around a large neck seriously inhibits your maneuverability, and in this case a thin neck frees up a lot more "hand". If you have your guitar low slung down by your belt line, this further decreases your reach since there's now a more dramatic angle in your wrist and you can't articulate your arm as much, either. Traditionally, guitars were held higher up, wither with a strap or by virtue of being in a sitting position, and the thumb was to be placed at the back of the neck, not over it, and in that context a thicker neck is not a problem, hence the classical guitar neck, which is like the ultimate thick neck.

I don't know about all this jazz. One of the guys I made music with for 10 years plays thumb over style on his 1" thick fatback or "baseball bat" Warmoth Indian rosewood Strat neck. He has big hands. SRV had huge hands and Hendrix had long fingers. I can play some thumb over on my 59 roundbacks and I have stubby fingers and thumbs.

I'm pretty sure neck profile does not influence thumb over styles so much as the size of the hands do.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I don't know about all this jazz. One of the guys I made music with for 10 years plays thumb over style on his 1" thick fatback or "baseball bat" Warmoth Indian rosewood Strat neck. He has big hands. SRV had huge hands and Hendrix had long fingers. I can play some thumb over on my 59 roundbacks and I have stubby fingers and thumbs.

I'm pretty sure neck profile does not influence thumb over styles so much as the size of the hands do.

Funny enough I play thumb over... on Ibby wizards and Jackson speed necks moreover my hands arent particularly large. But i would never consider myself representative of players at large.

 

[MEESTERIDLE]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

Why not build your own thru Warmoth or Carvin?

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

Why not build your own thru Warmoth or Carvin?

To whom are you posing your question?

 

[Archer250]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

Funny enough I play thumb over... on Ibby wizards and Jackson speed necks moreover my hands arent particularly large. But i would never consider myself representative of players at large.

Same here. Gotta control that vibrato.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

I find fatter necks preferable for thumb-over. It all comes down to where your finger and thumb joints land on the neck shoulder. I really had a tough time with the 52RI v profile until I tried it with the full on thumb-over style. Far more comfortable!

The 62RI C is quite nice to me.

 

[DreX]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

If someone says "I have / SRV had large hands and big necks don't bother me" then you're by definition talking about the exceptions, not the rule. The question is why did the average guitarist with average hands trend towards thinner necks in recent decades. The kind of hands SRV had doesn't matter, what matters is what kind of hands does the average person have who wants to play like SRV.

AFAIK acoustics have always had larger necks, especially since the truss rod situation wasn't always so refined, and we know Fenders originally had thicker strings with a wound G string, hence the Strat's vintage stagger. The main reason anyone would have to changing the status quo would be string bending, it's a little easier to play with lower action and lighter tension, but it's much, much easier to bend the strings with lighter tension, as well as with a flatter radius neck for that matter. To me it looks like a transition from electrics that were meant to feel like acoustics, to faster, more aggressive blues / metal machines.

 

[Snake Aces]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

If someone says "I have / SRV had large hands and big necks don't bother me" then you're by definition talking about the exceptions, not the rule. The question is why did the average guitarist with average hands trend towards thinner necks in recent decades. The kind of hands SRV had doesn't matter, what matters is what kind of hands does the average person have who wants to play like SRV.

I don't know, you brought up Hendrix and SRV so I was just pointing out the obvious. To me, it's irrelevant what size hands the average player who wants to play like Hendrix or SRV has because we are talking about Hendrix and SRV... not the average player who wants to play like them. So, again, I do believe the size of the hands on the player matters when it comes to that player's playing style... no matter how famous or unknown that player is.

 

[MEESTERIDLE]

Re: What the heck is with guitar manufacturers and thin necks?

To whom are you posing your question?

I guess to OP