1-3/4" (44.45mm) nut width good for shred?

[tomroffey666]

I've never tried the 1-3/4" (44.45mm) nut width and wondering if it is any good for metal and shred? arty07:

 

[Superbeast520]

Yeah if your Paul Bunyan  :laughing7:....a little wide, but some people may like that, I think it would be ok if it had a very flat fingerboard radius, definantly not a traditional shred width.

 

[Dan025]

1-11/16 is plenty wide enough for most people but the wider nuts work good for that type of playing if you ask me, but if you have ever had a problem with pulling the high e string off the edge of the fretboard then you might want to stick to a more traditional nut size. since the heel of the neck cant get wider or it wont fit the pocket making the nut wider brings the E stings closer to the edge at the heel.

 

[RU36]

I am playing on a 1 3/4 nut width, standard thin full scallop 16inch radius "shred" neck right now.
I have large hands, my pointer to pinky stretch is comfortable from first to 8th fret on a strat style neck.
Also I am originally a classical guitar player so I figured I should go with the wide nut due to those two factors.

After playing on it I have decided it's NOT that good for fast riffs and leads.
Although its great for finger picking on the electric.

Here is what I don't like about it.
1)  like dan025 said, the string fall off the side of the fretboard way to easy, and if you have stainless frets like this neck does its even worse becuase the strings slide much easier when bending and doing vibrato.
2) Its defiantly slower doing arpeggios and string skipping licks and even a little slower crossing strings with scales.The slight string spread makes a difference you can defiantly feel.
3) usually when I play leads and am sustaining a note I am using the side of my fretting finger to mute the neighboring strings so they dont ring or bleed.
Its a little harder to do with the wider string gaps.

I went through my whole guitar collection and played on all the necks to see what one felt the fastest. I also went to Guitar Center and played on a ton of guitars and brought calipers to measure the necks on the ones i liked.

All the killer fast guitars that were great for lead had a narrow nut 43mm or 1 5/8 inches.
Flatter radius, mostly 14 - 16
Stainless steel frets bend easy and feel really smooth, way better in my opinion
The fastest neck shape was the thinner back profile for sure.
And set up is real important to, obviously low action helps a lot.

Of course this is only my experience and you should play on as many guitars as you can and find the feel you like.

 

[tomroffey666]

Thank you very much for the insight guys! I will defiantly go with the 1-11/16 width. Also do you think compound radius is better than just a 14 or 16 radius fingerboard for shred?

Cheers

 

[Dan025]

Thank you very much for the insight guys! I will defiantly go with the 1-11/16 width. Also do you think compound radius is better than just a 14 or 16 radius fingerboard for shred?

Cheers

i need to do the math but my honest opinion is yes. it is a matter of string taper matching cone taper on the fret board, a cylindrocal fret board would need parallel strings for lowest action, but this is a matter of matching the cone to the strings, warmoths compound may be designed around a particular nut/bridge combo and maybe will work better with a certain nut and bridge relationship. i can look at it later to figure the best combo but now i need sleep.

edit: the warmoth compound seems to be a good compromise between diferent classic fender combos, 1-5/8 nut with either vintage or modern factory trems as well as floyd rose and other after market, or 1-11/16 and maybe 1-3/4 with vintage trem. maybe a TOM will work with 1-9/16 nut but thats very narrow.

for shred with a 1-11/16 and a floyd it's a toss up, depends on if you bend at the lower frets, if you do i think that a 16" radius is better. with a strait radius a little added relief helps compensate for the hump a string sees on a path not parallel with the cylinders surface, it's not a big deal as guitars were made this way for centuries. leveling frets with a long strait edge and sand paper instead of a radius block and following the string path can also fix the hump.

 

[tomroffey666]

Ok thanks mate!  :headbang:

 

[RU36]

I Called warmoth and asked them about the compound radius and what it is optimal set up was and the answer I got was 1 5/8 nut with a 18.5 radius at the bridge.

Like I said I have a straight 16 and you can bend it all over the place and it never frets out anywhere on the neck but, its not very comfortable on the 1st through 7th fret area.

Let us know how it works out.

 

[tomroffey666]

Ah ok i see! I'm just going to go with the compound radius and 1-11/16 width it seems to suit me the best. But thank you very much for the help!

Cheers

 

[stubhead]

I have my scalloped neck Tele setup with a 1 3/4" nut width, but I made the string spacing on the nut like that of a 1 11/16" guitar, with all of the extra space on the treble side. This is specifically to avoid the high E string falling off - I wanted as much room as possible. You just about can't pull the high E string off unless you're trying to - that, BTW, is a deal-killer for me on half the guitars I see, I can't stand strings too close to the edge. Goodbye, "classic" Fenders...

The width of the neck doesn't determine how far the string is from the edge, the way you cut the nut does. :guitaristgif: