The influence of the neck on tone?

Not considering fretboard material, how much of an influence does neck wood and neck thickness affect tone?

I've heard some say you get better tone out of a thicker neck so I'm wondering what the guru's here have to say about it.

I'm looking forward to reading the answers! I know that the neck joint is critical, and the nut material is also - therefore the neck itself must be very important. My Bird is one-piece Mahogany. C'mon, experts - we're ready to read!

[mjz]

ime experience the neck size, weight, resonance definitely have an effect on tone. With all of the talk of hide glue, golden era bracing, and tone woods on the Martin 1937 D18 Authentic -- I believe the big 'ole T-bar neck was just as big a contributor.

max

[NewMartinFan]

Here we go... This thread will be at least 23 pages

[Steven Bollman]

While you're ringing your guitar's neck with your hand... It depends on whether it says "again" or "more" or whatever safe word you've agreed upon.

I'm not an expert on neck woods at all, but I googled up this website that goes through species by species - I found it interesting.

Edit: I scrolled down to "Mahogany" at that site and it described my tone on the Bird to a T

[rick-slo]

Regarding acoustic guitars it has some affect on sustain (stiffer = increase). Most of the rest of the talk on tone is pretty much imaginary thinking - IMO.

[3 chord]

sure the neck effects tone. everything on a guitar has an effect on tone. same goes for an electric, the parts on drums, mics, tubas, kazoos...

the trouble is an acoustic neck is usually not an easy thing to replace (unless it is a bolt on) so your better off just finding a guitar that you like the sound of and one with a neck that fits your hand. after all, what are you going to do about it? even if you built a guitar, no two necks are going to have the same effect on tone or sound the same imo.

[reholli]

I'll posit this question: why would a guitar's neck impact its tone? This is assuming it's attached properly to the body.

Anyway, I just went over and picked up my A & L Parlor and started playing...I wanted to see if I could feel vibration in the neck when playing, which would be a necessary factor for the neck's ability to impact tone. I could feel the neck vibrating. I was surprised...believe it or not, I've never consciously noticed this before. As I played, I realized that I respond to this while playing and always have and rely on this feedback through my fretting hand while playing. The necks on my guitars are Silver Leaf Maple.

Assuming (perhaps incorrectly) that the ultimate tone coming from a guitar is the sum/difference (depending on whether or not they augment or cancel others) of all the various vibrating frequencies feeding into the top, there has to be some impact on tone. Whether it can be heard, and what's heard impacted by different woods...your guess is as good as mine.

I now suspect that if I couldn't feel this while playing, it would impact my playing negatively.

[00-28]

My belief is that the neck is best when it is very dense, it should not absorb any vibration from the strings, but let the vibrations be transmited to the sound box. All necks are stiff no matter what kind of truss system is used. A T-bar doesn't make for a stiffer neck than a two-way adjustable truss rod. All necks are plenty stiff, but a dense neck material will not rob the energy from the string vibration that is needed to get the box working. The neck joint shouldn't make a difference either. A joint is two pieces of wood joined together. A tight joint is just that, tight. What does it matter what shape the joined, glued surface is? In the end, it becomes one. Just my thoughts. ...Mike

[Steven Bollman]

Presumedly...the density of the wood wouldn't be the only consideration...the mass would factor in as well, me thinks.

[duluthdan]

IMHO neck size and density make a contribution to the tone. I have 5 guitars, all different neck sizes, and to my ear, the thicker and wider the neck, the more robust the sound. Just is, no idea why, it just sounds like it does.

[lennylux]

No matter how this is answered it's going to be opinion based, tone is subjective and people often hear what they want to hear, the only way to really do it would be to take a bunch of guitars, record them for a spectrum analysis, detach the necks from these guitars and rotate them around each box, repeating the recording process again each iteration, then take the detailed spectrum analysis results and base comparison results on a final report that would cover exactly those guitars that had participated in the test alone, no others.

Everything else is waffle and fodder......

Originally Posted by lennylux

No matter how this is answered it's going to be opinion based, tone is subjective and people often hear what they want to hear, the only way to really do it would be to take a bunch of guitars, record them for a spectrum analysis, detach the necks from these guitars and rotate them around each box, repeating the recording process again each iteration, then take the detailed spectrum analysis results and base comparison results on a final report that would cover exactly those guitars that had participated in the test alone, no others.

Everything else is waffle and fodder......

I think where opinion and subjectivity come in would be in the areas of perceived quality of sound. But guitarmakers place a lot of tonal importance on the neck/body joint and the nut material, so I think neck woods impact tone more than we think. For example, Gibson uses hot hide glue at the dovetail (instead of titebond or bolting) because of how hard it dries and its ability to transmit vibration. Also it seems that nut material is always critical in guitar specs. Or, is rick-slo correct that it only effects sustain?

[Garthman]

Ho-hum.