This Article Was Originally Published On: June 3rd, 2015 #Issue 16
It’s summer time, and we thought we’d take a little break with this more lighthearted installation of Bass Gear Magazine’s Luthiers’ Round Table. Once again, the Round Table Luthiers include (in alphabetical order) Sheldon Dingwall, Harry Fleishman, Vinny Fodera, Randall Wyn Fullmer, George Furlanetto, Mike Kinal, Kenneth Lawrence, Gerald Marleaux, Carey Nordstrand, Michael Pedulla, Roger Sadowsky, Pete Skjold, Michael Tobias, and Joe Zon, though being that we are on summer break, a couple of the guys were off having fun doing other things.
Here are the questions for the luthiers:
TB – Do you employ graphite or steel stiffening rods (or anything similar) in your necks? Whether you do or you don’t, can you tell us why you’ve made this decision?
Randall Fullmer – I always use a two-way truss rod down the center on all of my neck-through basses. I also use multi-lamination necks for added strength and stability, so I don’t feel a need for stiffeners on my 4 and 5-string basses. I make an exception if someone requests it because they live in a very changeable weather climate, especially with a lot of humidity; or they’re on the road a lot going in and out of very different weather conditions. I will install two carbon fiber rods, one on either side of the truss rod, for added stability. On 6-string and above, I always add two carbon fiber rods, spaced a third of the way in from each neck edge, for added stability and strength.
Jason DeSalvo – We have a very minimalist and traditionalist approach to our neck construction. We use a removable, reversible truss rod fabricated of steel or titanium, and nothing else. We build our instruments exclusively from wood and do not want to add anything that is not absolutely necessary in the interest of maximizing tone.
Roger Sadowsky – We introduced two graphite strips into our necks about 15 years ago. We did not do this for stability, as we have never had an issue with our necks. We did it, along with thickening our headstock, to do everything in our power to reduce the incidence of dead spots. We find that the graphite also does a great job of evening-out the response of our basses, everywhere on the fingerboard.
Sheldon Dingwall – It depends on the thickness of the neck. We found that adding 1mm of thickness to our necks added more stiffness than we were getting from two carbon fiber spars. So, we install carbon fiber in our thinner-profile necks, but don’t feel they are necessary in our thicker-profile necks.
Michael Tobias – Generally, we do not use inserts of any kind. The only inserts I am currently using are titanium, and that depends on the neck and fingerboard combination or customer request. We do use it with certain wood combinations. Beyond stiffness, the titanium alters the response of the neck, adding warmth and enhancing the entire spectrum of the bass. Over the years, I have used graphite necks, bars, and rod inserts. While they do certainly offer greater stiffness and can help with wolf/sheep tones, they are not to my taste. Graphite is still a valid and useful tool in building, just not something that fits with what we make. Titanium isn’t the perfect answer, either, but I like its response better; it seems warmer, and possibly because of the rod we use being a smaller size, it seems to let the wood speak more.
Harry Fleishman – I started putting carbon fiber in my necks pretty early, with no understanding, whatsoever, of what they might do, but hearing that they might add stiffness. Over time, I decided that I liked the way they added some stiffness and made the job of the truss rods easier. Sheldon’s right; adding a little thickness can add a lot of stiffness. In fact, the change in stiffness is the cube of the change in thickness, so that a doubling of thickness translates to an eightfold change in stiffness. However, I later started experimenting, and while helping my stepson with a science project discovered some interesting relationships between materials, resonances, stiffness, and weight. If the goal is light weight (which in a bass I think is very important), then carbon fiber gives you the best stiffness-to-weight ratio. If the goal is stiffness alone (which it isn’t, in my seldom-humble opinion), then steel is best. If the goal is to lower resonance in the neck (which it is for me in EUBs), then steel works well. If the goal is to raise neck resonance (more on that to come), then again, carbon fiber is your pal.
What convinced me that carbon fiber is best, overall, is that my experiments showed me that carbon fiber raised the resonance of the neck at least an octave, and often more, depending on the configuration of the rods and their makeup. This tended to put the neck resonance higher than the low notes of the bass. As with other aspects of the bass, if the neck can resonate at a frequency that is in-tune – and in-phase – with a note, it will make that note louder and out of balance. If it is out-of-phase, it will make it quieter. If it is off-pitch, but close, it will cause the note to fight between the string pitch and the neck pitch. In any case, it is not likely that we can make every neck resonance in tune with our strings. The next-best thing is to raise the neck’s resonance to make it less prone to sympathetic resonance with the low strings, which have enough mass to interfere with the string’s pitch. Experiments in cello necks and other guitars and basses confirmed this effect. I like the steel rods, with carbon fiber, in EUBs to darken the tone and also clarify it. I don’t really understand that one so well.
