Most frictionless/fastest brightest neck back?

[SavingPrincess]

Hey all, new here... gearing up for putting together a full Warmoth Strat after not being able to find a guitar that suits my needs.  I want to talk to the community about neck backs. 

This is going to be a recording versatile (lots of genres) guitar so I'm looking for as bright of tone as I can get (I find it easier to warm out a tone in post if it's too bright vs. brightening it up if it's too warm).  So the two main features I'm looking at are ultra bright tone and frictionless movement on the neck back. 

I'm also open to fingerboard suggestions as well, though it will likely be half-scalloped (I tend to play off the strings and not clamp down on the board anyway) so it's more important to my play style that the back of the neck be faster more so than the front.  I also tend to like the looks of brighter fingerboards (i.e. maples) vs. darker ones.

 

[Cagey]

Welcome to the board! We have a lotta fun here, and there's a lotta talent floating around. Looking forward to your participation!

I agree that you want to set up to produce as much of the frequency range as is possible, and EQ it after the fact if you need to.

With that in mind, the best feeling/brightest neck I have (and I have quite a few) is an Ebony over Bloodwood part. They're both very dense/smooth woods. Only drawback to that one is Bloodwood is pretty red (surprise!), so it narrows down your body wood/finish choices a bit from an aesthetic POV. I'd also recommend an Ebony over Pau Ferro part, although it's slightly darker. Not so as you'd notice, though. It's still pretty bright. You can have both raw without punishment, and the feel is second to none. Put some threaded inserts in the heel so that joint's tighter than dammit, and you'll not suffer any losses. You'll want to burnish them, but that's not tough. It's just time-consuming. See here.

I've also been pleased with how the Canary necks sound - very much like Maple, just a tad darker in color.

 

[SavingPrincess]

Thanks for the reply!

How do these unfinished necks hold up to perspiration/moisture?  I live in the PacNW so I have to keep these things in mind. 

 

[Cagey]

Very well in my experience, and I think most would agree. Those exotic wood species are mainly from African/tropical areas around the equator, so they've evolved to be somewhat impervious to moisture, insects and the various rotting agents that exist year-round. Then, if you get one of the "Pro" series necks, the dual-acting truss rod makes them incredibly stable. I live in Michigan, and we see a pretty wide range of temperature and humidity here. We don't get the extremes some areas do, but it's still pretty variable. Still, I never have to adjust my neck's truss rods. Set 'em up at assembly and forget about 'em.

If you've never had an unfinished neck before, you're in for a treat. The feel is unmatched by any artificial finish. I had a hard time believing it before I got one, but I'm a real die-hard on them now.

 

[Ddbltrbl]

The brightest neck I have (or have ever played) is a one-piece ebony neck. The most frictionless is Pau Ferro, though my ebony neck is a really close second.
So, I really like Cagey's suggestion of Pau Ferro with an Ebony fret board. You can't beat Pau Ferro for feel, it is a little lighter than Ebony weight wise, and with an Ebony fret board it will be pretty bright sounding as well.

I've got to agree with Cagey on Canary necks as well. Very nice!

 

[MikeW]

My latest Strat has a Canary neck with an Ebony fretboard. That combination turns out to be very bright in the top end but still has lots of midrange punch to it. I run that through an amp with a darker tone (Legacy 3) to bring the bottom end in, and it's remarkable how clear and punchy the sound is.

That being said, Canary is very fast to play on, but it's not a slick feel. I'd call it more of a textured feel than smooth. I'd agree with Ddbltrbl that if you're looking for a slick feel, Pao Ferro is the way to go. Think flannel vs. silk. They're both quick and soft, but one is smooth and the other not.

As far as frets go, DEFINITELY go with stainless steel over nickel. Fast and smooth and take forever to wear out. I'm running 6105's on my last two builds and really like them, but they're not the jumbo fret size that many here will recommend. You mention that you might go half-scalloped. I'd recommend looking into the SS6150 or SS6100 size. No scalloping required with those. The 6100s especially will keep your fingers up off the fretboard.

 

[line6man]

Obviously Ebony is the answer. It is both the brightest tonewood and the smoothest wood you can get. However, it is pricey, uncommon with Warmoth, and very heavy.

 

[stubhead]

I like exotic woods, I have a few things laying about - I just put together a dedicated slide guitar with a bloodwood neck, fretless ebony board, on an evil body of of old-growth walnut (it just laughed at a regular wood rasp). My #1 bass for years was necked padoukily with a pau ferro board.

But you may notice, most of the comparisons above run like "Well it's almost as bright as maple..." There is nothing disrespectful about a maple/maple or maple/ebony neck. There are several ways to finish maple that don't result in a shiny plasticine "ick!" feel, one being several coats of thinned-down Tru-Oil. In a blindfold test of maple vs. the world? Forget about it. Warmoth's own Hard-o-meter ratings have maple, pau ferro, bloodwood & padouk in a dead heat for brightness, with only ebony squeaking ahead by a nose at the finish line.

Warmoth's Pro series has their double truss rod, which results in a lot more of the string tension pulling against steel rather than wood, at least in comparison to a "vintage" single rod. There are quite a few people (endless hordes?) who prefer more wood and less metal in the tone - I am not one of them. I also don't like to adjust the trussrod four times a year, I guess the vintageheads get some kind of spiritual trussrod ceremony working in their heads? I have also been getting lefty necks lately, mostly to avoid Warmoth's strange attachment to the Gotoh side adjuster, but I have found that reverse headstocks also completely eliminate any desire for string tees and the tension for bending strings works out favorably, too.

I agree completely about the brightness of the signal coming out of the guitar, I like the effect it has on various other parts of the chain, in fact I try to go bright all the way through to the end - and only then knock down the treble with some PA-type speakers that are usually combined with horns or tweeters in the PA usage. I've been fiddling with that for a long, long time, having found out that Duane Allman ran a full blast 50 watt amp into some Altec-Lansing speakers filched from the "Voice of the Theater" cabinets, and Carlos Santana did something similar with high-end JBL's. And although there's been a concerted effort to beef up the output of Stratocaster's bridge pickups, one surefire trick there is to route and install a Telecaster pickup in the bridge - that and a blower switch that bypasses all the pots and caps can make you many enemies in the animal kingdom. :toothy12:

 

[Tony Ounsworth]

If brightness is what you're after, consider a Jackpot Potentiometer, which has no load when clicked into the 10 position. I've got one on my Warmoth, and I'm currently debating taking it out as I'm not sure if it's too bright for me.

http://www.stewmac.com/shop/Electronics,_pickups/Potentiometers/JackPot_Potentiometer.html

 

[Steve_Karl]

Ebony over Bloodwood

It's not easy for me to verify that it's the brightest one I have, because it's strung with nylon and the others are strung with regular electric strings but the tone of my bloodwood(shaft) ebony(fretboard) neck is very consistent and it also feels great.