Alder Strat body with a Magogany neck, what can I expect?

[Dylan45]

Iam thinking about to put a Fat Mahogany neck,
with Rosewood fingerboard,
on a Alder Stratocaster body.

Would it be a good choise or schould I stay with plain regular Maple.

TX!

 

[RIPeturs]

I went with an all canary neck and an alder body. I wanted a similar tone to maple, but I like playing a raw neck. I also have a mahogony/bubinga neck with a rosewood fretboard, its smooth and has warm lows.  I had to call and see what neck woods W had in stock, that weren't listed on-line. IMO, it depends if you like a finished neck or not? ( I'm pretty sure all W maple necks require some type of finish to be covered by W's warranty)

 

[Dylan45]

Do you perhaps know how much bell high tones will I loose with Mahogany compared to a Maple neck?

TX

 

[RIPeturs]

Sorry, I play bass... I am not sure about the high tones, you might want to call or email the guys at W, they always entertain my questions.

 

[AutoBat]

I changed my MIM strat from maple/maple to a W 59 roundback mahogany/ebony and I think it sounds much better than before. I can't detect the loss of any tones, just the improvement of them all.

 

[Superlizard]

Alder body + mahog neck + rosewood fretboard is gonna be very mids-heavy and much less sparkle (treble) than with a maple neck.

I'd consider bright/trebley pickups for that wood config.  Also, a hot pickup will be mud in there as well.

 

[Steve_Karl]

An other thought about mahogany vs maple or similar neck. The attack characteristics might be different.
The mahogany might respond more slowly and might have less pop?

I'm just guessing ... hopefully we'll get more input on this aspect?

Also ... the quote is "fat necks have more tone"

... but ... does this also mean that the fatter neck will be more dominant over the body when it comes to the overall tone of the instrument making the body have less of an effect on the overall tone of the instrument?

I'm still trying to understand the reasons for the tonal difference (acoustically only ) between my 2 strats.

 

[shan564]

Overall, mahogany will take away a lot of the sparkle and add some lower-end punch, as one of the earlier posters said.  If you prefer punch over sparkle, then go for it... but if you prefer punch over sparkle, you may be better off selling your Strat to get an SG or something along those lines.  There's a reason why alder/ash + maple is so popular with single coils - it brings out that high-end spanky sound, which is the single-coil specialty.  If you're looking for a punchier sound, an alder body and single coil pickups will probably hold you back more than a maple neck.

Bottom line, if you want to keep your bell-high tones, a mahogany neck isn't your best bet - and if you want to add midrange/low-end punch, you'll probably benefit more from a mahogany (or rosewood) body than a mahogany neck.