1 piece Goncalo versus maple back with rosewood fingerboard

[NSC217]

This is the tone that I want though I don't love his pickups. I basically had this tone with my previous maple/rosewood neck with my amp volume very low, relatively. Then I replaced that neck with maple/rosewood with fatter back and now that warmth part of the tone is not there and it's just brittle sounding. I want a neck that can basically get me as close to this tone without risking my not getting it. http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?xl=xl_blazer&v=zl2wQSd758k
Thanks!

This may even be a tad brighter than what I'm looking for

 

[shan564]

If you liked your thin maple/rosewood neck, why not just get another one of those?  I guess you prefer fat necks?

If you're specifically looking for a fat neck that's just slightly warmer than maple/rosewood, then koa/ebony or 1-piece bubinga might work for you, or maybe pau ferro/ebony.  I've heard that canary is just slightly warmer than maple, so that might also work, but I've never actually played a canary neck.

 

[Steve_Karl]

This is the tone that I want though I don't love his pickups. I basically had this tone with my previous maple/rosewood neck with my amp volume very low, relatively. Then I replaced that neck with maple/rosewood with fatter back and now that warmth part of the tone is not there and it's just brittle sounding.

That's why I was wondering about the "fatter necks have more tone" quote and how a fatter neck might be more dominant over the bodies contribution to the tone.

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I have 2 W strats.
# 1 :: is a 1 piece solid mahogany hard tail body with a standard thin maple / ebony neck and is the warmer and more resonant of the the 2 when just listening acoustically.

# 2 :: is a 1 piece solid black korina with a Wilkinson VS-100 and a ' 59 roundback padouk / bloodwood neck. It sustains as good as # 1 and sounds almost exactly like # 1 when plugged in ( both have the same pups and electronics exactly ) but playing it just acoustically is a let down compared to # 1.
I'm suspecting most of it is the body wood difference but really wonder about the neck also.
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Since you've done the test with 2 different necks on the same body then I think you might be closer to an answer.

If you bought an other neck with the exact same specs as your first neck and you got your desired tone back, then I think you might have discovered what the
"fat necks have more tone" quote really means.

i.e. they're more dominant in the mix of elements, and don't necessarily mean your instrument is going to have more of the tone you really want.

You might be correct in thinking that if you go fatter on the neck wood you might also need to go warmer.

 

[NSC217]

Well I have big hands so I NEED the fat neck. But I don't want to get another fat neck with diff wood which might be warmer, yet have diff timbre, I.e. Excenuate more of the mids than the highs, etc...

 

[Steve_Karl]

Well then get a 31 band Graphic EQ, or something like a Yamaha SPX-900 which has programmable parametric eq for every patch in it
and you can do anything to your tone that you want.

I used to use an SPX-900 live and I could get anything I wanted with a quick stomp on my midi patch changing board.
You can even use it for gain staging, plus it's studio quality and has plenty of reverbs, echos, chorus, flange and my favorite,
(other than the EQ) the pitch shift, which can be programmed to give thickness like a chorus, but without the movement.

eBay !

 

[NSC217]

Yea but does it sound real as it comes out a tube amp or mechanical like line 6s?

 

[Steve_Karl]

This is the tone that I want though I don't love his pickups. I basically had this tone with my previous maple/rosewood neck with my amp volume very low, relatively. Then I replaced that neck with maple/rosewood with fatter back and now that warmth part of the tone is not there and it's just brittle sounding. I want a neck that can basically get me as close to this tone without risking my not getting it. http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?xl=xl_blazer&v=zl2wQSd758k
Thanks!

This may even be a tad brighter than what I'm looking for

Check your link ... it's going somewhere really strange.

 

[NSC217]

Yea, I'm on my moms iPad. It's Kenny Wayne shepherd while we cry live from Moscow on YouTube.

 

[Steve_Karl]

Yea but does it sound real as it comes out a tube amp or mechanical like line 6s?

Much cleaner than a pod.
It's a raw audio processing unit.

 

[NSC217]

Well I know the eq dials on my amp doesn't do anything but muddy the tone because it cant change the timbre. I'd try it but I'm out for 2 months from elbow surgery and what a shame not to order a neck while I'm waiting  :-\

 

[Steve_Karl]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zl2wQSd758k

This ?

Most of what I'm hearing is great dynamics which comes down to pickups set low in the body, a moderately high action, and a nice responsive amp.

 

[Steve_Karl]

Well I know the eq dials on my amp doesn't do anything but muddy the tone because it cant change the timbre. I'd try it but I'm out for 2 months from elbow surgery and what a shame not to order a neck while I'm waiting  :-\

Seems to me that's the story with most amps I've used.
The last one I used live ( for about 8 yrs. and with the spx-900 ) was a Fender Deluxe 85 transistor.
I liked it fine, but wouldn't have without the EQ control.

 

[NSC217]

Haha, I have my pickups almost as low as they go to get that smooth warmer tone and a very high action for crunch and sustain but still not get that tone. That's how i originally got that tone. Good ears on ur part  :toothy10: all these techs say action doesn't effect tone but they don't know what they talking bout.

 

[Steve_Karl]

all these techs say action doesn't effect tone but they don't know what they talking bout.

Any tech that says that is a clueless puppy  

Maybe you just originally got a magic neck. I know I love the one on my first warmoth and the frets are really worn out and it even feels like the fretboard is
worn in.
It's nothing like the new one I got which has the same frets.

Have you looked at the difference in relief between the 2 necks?

That can be a tone thing also. If the neck is too straight, and it's gonna feel and play colder than if it has a bit more relief.

 

[NSC217]

What about a walnut back with rosewood board since walnut is supposedly like maple but a tad warmer. Mahogony back with ebony board might be tooooo warm?

 

[Steve_Karl]

Yea... I'm guessing mahogany won't "pop" the same way maple will on the same guitar.
I don't have any experience with walnut.
Canary might be something to consider. I'll bet you can get more opinions on that for shaft wood than walnut.

My guess is that 1 piece goncalo is going to be a bit limited in range. That's probably what they say it mates well with pau ferro or ebony.

My padouk / bloodwood ( if you look at the tone-O-meter for both woods ) both woods fall exactly in the same range.
If I had a "do over' I'd go with padouk / ebony to get the fret board wood (tonally) away from the shaft wood.

I might do that with the next one just to be able to swap them out and see what changes.

The one after that is going to be a super strat ... trying to clone the tone of the Les Paul I just sold.
I already bought the same pups the LP had in it.
I'm sure it will be a mahogany body and I'm pretty sure I'll be going with goncalo with that one with a rosewood board.

 

[NSC217]

I guess u like building guitars lol. I think ur right about that tone coming from dynamics... My last neck didn't resonate at all when unplugged and the new bright one really resonates. The old one was also dull and smooth when I had low action the new one is always bright. It's probably similar to raising and lowering the pickups in terms of the concept. So I think what I need to try to do is get maple/rosewood but try to make the neck more chambered so that there will be less maple shaft with the thicker neck. That way I can have a thick neck and get the tone of a thin neck... Unless I'm wrong and the density of the 2 pieces of maple are comp diff...

 

[Steve_Karl]

A chambered neck is unheard of as far as I know.
I think you might just have gotten two really different pieces of wood with the 2 that you have now.

 

[NSC217]

But it would make sense that a thicker neck would be brighter than a thinner one and thus a thinner neck warmer. What I did to add brightness to the dull thin neck was raise the action really high. Then I had a sound similar to the one in that video...bright with attack but also warm as opposed to just brittle.