Pete Skjold – These questions seemed to have been pulled from my personal notebook … “Tom!?” In the past two to three years, I have been really examining some things which I just took for granted when I started building, in 1996. One of them is the use of graphite neck reinforcement. The other things are the use of different scale lengths and whether or not to use laminated necks vs 1-piece necks, and also using different hardware applications to impact the basses’ natural resonance in order to deal with “dead spots,” or lack of response, from higher strings. So, I have been asking myself these same questions for the last three years, and it has been amazing how much I have changed the way I think about these things, now.
I believe it was an article by Rick Turner that mentioned it’s use to help with stability and dead notes. I took it for granted that I should just use it and not question its validity. About three years ago, I thought I should test to see if using graphite was as necessary as I was lead to believe. This actually coincided with making basses with 34″ scale length, instead of 35″ (another aspect that was challenged). I was amazed at how the neck responded, even without the graphite. I preferred the natural resonance of the neck without the graphite, and so now it is an option. I also realized that the graphite wasn’t really adding that much more stability/stiffness, in that it would still move enough that the truss rod would have to be employed to get the neck as straight as it needed to be. I can see where it did add a bit of compression to the sound (not a bad thing), but it wasn’t the game-changer I thought it would be.
I theorize that because it resonates at a different frequency than the wood around it, it also lessens the degree of resonant peak frequencies (wolf tones) and sympathetic frequencies (sheep tones, or dead spots). Even with graphite, my basses occasionally suffered from dead spots, but in a higher register than typically reported on vintage basses. On to the next question, as it picks up right where this leaves off.
Michael Pedulla – I added stiffening bars about 25 years ago. After some experimenting, I found that they add a bit more consistency to our truss rod adjustments system. I have found no discernible difference in sound between materials.
Kenneth Lawrence – I’ve been seeking a more and more “organic” sound over the last many years, and I’ve found that the traditional approach of more wood, less additions inside the neck, helps me to do that. That said however, when requested by a customer, to get a tighter, slightly more compressed sound, I will utilize graphite or titanium bars. Personally, I much prefer the titanium. In the beginning, I did a lot of neck-throughs with fairly thin necks, so I did use graphite spars, but like Sheldon, I went to a slightly thicker neck and much prefer the sound (and feel) without.
Gerald Marleaux – A few months ago, I got in touch with a special company here in my city who provided me with stainless steel rods in a perfect way, now; fantastic!! They are very light in weight and smooth-working (one-piece, with double action). Usually, this company makes parts for Rolls Royce cars. Whether or not we use graphite bars depends on neck construction. For our Votan basses (more traditional shape and sizes), we don´t use it, as they have great sound and stability, without. Our models like the Consat, Diva or M-Bass have a longer neck. They are fixed into the body after 24th fret, so the neck is really long. In that case, we have had good experience using graphite bars for 5 and 6-string versions. The graphite we use is not a solid bar – it’s a square pipe – so it is very light and stiff as solid material.
Carey Nordstrand – I do not and have never used any rods or other additives in my necks, besides either a steel 2-way rod (on the Nordy line), or an aluminum U-channel 1-way rod (on my custom basses). I’ve always thought that I want to have as natural and woody a sound as possible, and to me, this means keep the metal (or carbon fiber) to a minimum. I’ve really never thought much about it beyond that, and I’ve never had a bass that I thought, “I bet that would sound better with X rods in it.” And lately, I’ve been exploring necks that are one-piece, with a truss rod added through a channel, like on my headless design. Again, this is in search of the maximum wood character I can get from the neck.
Mike Kinal – As far as rods go, I tend to use a single graphite rod on the treble side of the neck. I find this evens the sound out of all the strings. This is subtle, but noticeable, in comparison to a neck without a rod. We also use a double-action truss rod.
George Furlanetto – I’m having so much fun playing live. I’ve been with the same band members for 31 years, so it’s like a huge extended family; even all the wives get along! I enjoy learning and practicing outstanding and favorite bass lines and practice, practice, practice to improve my playing skills. Unfortunately, computer games get in the way… I love to search out really good, inexpensive wines. It’s a long search!
