Author Topic: Set neck vs through neck? (Read 1162 times)

adriaan · « **Reply #30 on:** April 08, 2004, 06:14:36 AM »

I hope brother Bob will share his news here in the thread, or perhaps start a new one for us all ...

xlrogue6 · « **Reply #31 on:** April 08, 2004, 08:21:37 AM »

Adriaan, it occurs to me that in fact Alembic already makes the instrument you're describing--the Classico. Definitely a stocking-stuffer item, if you know what I mean, but (unsurprisingly) pretty much the best EUB I've played. (Disclaimer: I've only played a Classico at the Mothership. Economic restrictions preclude ownership, dammit.

adriaan · « **Reply #32 on:** April 08, 2004, 08:46:11 AM »

Kent, if I was looking for an EUB then I'm sure I'd be more than interested in trying out a Classico - though that would probably involve a trip to Santa Rosa. I'm dreaming of a 'conventional' bass guitar, really, just that it must have a sound with a huuuuuge bottom coming from the strings, before the signal goes into any electronic processing. Perhaps the upright has that huge tone only because it is releasing all that energy in just a relatively short sustain period, because of the high absorption rate of the materials involved. Which I guess brings us back to Bob's adventures with sustain blocks!

bkbass · « **Reply #33 on:** April 09, 2004, 02:12:13 PM »

Of my alembic's my 6 string fretless Orion has that upright sound with huge warmth.It's stock electronics with the neck PU moved next to the bridge PU.It has the sustain block and is standard maple neck/walnut pinstripes 1/16maple /purple heart accents and a zebra wood top.I would describe the sound as a little on the dry but mostly warm and woody side regardless of amps used.When I do a jazz gig I usually use it and leave my Azola at home.I also own and endorse several acoustic bass guitars and yet in an amplified acoustic setting the Orion just melts into the music and is my first choice.I own a fretted as well and I'm really sitting on the fence about the next one because I can't decide on a neck thru on a set neck as they both have their postive attributes.Overall my experience has been that the set necks are distinct in their warmth,have about the same amount of clarity,punch and a little less sustain.Definitely worth the tradeoff of a neck thru.I've experimented with purpleheart,paduk,maple,ebony and three grades of aluminium as sustain blocks and bridge material.I've found the wood to be bland.The brass and aluminium had the best sonic rewards.The softer of the aluminium grades gave a slight woodness to the tone.I've also fooled around with various nut materials from various woods,plastics and metals.The biggest difference in tone being a loose rather than glued nut having a deeper woodier tone with some loss in sustain.I haven't tried it yet but might I suggest unscrewing the allen screws out of the Alembic nut(loose,be mindful of string height) to see if the tone changes and then experiment with various materials for the nut as it is a lot easier and cheaper then doing all that set up work on the other end.Also I believe Mica had once told me that they had tried various wood sustain blocks on either Jack Cassidy's or Phil Lesh's bass(s)and settled back on the brass.Mica can you add to this?

adriaan · « **Reply #34 on:** April 09, 2004, 02:56:21 PM »

Barry,

Thanks for the detailed description. I was actually tightening the middle screw under the nut on my Epic, which improved the sustain (which had been lacking before) but the sound was definitely less woody. Another important factor, besides the strings, is how high the action is - I'm thinking of raising it a bit again to avoid an overdose of mwah.

I guess I'll have to find some middle ground here, but I'm glad I'm not the only one to notice the difference with the tightness of the nut. My Epic doesn't have a sustain block, but it may not be such a big factor on a set-neck.

bkbass · « **Reply #35 on:** April 09, 2004, 09:04:59 PM »

Your welcome,Knowledge is a torch,let others light upon itAnother thing came to mind,how tight are your tuner bolts/nuts?So far on my 5 Alembics and many of my other basses I've had to snug up on them.It's a matter of taste but the net effect was that more energy went back into the string causing a little brighter more immediate response.If it's a Gotoh tuner it's a metric size I'm not sure.Does anybody out there know the size?If their Schaller then you could get away with using a 5/8 nut driver.A word of caution DO NOT OVER TIGHTEN!Or you'll be in deep kimshe(spell check please)With all the talk about body mass and tone woods etc.it's amazing the amount of tone affected by such a little surface area and mass.If you use a needle tuner when tuning up(rather than a lcd)watch the needle as you first grab hold of the tuner and then the headstock just that increase of soft fresh adds mass and you should see the needle go up approx 5 to 10 cents.Elsewhere someone mentioned the added brass plate called fat heads which attached to the back of a fender headstock thus increasing sustain.I remember seeing and hearing a incredible P bass that had it's headstock tuned with small screws and washers.You may be able to approach sonic nirvana by loosing the nut,tightening/snugging(BE CAREFUL!)the tuners and changing the nut materials.I hope this helps.Good luck God Bless.BTW Check out my purpleheart neck on factory to customer.That's going to have a cocobolo Rogue body with modified series 2 electronics.

bob · « **Reply #36 on:** April 11, 2004, 01:13:23 PM »

Hey Barry, it's reassuring to see that someone here is even crazier about this stuff than I am (though maybe I don't really need the encouragement...).

