Vintage Modern vs Modern Neck Tone

[lkja8uatt33]

Warmoth says of the Vintage Modern neck: "The tone of these necks is very vintage and warm."

I have an older Modern neck with the double expandible truss rod. Great sustain and generally even response.

I'm thinking of an all maple neck and wondered how the Vintage Modern neck would sound compared to a Modern maple neck.
I presume that the sustain may not be as good due to the reduced mass of the truss rod compared to the Modern, but "warmer"?

A good example of tone would probably be Hendrix's Band of Gypsy album.

Thanks

 

[stubhead]

There have been great and less-great minds working on these problems for seemingly decades now. You got it right - the single-rodded necks are held to be more woody, warmer, more like a "real" vintage guitar... and the modern necks are steelier, more even response, more bass and treble. There are even those who say that a quarter-sawn maple neck is "wrong" because the flat-sawn necks typically used by Fender had more flex, making them "livelier." I have never had a neck with such profound tonal characteristics that a few twists of a few knobs couldn't bring them into my preferred range. I do think the single rod necks vibrate in your hand a bit more, but the so-called "proof" that that's better doesn't come through my speakers. There are a few guys - Suhr and D'Pergo - that make an occasional neck with no truss rod when they think they've got an especially sturdy piece of maple. I'd love to try one, but not for $4,000.

 

[lkja8uatt33]

Thanks StubHead.
Once upon a time, I had a Fender Strat with a maple micro-tilt neck on an ash body. It sounded amazing although the sustain wasn't nearly as good as my Warmoth Modern neck. The attack on the pick sounded more "round" and I'm sure that could be attributed to one or many factors - the piece of wood used for the neck, the body wood, the exact pickups etc etc. I have never ever found a Strat that has sounded the same or even close (although I once found a Tele that sounded in the ballpark with the neck pickup).
That's the only real downside to building a guitar from scratch - you never really know for sure how the finished result will sound.

I'll probably stick with a Modern neck though - the one I have sounds great in so many ways.

 

[Cagey]

It's an old problem that hasn't been solved. Everybody who's owned/played more than one guitar has a story about "the one that got away". But, it has been mitigated to some extent.

Time was if you wanted a Strat, you went to the store(s) with the largest inventory of the things and dedicated some serious time to finding The One. Might take months. Today, modern technology has commodicized guitars to where that's not as rewarding an activity as it used to be, The phenomena still occurs... you get that magical confluence of wood grains, wood species, pickup windings, string gauge, fret geometry, weight, etc. that says "marry me!". But, not like it used to.

Still, it is as you say - something of a crap shoot. You get sevens more often than anything else, but there's the occasional 11. So, what's a mother to do? Build/buy lots of them! You'll find love in all the wrong places. For instance, you couldn't have talked me into a Telecaster for the love of money a few years ago - now I have two that are my favorites of all time.

The part that could piss off a saint is the losses you have to take in your search for the Holy Grail. Few are blessed with finding The One on the first go-round and previously owned musical instruments/gear have notoriously low resale values, regardless of condition. There are outliers, such as Mesa Boogie amps, but for the most part whatever you buy loses value like toilet paper that has has met its destiny. That problem is also old - you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone.

 

[Tempest]

There are a million other things going into the tone of a guitar that are likely more influential than a truss rod....so the sustain differences you experienced were likely a combination of pickups, bridges, density of the wood, all those minute factors, etc.

 

[Super Turbo Deluxe Custom]

People with Vintage and Vintage modern necks report seasonal adjustments being needed, whereas a Warmoth Pro may go years.  That right there should tell you about the wood vs. metal controversy. 

 

[lkja8uatt33]

Thanks for the replies.
True enough, it's difficult to find that special "One".  But all in all, I think that the "Modern" Warmoth neck is probably almost always a great sounding neck so I'll probably stick with that direction for now.

Thanks again.

 

[drewfx]

The way I think of it is if people could actually successfully pinpoint the influence of each factor in a guitar the way they claim to, well then it would be easy to build something and know exactly what it was going to end up sounding like. The fact that you have to just aim for the ballpark and see what happens, and/or tweak things to get closer to what you're looking for should tell you something.

But I also know that, for some people, if they believe something like a modern improvement might have an adverse effect then they will be bothered by it regardless of whether it really makes any difference or not.