Joe Zon – We haven’t found any difference in sound between our headed and heaTBess basses. The stiffness and rigidity of our necks plays a big role in the consistency of response and sustain in our instruments. I can, however, see how that would not hold true with a wood-neck instrument. From my experience in building wood-neck instruments, having a headstock, the size of that headstock (mass) and whether or not it is angled has a direct relationship to the sustain and tonal characteristics of the bass.
TB – What are your thought on the ideal headstock mass (no headless basses, this time!), and how this relates to minimizing/eliminating “dead spots?”
Randall Fullmer – I have not experimented with various headstock masses. I don’t seem to have dead spots in my basses, so if the headstock mass affects that, I think I must be doing it right. I use Hipshot Ultralite tuners to keep the head of the bass at a reasonable balance weight, so that my basses balance well ergonomically, with no dive bombing.
Jason DeSalvo – We believe in a fairly substantive headstock mass and have found that it both increases sustain and lessens dead spots. This is one of the reasons that we only use an ultra-light style tuner if is specifically requested by a customer, and we have had the chance to explain the impact that this will have on tone to them.
Roger Sadowsky – I absolutely agree that the more mass and stiffness the headstock has, the fewer dead spots will appear.
Sheldon Dingwall – We’ve added brass weights to headstocks and found that instead of eliminating the dead spots, they just reduced their “amplitude” slightly, widened their width a little and moved them up in pitch by a quarter-tone or semitone. This had the effect of making them less noticeable, but still there, if you hunted for them. We tried adding weights in the neck under the dead spot, similar to violin construction, and found that to be ineffective. We’ve tried several configurations of carbon fiber and have several more ideas that approach the problem from a different angle that we still need to test. Dead spots haven’t been a big problem for us, but I’d still like to understand their dynamics and know how to control them, if necessary.
Michael Tobias – More mass in the peghead and additional stiffness contributes sustain and mitigation of the weaker notes on the fretboard. There is a point at which it becomes counterproductive, as the additional weight can make the bass neck-heavy. Stiffening the peg head by adding laminates to the front and back also helps, without adding too much additional weight.
Harry Fleishman – I have done no work on this question! Intuitively, I like a stiff neck. Logically, using the analogy of a string stretched between two marble blocks, versus two balsa blocks, a heavier head will add sustain. [I find that the best way for me to think about stuff is to go to the extremes.] I have found that added mass makes the tone darker, but no more than that. I think my open scroll should screw up the tone, but it doesn’t seem to. Go figure!
Pete Skjold – My headstocks have retained very much the same proportions since about 1999, so I haven’t done much to make the actual headstock bigger. But I have experimented with using different hardware of denser material to move dead spots up the neck. It did have an impact. I, like Sheldon, tried using pieces of brass as a test to this. I was not totally satisfied with the results, and because of this, I switched to a brass bridge (on basses I had issues with) and found that, for me, changing the bass’ overall weight – and therefore changing its resonant peak frequency and sympathetic frequency – I was able to manipulate the dead spots much more effectively. It also added sustain and fullness to the higher-register strings. “Dead spots,” as you refer to them, here, will always be there, because they are a product of the sympathetic frequency of the bass. The note simply doesn’t resonate, because it absorbs the energy of the note and cancels itself out a bit. Likewise the “wolf tone” is the product of the resonant peak frequency, which will be louder than all the other notes, because the resonance builds on itself. This is something acoustic instruments deal with much more, and there have been many remedies applied to resolving/changing where these show up. Solid instruments seem to be more forgiving, in terms of the impact on the individual note. I find adding mass, or even taking it away, will change the location slightly on a bass. I suppose all the other aspects (like fretwire, woods and hardware) would have to be considered, too. This is all based on my own experience, of course.
Michael Pedulla – It’s always a trade-off. I can only speak of my designs, but mass helps to a point, then becomes counterproductive to balance, performance and aesthetics. Dead spots also depend on how the mass of the headstock is distributed, neck size, fingerboard thickness and material, body material and mass, hardware … it all adds up.
Kenneth Lawrence – Luckily, I’ve not had to deal with “dead spots.” So, even though I have toyed with the idea of additional weight in my headstock, I haven’t done those experiments. I do, however, believe that the mass of your headstock is very important, not only for the resonance of the neck, but how it will affect the tone. I also believe that the peghead angle, the shape of the neck shaft, as well as careful gluing-in of the frets, are all important factors in giving you a solid, even-sounding neck. With the tuners, I use Hipshot Ultralights, because I found they have a better midrange than the Gotoh GB7. There is only so thick you can go on your headstock without starting to do things like recessing the nuts and washers on the face. That gets into re-designing your headstock, and as all us builders know, designing a “good” headstock shape is not such an easy task.
