Got a bit of "what some bloke down the pub told me" discussion for you here, and I want to know if it's true.
So this guy I know reckons (and he apparently heard this from a bloke who runs a big Fender dealer) that the Fender custom shop now offers a service where they will put bodies and necks on "a resonance machine" (not a phrase Google recognises) and find "the fundamental frequency", then match the necks and the body so that the resulting guitar resonates perfectly.
Sounds like a fair bit of cock and bull in there, but can anyone say if there's a grain of truth at the bottom, and if so, what it is? Maybe
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The guy who told me likes this story because it confirms his pet theory. For years he has believed that you can tell a good Strat with the following method: Hold the guitar loosely around the base of the headstock so it hangs freely, as it would on a guitar hanger. Tap the back of the neck and the back of the body. If the resulting taps are the same pitch (or a pleasing interval apart, like a perfect 5th), the guitar will be a good one. So obviously he thinks the Fender Custom Shop's alleged new process proves he's right about that.
Further, he says that when Clapton assembled Blackie from the best bits of three Strats (which is true, Clapton's talked about it many times), he was doing the same thing: finding the neck that resonated 'in tune' with the body. He thinks you can't tell a good neck and body in isolation. It's about how well they work together. So Clapton tried all the possible combinations and hit upon Blackie.
I must admit, I find all this pretty charming and I want to believe it, but I haven't seen any good evidence anywhere. It makes sense to me at least that a neck and body that vibrate sympathetically would be a pleasing thing to play unplugged, but beyond that I couldn't say. What evidence do you have to support or disconfirm?
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I've looked at a bunch of interviews with Clapton, and he only mentions picking the neck her preferred the feel of. Perhaps there was some magic interaction between the body and neck, but that doesn't seem to have been intentional.
I don't have much scientific evidence for it, but I do have one very clear example... at one time I owned two vintage short-scale Fenders, a '64 Duo-Sonic II (24" scale) and a '65 Musicmaster II (22.5" scale). You might not realise this but the necks are interchangeable, due to the 24" scale also having an extra fret - Fender did that on purpose to make it possible to mass-produce both sizes with fewer parts.
Anyway, of the two guitars the Musicmaster sounded great, but I preferred the longer-scale neck on the Duo-Sonic, which only sounded average. So I swapped the necks, expecting to get a great-sounding guitar with a better neck... but both guitars sounded average at best - ie most of the great tone was in the Musicmaster neck, but even that didn't sound as good on the Duo-Sonic body. So I swapped them back and everything was back to as it was before.
Edit - watched the video now. That does help to explain something I've noticed, which is that I've never played a bad-sounding Fender CS guitar, or even a really average one that I can remember. Some are still better than others, probably because the process is more intuitive than scientific, and they're still working with a limited range of components, but it's still much better than just randomly assembling parts.
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The body definitely does make a difference too, although smaller - testing has been done on that and produced clear results. Hopefully I can say that without opening up that particular can of worms again...
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
Maybe not set in stone - But I've noticed from a having a number of guitars in stock, that tap 2/3 bodies - Each can be vibrant/lively, but still produce a different note when tapped - As a guide line, the lower pitched note is often a darker voice - Not better, just darker - Some like a bright guitar, some like it more mellow
I guess because people have created great tones with all sorts of guitars.
I'm sure that at some level there is something going on in the wood but there's so many other variables that imo it doesn't matter.
Who plays only hanging the guitar by the headstock?
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But it's also true that the Peter Green Les Paul has a completely unique sound which is *not* just due to the rewound neck pickup - the tone is in the wood, you can hear it on the original unmodified bridge pickup as well.
So the wood and its resonances do matter at least to some extent.
"Take these three items, some WD-40, a vise grip, and a roll of duct tape. Any man worth his salt can fix almost any problem with this stuff alone." - Walt Kowalski
"Only two things are infinite - the universe, and human stupidity. And I'm not sure about the universe." - Albert Einstein
although im pretty sure that i suggested the very idea here a few weeks back in a semi tongue in cheek way will have to see if i can find the post
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