jumbo frets, natural necks, flat fingerboards

chisa · Post by **chisa** » Wed Feb 11, 2009 11:32 pm

i dislike all the above, i feel i am out of touch as everyone raves about how easy it is to play a guitar with that set up, but i just don't feel comfortable on one. am i weird?

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:16 am

Horses for courses. Depends what you play i think, for example; try asking a guy with big hands to play extended chord voicings on a Bronco neck. Too cramped. Fast lead players generally prefer jumbo frets because it makes string bending easier.
I hated maple necks up untill this year, and that was a Cort guitar that changed my mind on that.

Jagermeister · Post by **Jagermeister** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:28 am

I don't get how anyone couldn't play a Bronco neck.

It's like playing a Strat neck, with a capo first fret. Mathematically.

No one complains about feeling cramped when they have to play a fret higher than the last one they played

...Anyway. I never understood why large frets make bending any easier, they always just seem to get in the way for me, not that I can't work around them... My Mustang has tiny frets and I bend it just fine (of course it frets out first

)

I really don't care too much about radius. It's nice when things don't fret out, it's also nice to have extra comfort...

Natural neck? Do you mean like... Oil finished? Nasty. Oddly, all the gloss necks I have I've pretty much worn to matte, all the matte necks my hands have naturally shined

jcyphe · Post by **jcyphe** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 1:44 am

The best neck I've ever played was Gibson CS 56 goldtop re-issue my step-dad owns. It's perfection.

Jagermeister · Post by **Jagermeister** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:00 am

Also occurs to me... On a shorter scale, with strings already being more noodly, a smaller radius probably doesn't limit bending as much as it would on say a Strat...

william · Post by **william** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 2:09 am

gibsons with medium large frets feel best to me. i think its the 12" radius, 24.75 scale, and relatively chunky profile.

that said, i pickup a different guitar depending on what im playing. ive never played a better guitar than my MM for heavy fuzzy shoegaze rhythm, but the silvertone is where i go for folky or rock and roll stuff. also its pretty good for fingerpicking. "earthy" you might say.

ive realised that i do like a larger fret size than vintage, but no i dont like mega jumbo no pickguard coiltap black chrome reverse headstock frets.

ive always wanted to try one of those "fretless wonder" sg or lp customs, with the mega wide low frets. sounds interesting.

i like the frets on g and ls alot. lots of smooth wide surface on top of each. as long as the fret ends are rounded away from the fretboard edges properly, bigger frets feel nice to me.

i dont like satin or oil type finishes, gimme a gloss finish, kthx.

Will · Post by **Will** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 3:33 am

Nobody likes that shit on here. We're all about tiny-ass necks with 7.25" radiuses and GLOSS.

Or my spray-painted, bowed Dano neck

MaMo · Post by **MaMo** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:23 am

DuoSonicBoy wrote:Nobody likes that shit on here. We're all about tiny-ass necks with 7.25" radiuses and GLOSS.

Or my spray-painted, bowed Dano neck

lolz

robert(original) · Post by **robert(original)** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 12:58 pm

i can appreciate a good neck with jumbo frets, flatter radius etc etc etc.
but just like anything else, it can feel generic, but there are always a few that have superb fretting, and the overal feel is a good one, no matter how you play.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:52 pm

Jagermeister wrote:I don't get how anyone couldn't play a Bronco neck.

It's like playing a Strat neck, with a capo first fret. Mathematically.

Not really, the frets close in much more on a short scale and the difference in width is 3mm. It may not sound a big deal but it is.
I can certainly feel a difference to the point it changes the way i play. It aids some techniques but hinders others.

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 5:56 pm

I don't usually notice it hindering or aiding techniques, but i notice it changing the way I play, which is something I like. I suppose it's changing the way I play by aiding and hindering techniques, but that's not something I think about. Techniques just sort of happen when I play, like for some reason on my Jag-stang I always find myself bending the G-string hitting the B-string and then playing some sort of sweeped thing down to the a string, and it sounds really bluesey and I like it, but it just sort of sometimes happens, and I never try to play that way. It's not as if I think "sweeping is easy on this guitar, so let's do that."

Fran · Post by **Fran** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:03 pm

Try playing 'Message in a bottle' by The Police on your JS Paul. I find the add9 chords easier on standard scale, although theoretically it should be easier on a short scale.
Maybe i have hands like teH shovels

Bacchus · Post by **Bacchus** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:12 pm

My hands are a terrible shape. They're heavy and muscley at the thumb, thinning out to be light and useless at the wee finger. This lack of balance was a problem when playing the piano.

However, I have been playing piano since I was five, so I think my hands are fairly good at adapting themselves to whatever shape they need to be. I can play weird chords because they don't seem weird to me after fifteen years of making my hands do things that didn't come easy at a keyboard.

With that in mind, there's no guitars I've yet to play that bother me. I can usually manage. On a normal scale guitar, I can stretch something like eight frets, from the frist fret to the ninth, and have those notes still sound and be fretted.

Jagermeister · Post by **Jagermeister** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:34 pm

Fran wrote:Not really, the frets close in much more on a short scale and the difference in width is 3mm. It may not sound a big deal but it is.
I can certainly feel a difference to the point it changes the way i play. It aids some techniques but hinders others.

Point is, no one complains about making a C# chord because the frets are closer together than making a C.

And the difference, between a Strat and a Jag in scale, is only just that much. Width though, yeah.

mezzio13 · Post by **mezzio13** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 6:56 pm

Flat neck, giant frets and super wide at the nut.

TheBurbz · Post by **TheBurbz** » Thu Feb 12, 2009 7:13 pm

I'm a fan of jumbo frets, I owned a Rickenbacker which had tiny frets for a brief period and just couldn't get on with it. On my Strat the frets are so nice that very light pressure results in perfect fretting, I was amazed that I wasn't touching the wood underneath the strings!

STABxYOU · Post by **STABxYOU** » Thu Feb 19, 2009 4:36 am

I like sorta flat necks with medium frets and slim necks, either natural or matte finished. My ORM-1 has the perfect neck, I need to hire genetic engineers to clone it.