Gerald Marleaux – I found two ways to eliminate dead spots with different headstock construction. One is to make the headstock thick and big, but it becomes too heavy for my feel.
My way is first to line up the stings at headstock. I then do a small outline and use a thick stable headstock (angled), with a laminate on top. So, it is light in weight and we never have any problems with dead spots.
Carey Nordstrand – Again, I never really got too deeply immersed in trying to figure out how the headstock mass effects things. My Nordy basses have characteristically larger headstocks, in line with the style of instrument – not much to do, there. My custom basses have a shape that allows straight string pull and looks nice and fits well with the size of the Hipshot machines I like to use. I do try to make the headstock as thick as I can, while still allowing a good thread engagement on the machines. That ends up being about .65″ or so on my basses. Dead spots are almost never an issue in my custom instruments, which are always at least 3-pieces and often 5 or 7-pieces. The Nordy basses do occasionally have issues, but I’ve taken the approach that it’s a Fender-style instrument and I want to stay as true to that as I can. Sometimes, you get the warts that go with doing things that way.
I know you said no headless basses here, but I have an observation that may be of interest. I have better results in terms of dead spots on my headless basses when the body has a top facing on it. These basses are one-piece neck, only. The rod is inserted from the top, so there’s a stripe down the middle of the neck. One-piece neck and solid body headless basses sometimes have dead spots that are not subtle. In my experience, so far, anyway.
Mike Kinal – With relation to headstock thickness, we found the maximum thickness to accommodate the machine heads with an angled headstock and straight string pull gives my instruments even response over the fretboard. A thicker headstock also alleviates tuning issues.
George Furlanetto – If I wasn’t a luthier, I’d be either an architect or high-end homes and deck builder … sticking with wood construction.
Joe Zon – We have built chambered wood-body basses and semi-acoustic basses where the back and sides are composite, with a “floating” spruce or maple top; both types having composite necks. Randall gave a very good explanation as to what is going on, so I won’t delve any further. I will say, that despite our different neck construction and the aforementioned consistency we experience in our instruments due to those materials, we have had similar differences in tone between solid, chambered and semi-acoustic bodies, as found with their wood-neck counterparts. Chambering the bass can “open up” the acoustic side of the instrument a little bit, depending on how much chambering is done. Likewise, it can cause the voice to lose a little focus, in relation to a solid body, but not enough to be a detriment to the overall sound. With the semi-acoustic, having the sides and back made of a thin composite, the body acts like more of a speaker cabinet, causing the top vibrate in a way that provides greater volume, yet retaining more focus than a chambered body.
TB – Do you prefer quarter-sawn or flat-sawn necks, and why?
Randall Fullmer – I always have between four and seven laminations in the neck for tone, strength and stability purposes. Fewer laminations for a 4 or 5-string bass, and more as it goes to 6 and 7-string. My preference is quarter-sawn with the alignment of the quarter-sawn grain running from the back of the neck to the front. [For those of you that don’t know the term, quarter sawn, the boards are cut with the growth rings running pretty much perpendicular to the board face. This gives the board a better stability and evenness over a flat sawn board, that is cut with the long face of the board running parallel to the growth rings. If you Google “what is a quarter sawn board?” you’ll find clear explanations and pictures that illustrate the concept.]
I book-match two quarter-sawn pieces to make the center core. Then, I use two book-matched quarter-sawn pieces for the rails. This, in conjunction with my stripes, make up the four to seven laminations. Quarter-sawn wood is stronger and more stable. The pull of the strings will be best counterbalanced by quarter-sawn grain. And it’s my belief that this grain alignment leads to greater overall neck stability.
Jason DeSalvo – For our Standard Line of instruments that use one-piece, bolt-on necks, we prefer quarter-sawn material for its dimensional stability. On our Custom instruments, our “standard” is a 3-piece neck, where the outside two pieces are book-matched from the same piece of material and the center piece is quarter-sawn. Again, we consider making dimensional stable necks that will not warp over their lifetimes to be a significant design criteria.
Roger Sadowsky – I prefer flat-sawn. Unlike mahogany, I do not find quarter-sawn maple to be any stiffer than flat-sawn maple. I think the best solution to stable necks is to age your neck stock as long as possible. I can count on one hand the number of necks we have had to replace over the last 35 years, due to warping or twisting.