But personally, I'd rather take advantage of tangible modern improvements than chase ghosts.

 

[tfarny]

The facts are that double truss necks are heavier and more stable, and have an ugly side-adjust. They might have a more even tonal response than a vintage modern neck. I'd say if you are chasing the tone of an old Fender, you might as well get the vintage truss because that's one more thing you're getting "right." I'm not totally convinced that Vintage construction sounds better, but I do like the lighter weight, neck adjust, no-gimmick approach of the vintage construction. two truss rods on an electric guitar you're going to play with .009 strings in E flat standard sounds like the definition of over-engineered, but I have owned several and they were all good necks. There's njust not THAT much stress on that neck. On the other hand, if I ever build my reso-tele, it's going to have .013 strings, maybe in open E or A, and damn straight it's getting a pro construction neck.

 

[AutoBat]

a nearly invisible side adjust is uglier than a larger hole at the headstock end?

two truss rods on an electric guitar you're going to play with .009 strings in E flat standard sounds like the definition of over-engineered

Heh, that's exactly what I have on my strat. (I had it in drop Db the day before)

 

[Jumble Jumble]

My little finger sometimes goes in the side adjust hole. That's not great.

 

[SustainerPlayer]

My little finger sometimes goes in the side adjust hole. That's not great.

That not just a little finger - that finger must be very small!  :icon_jokercolor: :icon_biggrin:

 

[tfarny]

a nearly invisible side adjust is uglier than a larger hole at the headstock end?

Yes, definitely. It also adds more moving parts, so, more that can go wrong in a place (inside the neck) that is very hard to repair. Feel free to disagree!

 

[jackthehack]

If you're playing through an effects chain requisite to get "A good example of tone would probably be Hendrix's Band of Gypsy album", you'd never be able to hear any differentiation between truss rods even if there is one...

 

[SustainerPlayer]

A good example of tone would probably be Hendrix's Band of Gypsy album", you'd never be able to hear any differentiation between truss rods even if there is one...

That depends. If you play Hendrix songs like:

Foxy Truss Rod
Third Truss Rod From The Sun
Truss Rod Free
Little Truss Rod
Bold as Truss Rod
Truss Rod Traffic
and
Truss Rod Child (Slight Upbow)

you really can hear the difference.

 

[stubhead]

That side-adjuster is the best sales feature - that USA Custom, Musickraft and Allparts could ever ask for.... I've bought lefty Warmoth moderns just to get away from it. It's just a silly thing on a neck that you may have to only adjust 3 or 4 times in your lifetime. No engineer would ever assert that on the double truss rod design, where much/most of the string tension is bearing on the truss rod, inserting a little gizmo made out of different kinds of metal vectoring tension off into different directions could be an improvement in sound. Yes it's handy - but I just adjusted my 2001 pre-gizmo modern neck for the third and likely final time. Yes, Warmoth has sold thousands - Fender has sold thousands of six-screw whammys. And Ronco nar-na-nar-nar-nar.

I wish Warmoth would make it optional - they route lefty moderns without it, so the program is definitely in there - but they can't back away from it now, admitting that it's an "improvement" that nobody wanted. It would make more sense on a single trussrod neck that you do have to adjust every spring and fall. You sure don't see any custom builders racing to embrace it, if you see a pricy "handmade" guitar with one it's a dead giveaway that those "hands" pick up the phone and order Warmoth necks straight off the shelf! :laughing7:

 

[drewfx]

I don't know.

I thought I would hate the side adjust and was going to go for a VM neck for my first W guitar. But I fell in love with a W Pro neck in the showcase. Then I found out that the side adjust is essentially invisible to me.

Now whenever I see a really nice VM neck come up in the showcase I think, "what a waste of a beautiful piece of wood".  :dontknow:

 

[stubhead]

I think, "what a waste of a beautiful piece of wood".

It's OK, I feel the same way about any guitar with crooked string pull and less than 24 frets. All that wood... all that effort... and they couldn't even make it right. :sad1:

 

[AutoBat]

Gotoh actually sells the side adjust to other people, so seeing one doesn't always = Warmoth. (though it would seem that most are)

 

[Cagey]

I've never seen one on anybody else's neck, so I wonder who's buying them?