Fender custom shop rumour—is this true?

xscaramanga · October 2020

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 @guitars4you?

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?

Jeremiah · October 2020

You would think that if a guitar and neck resonated at a particular pitch, it would sound better for playing notes at that pitch or its harmonics, and worse/discordant at other pitches.

RaymondLin · October 2020

/waits for the counter argument that will make the guitar more sterile.

Whitecat · October 2020

crunchman · October 2020

Neck makes a huge difference to tone. FInd a rosewood necked PRS and the same model with a mahogany neck if you want proof.

I've read several stories of people swapping necks between guitars and saying the tone goes with the neck.

At the same time, a good neck probably won't matter on a dead sounding body.

monquixote · October 2020

I have no idea, but there is a video of PRS tapping various components and listening to the sounds.

I think that was for something like nut material though.

victorludorum · October 2020

So, this word 'better'...

xscaramanga · October 2020

Cheers @Whitecat, that's a really interesting video and pretty much settles it!

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.

ICBM · October 2020

I have no idea whether the Fender Custom Shop do that (edit: hadn't watched the video yet when I posted this), but the basic premise is correct in my opinion. I'm sure the resonance of the neck is more important than the body, but they both matter and it will make the difference between an average guitar and a great one, if you get a pair that really work well together. Or an average one and a dog, if you get two that fight each other in the wrong way.

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.

dazzajl · October 2020

That video would suggest the ideal ‘resonance machine’ is a hammer

Gassage · October 2020

Necks make the difference- simple physics;

The neck is a trussed cantilever- the strings are the truss and the neck is the lever.

The plucking of strings release 5 types of energy- kinetic, elastic, thermal, radient and sound (electrical when in the mag field, but that has nothing to do with this for the moment). The neck is the cantlever so will react in equal and opposite proportions. So the sine waves set up by the strings will be mirrored in the neck, but modified by volume, density, shape and dimention.

ICBM · October 2020

Gassage said:

Necks make the MOST difference- simple physics

FTFY.

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...

guitars4you · October 2020

Sorry for a delayed reply - late to the party - But I think it has been answered especially with the video clip that @Whitecat posted - I've seen this before but not for a while - Nothing new with this tap the wood format - Violin builders have done it for years - It does help to answer the question, that Fender don't like waste - Waste is bad for profit - So wood that does not meet the CS grade, for whatever reason, can be moved down the line to a lower price point - This doesn't mean all wood for lower priced guitars, is reject wood as that is not the case - Rough planks will be graded and pre-selected to supply a price point/range - The video shows a final process of selection and wood allocated accordingly

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

LastMantra · October 2020

Silly.

guitars4you · October 2020

LastMantra said:

Silly.

because ?

funhouse · October 2020

It's an interesting approach, if true. I remember Roger Mayer telling me that Hendrix used to try out lots of different strats and then match the necks and bodies he preferred. Dave Gilmour did the same with his Blackie strat in the 1970s, AFIK.

LastMantra · October 2020

guitars4you said:

LastMantra said:

Silly.

because ?

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?

daveyh · October 2020

Steve Vai is on record that this is how he put together FLO.

Jalapeno · October 2020

Wouldn't resonating bodies & neck be a bad thing for wolf tones and howling feedback on certain notes/frets ?

ICBM · October 2020

LastMantra said:

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?

Yes, it's true that you can make a great sound with a cheap junk guitar that has no "tone", if you want.

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.

WezV · October 2020

i think the principle is sound, but the resonance machine thing sounds hokey.... lets just say i think it would be heavily advertised ...They would be telling you the exact vintage guitar with matching resonances

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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Fender custom shop rumour—is this true?

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