I'd like to follow up on several posts here, but need to get some work done this afternoon, so for now I'll just comment on the sloppy nut approach.

I'm sure loosening the nut screws will make a difference, but it's not something I would recommend, or bother to experiment with myself. Ideally, the nut only matters when you're playing an open string. Assuming you're fretting with reasonable pressure, there shouldn't be a lot going on up there the rest of the time (though of course the whole neck is always vibrating quite a bit, transferring some of that to other strings perhaps, etc.).

Also, whenever you talk about leaving something a little loose, it's hard to be repeatable, and likely to shift over time. So my preference is to experiement with materials, but keep everything nice and snug.

I did start playing with alternate blocks, but have only had a few hours so far; I'm not being very scientific or rigorous yet, just going for general impressions, and allowing myself to change other things if I feel like it, such as pickup heights and tone/filter controls.

No question, block material makes a big difference. Wood (only vermillion so far) was thumpy and sort of boring. Corian (counter top stuff) was quite interesting, very clean sounding at first reaction, though I came to feel it wasn't heavy enough to provide a good low B. Last night I put aluminum in there, and this seems really promising - I'm itching to get back and play with it some more, but already it feels closer to the tone I'm after.

I'm not very excited by the hockey puck or other elastic suggestions (as effclef said, interesting but perhaps not very practical). At sort of the other extreme, I'm hoping to find someone who can make me one out of granite - closer in mass to brass, but without the ringing. This is quite intriguing to me at the moment.

More later.
-Bob

adriaan · « **Reply #37 on:** April 13, 2004, 12:37:30 AM »

Barry,

About those changes in pitch when you hold the tuning peg and the peghead ... perhaps you should not grab the peghead when tuning up because you may be pulling it backwards - easy does it. In my experience you can get a neck-through out of tune easier than a set-neck. Then again peghead vibrato is one of Stanley Clarke trademark tricks.

I always tune up to a piano, or whatever the main instrument is. In case I'm on my own there's always the curse of perfect pitch to fall back on. The substitute for that is of course the slightly sharp G you get from electrical hum in Europe (50 Hz).

And Bob, the loosened nut is obviously more 'effective' on a fretless. On a fretted bass the end of the string behind your finger will be immobilized already by the first fret in that direction, which doesn't happen on a fretless.

We all agree that it will pay off to make the hardware sit tight. Unfortunately brass doesn't yield the most upright-like tone, and the very idea of a sustain block is - well, inappropriate under the circumstances. The stuff people do to their P bass pegheads is usually to overcome deadspots on the fingerboard. On the other hand, the most substantial part of an upright must be the short neck with the big scroll on the peghead. I wonder what difference a wooden or bone nut would make.

basstard · « **Reply #38 on:** April 13, 2004, 03:26:55 AM »

Although the idea of a bolt-on Alembic seems to be pretty interesting, I'm not sure if it's a really good one. I think everybody should stick with what they do best - and in case of Alembic, it's neck-thru and set-in. Don't get me wrong, I truly believe that if Alembicians ever decided to make a bolt-on bass it would be a helluva top quality instrument. But... It wouldn't be alembicky enough, if you get my drift.

Want a great sounding top quality bolt-on bass? Buy a Wal (the Rolls Royce of bolt-on basses, IMHO).

While we're at it...

Q: Who's the lamest singer with removable neck?
A: Michael Bolt-on.

bracheen · « **Reply #39 on:** April 13, 2004, 03:51:55 AM »

Jarek, have another cup of coffee Brother.

There's a local band in Jacksonville called Liquid Blue whose bassist plays Wal exclusivly. He'll bring them to gigs three or four at a time.
They do sound good.

Sam

adriaan · « **Reply #40 on:** April 13, 2004, 05:18:09 AM »

Jarek,

Okay, I'll laugh this time. Next time, I'll settle for a bad hair day.

I was zapping with the remote and came across Beavis and Butthead, who were also making fun of a Michael Bolton video - this was one of his attempts at hard rock, and I distinctly remember the bass player had an Alembic. Can't remember the model though.

basstard · « **Reply #41 on:** April 18, 2004, 08:29:17 AM »

Erm... is it just a weird impression, or did I really post this joke somewhere on this discussion board earlier?...

Just 25 and already serious memory problems...

jazzyvee · « **Reply #42 on:** April 20, 2004, 03:19:34 AM »

Picking up on a point made earlier in this thread about the sound being affected by having a glued neck to body rather than an through neck.

