Fender Fat Finger

JezWynd

Anyone tried it? It's supposed to increase sustain if attached the headstock. Hmmm.

Fozz

No, but I've tried the 'fat fecker' where I attach myself to the guitar by a strap. Unfortunately this seems to have no effect on the sustain.

impmann

Did Fender buy the rights to this then?

JezWynd

impmann said:

Did Fender buy the rights to this then?

Can you buy the rights to a G clamp?!

flying_pie

Makes sense from a theoretical point of view but as to whether the difference is significant is up for debate.

I often leave a capo on the headstock. I guess it does the same thing to a degree but can't say I've ever noticed a difference.

poopot

Does it come with a free bottle of:

https://m.imgur.com/P30UzIS

JezWynd

What is the theory on this? Does additional mass on the headstock cause a note to vibrate for longer?

guitarfishbay

It'll change the resonance surely, but if it's actually 'fat' then maybe not the best thing for balance if it goes on the headstock.

guitars4you

JezWynd said:

What is the theory on this? Does additional mass on the headstock cause a note to vibrate for longer?

theory is yes

https://reverb.com/uk/item/2356189-groove-tubes-fat-head-for-strat-bell-brass-adds-sustain-and-volume-to-your-strat-hard2find -
An idea used in the 80's as well

ICBM

In the late 70s/early 80s it was fashionable to attach as much brass as possible to a guitar, and which is now widely thought to ruin the tone... even if it might possibly add sustain.

My experience is that attaching things to the headstock does seem to change the tone a bit but doesn't change the sustain noticeably.

Unless it's an amplifier (or just the speaker).

http://sustainiac.com/sman-xd.jpg

guitars4you

ICBM said:

In the late 70s/early 80s it was fashionable to attach as much brass as possible to a guitar, and which is now widely thought to ruin the tone... even if it might possibly add sustain.

now you just rid of as much brass as you can muster just to buy the guitar

impmann

ICBM said:

My experience is that attaching things to the headstock does seem to change the tone a bit but doesn't change the sustain noticeably.

I thought you were one of the chaps who believed that 70s big headstock Strats sounded better because of the greater mass at that end of the neck?

FWIW, I owned a Jap Tele that came to me with a 'fathead' brass plate on the back of the headstock. I thought it looked shit and so took it off... it did change the sound and I didn't like the guitar so much without it. I swapped the guitar for a Strat but kept the plate for a long time - mainly because I didn't think it was worth much. I was wrong... I put it on eBay about 6 or 7 years ago and got almost as much for the Fathead as I paid for the complete Tele back in the 90s!!!

shuikit

Wouldn't clipping a capo on the headstock do the same thing?

ICBM

impmann said:

I thought you were one of the chaps who believed that 70s big headstock Strats sounded better because of the greater mass at that end of the neck?

Yes - but it's a change in tone, not sustain.

impmann said:

FWIW, I owned a Jap Tele that came to me with a 'fathead' brass plate on the back of the headstock. I thought it looked shit and so took it off... it did change the sound and I didn't like the guitar so much without it. I swapped the guitar for a Strat but kept the plate for a long time - mainly because I didn't think it was worth much. I was wrong... I put it on eBay about 6 or 7 years ago and got almost as much for the Fathead as I paid for the complete Tele back in the 90s!!!

Wow .

siraxeman

I used to have one of these daft things...years ago, I thought it was snake oil. But a few pros were endorsing them and saying they really work. Joe Satch was one such hero. I had my doubts but got one from one of the stalls at the NEC when I went to watch GOTY comp...was going 'cheap' for about 15 squids instead of £19.99....so I bit. Skeptical yes, but i'll try it me thinks to myself. Satch uses one and has pics of his JS1000 with one clamped on....well, I heard NOTHING. "well some guitars don't have dead spots and these fix that...." well none of my guitars did and none of them showed an iota of difference of any sort in terms of sound/sustain/tone. The headstock was just a few oz's heavier and that's all. So mine went on ebay and I got £15 for it...plus £2 postage. So the prank (on me) after ebay costs will have been about £1.50 loss to confirm my sceptical view. And you know what none of them pros that were singing their praises were ever seen using 'em live after the photoshoot for the ad and when they got their 'bung'.

Conclusion - pure snake oil. If you wanna be naïve/gullible - stick a metal capo on instead...at least that does have a proper function.

JezWynd

ICBM said:

impmann said:

I thought you were one of the chaps who believed that 70s big headstock Strats sounded better because of the greater mass at that end of the neck?

Yes - but it's a change in tone, not sustain.

I can imagine how an elastic backed style capo might dampen the resonating headstock; while a metal mass clamped to it might possibly increase it. Thus one might have a tonal effect and the other a sustaining effect. Possibly. I might try clamping my metal capo to the headstock and see if I can hear any difference; it's surely going to be pretty marginal though I'd have thought.

merlin

I tried both the Fathead and the Fat Finger on my ukelele and they made it sound like a '58 Les Paul plugged into a Marshall Stack. And that was BEFORE I plugged it into a Marshall stack. Genius. 

WezV

It changes the resonant frequency of the neck.

This will either make things better, have no noticeable effect at all, or make things worse.  It totally depends on what it’s being attached too

Easy to test without buying the real thing.

ICBM

JezWynd said:

I can imagine how an elastic backed style capo might dampen the resonating headstock; while a metal mass clamped to it might possibly increase it. Thus one might have a tonal effect and the other a sustaining effect. Possibly. I might try clamping my metal capo to the headstock and see if I can hear any difference; it's surely going to be pretty marginal though I'd have thought.

Yes, but you may be able to tell. Try it - you may hear it, or you may not.

The thing with Strat headstocks I only really noticed after years of working on them, and it's outweighed by other factors. Just something that you realise makes a small but characteristic difference - like brass bridge saddles, or alloy vs steel bridge blocks etc.

I've also heard a definite tone difference from the mass of machineheads, especially on acoustic guitars. Those big metal-key Schallers and Grovers are really heavy, if you compare them to a set of vintage Klusons. It's not as simple as "light = good, heavy = bad" either.

All just little things - at the end of the day a Strat will still sound like a Strat, not like a Les Paul .

I don't think even an elastic-backed capo would dampen the resonance though, since it still adds mass.

guitarfishbay

I think I might prefer smaller headstock instruments.  I suspect that bigger headstocks are more flexible on the end of a neck if all other factors are equal.  Though this is more about rigidity than actual size.

Actually I think Sadowsky make a big thing about headstock thickness on their basses.  In fact IIRC even Fender put a thicker headstock on the US Standard basses than on the MIMs.

guitarfishbay

The 70s Strat headstock does look like a regular Strat that got stung by a bee though.