Well, this thread has gone slightly off the subject, but it hits a spot I can't resist to comment on. Joey, Yes, you are correct about graphite. The resonant frequencies are higher, way past even the normal harmonic notes sounded on the string, so says Modulus Graphite and others using graphite composite necks. I have an early Modulus Graphite Quantum TBX 5 string, 35 scale, neck-thru cocobolo / maple body that smokes. It started with 3 Bartolini P/U's and a Bartolini active preamp, but I wasn't excited about that, so I Activated it with a custom Alembic circuit. The combination of Graphite 35 scale neck thru and Alembic electronics is something to experience. I used this as my primary guitar for many years because the sound is hard to beat. The upper octave (12th fret & up) is so clean like a bell. No dead spots on this neck. The low B is spectacular, solid and true. Sounds like a grand piano. My 34 Europa low B doesn't compete. Sad but true. Go back and read 8 String King's input about ebony laminates. This is the only thing in wood that comes close to graphite, and so much better to look at - Plastic necks just look like plastic!
I think the ultimate neck would be ebony laminates alternated with maple and wenge and purple heart with 2 or 3 graphite strips under an ebony fingerboard. IMHO, I think the ebony fingerboard has a lot to do with the excellent sound of ALL Alembics. Because its EBONY! This wood is so dense with compact grain, it really intensifies the strings energy.
In addition to Treksters note, a one piece neck is so unstable that it's like playing russian roulette. This is most like a tree branch subject to every whim of the weather, humidity, temperature, etc. While it may look cool and exactly opposite to a laminated neck, it is returning back to medieval times to the begining of history of luthiary. A single piece of wood for a neck is a bad idea for many reasons including dead spots, active hot spots, and prone to warping and twisting! Yuk! A good way to describe the sound of this neck would be warm and mushy. But only if at ideal weather conditions. Not a good pick for gigging on the road. I owned a few Rickenbackers before I gave up on them. My luthier would only laugh at them when I brought them in for frequent repairs. He pointed out the numerous design flaws so I could recognise them from a distance. All Ricks have two truss rods, but only one truss rod anchor at the head stock. As you adjust one, the anchor or nutbar as some call it twists, and loosens the adjustment of the other rod. You can spend days adjusting the truss rods and never getting it right until the nutbar is replaced with individual nut collars which makes them totally independant - like Alembics. If you tighten too much, you can break a rod fairly easily. Also, Ricks suffer in other places too. The tailpiece which they claim is an engineering masterpiece has been cast from the cheapest material possible: Gunmetal, a powder cast nickel that is not very strong. In fact it is rather gooey. The far end starts lifting up from the tension of the strings, and you find yourself tuning up all the time. Eventually you can store your pick under the widening gap, and then when you get to 2 picks, it's time to go to the luthier for a repair: Screws drilled down from the top and forcing it down for good! I had an earlier 4001 which had a really pretty quilted maple top with a single piece maple neck. The inlays on the rosewood fingerboard were Abalone chips, and they were the triangles that went all the way to the edges of the fingerboard. It looked just like Chris Squire's Rick of Yes around the Fragile album. I also had a newer maple Rick 4001 that had triangle inlays with the rounded corners and a swirly sort of plastic glitter material, not Abalone, alas. One day in the repair shop my Luthier was looking closely at the fingerboard, and he said Wait a minute, what is that? He got his magnifyer specs on and looked very closely at the inlay then started laughing so hard, he couldn't stop. There was a soldering lug shaped like a key-hole under the swirly glitter just barely visible, but it was there! That's pathetic! The Ricks also suffered from a very flimsy neck. The neck-thru was attached to the body and just less than a 1/2 away, the neck pickup rout cut clean through the neck laminations on the body and nearly 3/4 of the way down to the back. Even slight finger pressure on the fingerboard was enough to buzz out the strings. With a low action the Rick requires a very light touch, much lighter than the average Rock player is capable of maintaining. And we all know that the style of the Rick is what Rock bassists were drawn to.
So laminations really make sense when making a wood neck. They look better, they perform better, They're more stable and they support the notes better than a single piece neck.
Kris
