Full size shims supposedly rob resonance

[Floyd_Argus]

Came across this on YouTube today. What is compelling here is that this person is someone with years of experience of doing setups and custom work.

I have a full size StewMac brand shim that I installed on my Squier Strat in the last year, that now I want to remove and replace with a partial, non-wood material shim as recommended in this video, to see if i hear a difference.

The number of the comments in the comments section of this video are also pretty high quality. Some seemingly well experienced people are reporting that its not the shim type that is causing a loss of resonance after setup work was done that involved loosening or removing the neck, but that the bolts were overtightened when re-fastening the neck.

 

[aarontunes]

Your perception is your reality. If this guy feels like it made a difference on that guitar, it probably did for him.

The "loosen the neck bolts a quarter-turn while the strings are on" trick is pretty old. I've tried it many times, and have never been sure if I felt a change or not.

 

[Strat Avenger]

Guitar players are always throwing the word "resonance" around. Resonance is not a good thing. The more a guitar resonates, the less it sustains, and the more high frequencies are absorbed (reduced).

 

[JohnnyHardtail]

Sustain in guitar tone is mostly related to the mids. What happens in the upper mids and harmonic overtones is beside the point IMO.

 

[Wolfie351]

Absolute unit of a Fender shim off my 1962 Esquire w/factory installed Bigsby

 

[Hodgo]

Absolute unit of a Fender shim off my 1962 Esquire w/factory installed Bigsby

View attachment 63476

Yep and you get one with every B16 to this day!

As to the main topic… guitarists can hardly stand sheet music, you think they’re going to learn physics too?

In fact even saying a guitar is resonant, without specifying what frequencies are resonant, is a pretty useless statement. And to @Strat Avenger’s point, if you want sustain you need to keep energy in the strings.

But that’s IF you want sustain. I don’t know about you guys but I rarely play a single note for more than a whole note value, so it doesn’t really mean anything to me.