Accept my innocence of the vibration theory of sound propogation in woods materials and interfaces... :-) here. I understand that my bass sounds great and sustains well but, I don't see that the though neck design vs Set Neck is the reason for this especially since my SC has neck laminates.

Consider that a neck laminate is virtually the length of your bass and the thickness of the neck and body so there you have a much greater surface area of glued joints at the interfaces between the laminate woods. Also the bodies have laminated top and backs which again is another glued wood to wood interface.

Surely this would have a greater affect on attenuating the vibrations within the instrument and hence sustain than an instrument with a mere glued neck to body join.

Outside of a lab and controlled conditions, I don't think you can can determine the difference between set neck vs through neck just by listening to other basses made of different materials by the same or manufacturers, as the differences in manufacturing tolerances, quality of materials used, workmanship even each peice of wood is different so you could not guarantee that the differences you hear are purely attributed to the neck join whether it be through or set.

I think that having neck laminates would negate any benefits of through over set neck design.

I imagine that if you had an instrument made completely of a single peice of wood would it would probably have the best sustain as there would be no interfaces apart from wood to air to attenuate the vibes, or a through neck made of a single piece of wood. But neck laminates must attenuate the sound vibes more than the neck body joint.

I have a couple of basses alembic and Music man, now they sound completely different but I couldn't listen to them comparitively and say that the reason the alembic sounds and sustains better is because it has a through neck rather than a bolt on neck...

There are so many variables to consider and the fact of the matter is they are both great basses but I just prefer the sound of my alembic thats it.

Now Alembic have hit on a method of making instruments that works and gives theirs consistent and distinctive sound, thats why we buy them. The fact that it is set neck or bolt on or through is a side issue as far as I can see.

Before I went to the shop to buy my bass I hadn't got a clue as to whether the neck was a set, through or bolt joint. I bought it because I had heard the sound of alembics on record primarily Stanley Clark and wanted an Alembic. I tried the instrument and loved the sound of the instrument so I bought it.

I think the subject is far too academic..... just PLAY THE BASS..... PLAY THE BASS....PLAY THE BASS!!!!!!

I await to be enlightened :-)

adriaan · « **Reply #43 on:** April 20, 2004, 05:10:20 AM »

Hi Jazzy,

Not sure if the issue is really academic ... and I wholeheartedly agree that you just need to play that bass, play that bass, and before you stop just play that bass (repeat).

Nonetheless, I don't think glued joints, as large as the glue surface may be, can have as big an impact as bolt-on joints because pieces of wood joined by glue will have more or less integral vibration characteristics, whereas pieces of wood joined by bolts will have more like a summing up of the different vibration characteristics of the separate pieces.

Obviously a bolt-on is a three-part construction (body + bolts + neck) whereas a set-neck is two-part (body + neck) and a neck-through is structurally one-part (neck with body wings attached). I presume that a good bolt-on connection will be constructed in a way that the bolts will not resonate, which means that at the most critical point of the construction you have kind of a dead spot, whereas with a set-neck, like with a neck-through, the whole thing will vibrate.

On a neck-through there is only a significant joint between the neck and the body wings, which means the joint is taking a much smaller part in the transmission of the vibrations - hence the comment that you can hear the effect of the top woods more strongly on a set-neck than on a neck-through.

I have no experience with high-end bolt-ons (never touched an MTD or a Sadowsky or what have you) but even a nice MusicMan StingRay still feels less of a unity than either of my Alembics.

David Houck · « **Reply #44 on:** April 20, 2004, 05:50:06 AM »

JV; I don't have the understanding of physics that others in the group have, so don't expect enlightenment from me. However, I will contribute a few comments to the discussion that possibly may be of some help.

On a neck through, the bridge and nut are vibrating the same piece(s) of wood. The same energy from a vibrating string is being introduced to each end of a single long piece of wood. On a set neck, the bridge and nut are vibrating separate pieces of wood. The energy from the string is being introduced from the nut to a shorter neck wood and from the bridge to a shorter and much wider body wood. To me, the fact that on a neck through the same vibration is being introduced to both ends of the same long piece of wood does not seem insignificant. On a set neck, the vibration from the nut enters a short piece of wood on just one end. Like wise, the vibration from the bridge enters a short piece of wood at just one point. It does not seem likely that gluing those two pieces of wood together will give the same effect. Introducing the same vibration at both ends of a long piece of wood should reinforce and sustain that vibration in a way that a neck through can't. All other things being equal, maple neck woods, maple body woods, same body shape and electronics, it seems reasonable to me to expect that a neck through should sound different than a set neck in regard to both frequency response and sustain.

However, I agree with you that generally all other things are not equal and there are a number of factors that go into the sustain and tone of any individual instrument.