Is ignorance bliss?

thegummy

skunkwerx said:

When I started it was on a strat copy. 

Played it for years, tuned it to stupid low tunings and riffed along to Korn and Slipknot (.10 strings and all), then bought an Ltd kh-202. 

I remember the days of playing Korn on a down tuned Squier!

jeztone2

I’ve only really thought about it in the last fifteen or so years. I bought a guitar that I bonded with more than any other. So I went into the reasons behind that. The main ones seemed to be jumbo frets on a chunky-ish neck. I also like heavier bodies too. Not too back breaking. But substantial.

So since then I’ve bought more guitars with bigger frets and generally I enjoy that. But neck profiles and radius. I seem to like 10” ala a PRS. But I can manage with 12” too.

I guess guitar playing is a journey and sometimes we make discoveries. But also our tastes change over time too.  

HAL9000

The thing is that nowadays we are influenced by internet wisdom.

Internet wisdom would suggest (and therefore people believe) that...

a) All 7.25” radius fretboards are absolutely guaranteed to choke out
b) A Tele must have three brass saddles to have that Tele ‘braang!’ (and to be a proper Tele)
c) Through-body stringing on a Tele gives more sustain than a top loader.
d) Valve amps are fragile and inherently unreliable.

...All of which are demonstrably false. Real life experience is that...

a) A properly set up instrument doesn’t choke out.
b) Steel saddles give more of that Tele ‘braang!
c) Makes no difference to sustain - the portion of string that goes through the body doesn’t vibrate.
d) Bands have been throwing valve amps into the backs of cars, trains, and planes for several decades now and generally don’t have amp issues.

Being repeated ad-nauseum on the internet doesn’t make things true. Do your own research and go by your own experience.

Sassafras

I'd never heard the word 'corksniffery' till I joined this forum.

skunkwerx

thegummy said:

skunkwerx said:

When I started it was on a strat copy. 

Played it for years, tuned it to stupid low tunings and riffed along to Korn and Slipknot (.10 strings and all), then bought an Ltd kh-202. 

I remember the days of playing Korn on a down tuned Squier!

Those were the days eh? 

I suppose I didnt have the knowledge of it all back then, I just picked up and played along. 

I probably sounded awful! But still, got a lot more playing done haha.

Grumpyrocker

AlbertC said:

I've been playing since a kid in the 70s - occasionally in bands but mainly for my own enjoyment and I've owned a fair few guitars in that time. But it wasn't until I started regularly visiting this forum (about 12 months ago or so) that I knew such a thing as a fretboard radius existed.   I know, stupid huh? 

So it's surprising to me that it's something that appears to be big deal for a lot of people - some much preferring X radius or others saying they can’t get on with Y radius.

For 40+ years I've just bought/played guitars without giving a second thought to the fact that fretboards actually might have different curvatures.

 
Is this just a relatively recent thing to get hung up on or have people always been quite choosy about it. 

I can’t help feeling I was better off in blissful ignorance.

Yes. I had the same crappy guitar and the same crappy amp for 30 years. Didn't know any different. Didn't really understand fretboard radius, scale length, wood types, pickup types. I just played.

I only started spending money on stuff when I joined the Music Radar forum. 

I think I was happier before. I mean, I gigged a knackered old Epiphone into a Line 6 Spider and was totally happy with it. 

skunkwerx

Grumpyrocker said:

AlbertC said:

I've been playing since a kid in the 70s - occasionally in bands but mainly for my own enjoyment and I've owned a fair few guitars in that time. But it wasn't until I started regularly visiting this forum (about 12 months ago or so) that I knew such a thing as a fretboard radius existed.   I know, stupid huh? 

So it's surprising to me that it's something that appears to be big deal for a lot of people - some much preferring X radius or others saying they can’t get on with Y radius.

For 40+ years I've just bought/played guitars without giving a second thought to the fact that fretboards actually might have different curvatures.

 
Is this just a relatively recent thing to get hung up on or have people always been quite choosy about it. 

I can’t help feeling I was better off in blissful ignorance.

Yes. I had the same crappy guitar and the same crappy amp for 30 years. Didn't know any different. Didn't really understand fretboard radius, scale length, wood types, pickup types. I just played.

I only started spending money on stuff when I joined the Music Radar forum. 

I think I was happier before. I mean, I gigged a knackered old Epiphone into a Line 6 Spider and was totally happy with it. 

I also had a line 6 spider, was the III 75w one. 

Got the big footswitch with the wah/volume and 4 channel selector switches. 

That was damn near perfect! Had it for over a decade and to me, sounded fine. Could do everything I wanted for home use. 

Never broke or went wrong. 

Never understood the hate myself, but would be interesting to go back and play through one again to compare.

axisus

I've never had fretboard radius as a thing to consider when buying a guitar, I just go with a feel I like. I'm not mad keen on the feel of a flat or flattish fretboard, and I'd probably avoid the vintage 7.5" due to potential fretting out on bending, but everything else is OK. 

I've made 5 guitars and they all have a 9.5" radius. They are all the same purely because I didn't want to fork out on a second radius block!

Grumpyrocker

skunkwerx said:

happy with it. 

I also had a line 6 spider, was the III 75w one. 

Got the big footswitch with the wah/volume and 4 channel selector switches. 

That was damn near perfect! Had it for over a decade and to me, sounded fine. Could do everything I wanted for home use. 

Never broke or went wrong. 

Never understood the hate myself, but would be interesting to go back and play through one again to compare.

That's the same model I gigged. And had the footswitch too. It was totally fine for a wedding gig. I'd just bought it as my old amp and died and thought I should get something versatile. Not being a guitar forum person at the time I didn't know these things were so hated. It made sounds when I plugged my guitar in, so off I went.