Sheldon Dingwall – We prefer quarter-sawn for a few reasons: quarter-sawn wood expands and contracts slightly less across it’s width than flat-sawn. Although this doesn’t eliminate fret sprout, it reduces it. Secondly, we glue our frets into their slots – less wood movement means less stress – which can be significant. Lastly, we found some interesting things when testing the stiffness of wooden beams. We found flat-sawn grain to be asymmetrically stiff. Orienting flat-sawn grain cup side down resisted string tension the most, while cup side up resisted the least, with quarter-sawn being second in stiffness, but consistent, no matter which way it was oriented. I’m a big fan of consistency, so in theory, at least, we should end up with more predictable necks using quarter-sawn material. We’ll revisit flat-sawn necks at some point in the future to see if there is anything to be gained that we’re currently missing.
Michael Tobias – Some woods are stronger in their quarter-sawn direction, some not. I tend to like flat-sawn maple and ash necks, while only using quartered wenge necks.
Harry Fleishman – No opinion. I haven’t done enough production building to compare them. Mr. Fender liked flat-sawn, but I don’t really know if it was because it let the rod do the work, it was just as stiff, or it was cheaper to get. I generally prefer to cut and flip the neck halves to make the neck symmetric around its center line. That way, if the grain wants to twist one way, the other half will counteract it. You can’t argue with using well-aged, well-seasoned wood, though. It is probably the most important thing.
Pete Skjold – Short answer, I prefer quarter-sawn. Long answer, after more testing of the graphite in my necks and the scale length preferences I was getting requests for, I have come to use a quarter-sawn 1-piece maple neck which I have specially produced. The stability really comes from how well the wood was kiln dried, and as Roger mentioned, how well/long the neck was allowed to season (in my experience). I do still use laminated necks, and those necks start off as flat-sawn material, but when glued up into blocks and then sawn, the grain is vertical or at a 90 degree angle to the face of the neck, which is similar to how the grain is on a quarter-sawn board.
Michael Pedulla – I use quarter-sawn, flat-sawn, and combinations of laminated quarter-sawn hard maple necks, depending on the model I am making. The choice is an integral part of the design process in establishing some of the acoustic tonal properties for each model. All are stable and without problem, if done properly. Laminating quarter-sawn allows the forces in the wood to equalize somewhat, creating a more stable neck and defining the character of a particular sound, and the number of laminations in the neck further define the register of attack and tone. As with all instruments, there is no one defining statement to be made; it’s how the materials are combined in the design, and of course, the execution.
Kenneth Lawrence – On both my basses and guitars, I prefer quarter-sawn. Most of my basses are 3-piece maple and oriented in the classic fashion, like Fodera does, with the center as quarter-sawn as possible, with the two outside pieces somewhat book-matched from the flat-sawn board. The somewhat higher resonant frequency of a quarter-sawn three-piece, over a flat-sawn one-piece, works for my designs and the sound I’m after. Also, as Roger stated, seasoning is crucial!
Gerald Marleaux – For our “traditional” built instruments, I like flat-sawn one-piece maple more. I like the warmness of the sound. Custom line instruments are built with 3-piece maple laminated with small dark veneer. The core is made from quarter-sawn maple (sometime ash) and two outside book-matched pieces of maple, mainly from our area growing, where maple is not so heavy with diagonal annual rings. We cut the maple trees in a special way for neck blanks.
For me, it’s important to create a symmetric construction for necks to make them stable and even to offer the best base for my instruments.
Carey Nordstrand – I use flat-sawn maple for all my basses. It ends up quarter-sawn in the laminated necks, and that seems to work very well. I think the fingerboard needs to be very stable and seasoned for the best results. Flat-sawn maple is way more available, and if one builds the neck right on the center line of the grain, then they are very stable and predictable. At least in my experience. Also, it’s quite dry here in Redlands, CA, so it’s almost always the case that the maple is at its minimum dimension when we get to making necks out of it. So I very rarely, if ever, have fret sprout issues.
Mike Kinal – When you look at quarter-sawn eastern maple and flat-sawn maple and flex the two, quarter-sawn tends to have more stiffness. In my experience, with both cuts in maple,
I have found no difference as far as sound or stability. The key component with using wood for necks is to make sure it is dried properly.
George Furlanetto – Favorite tool??? I don’t think I have one…probably the best tool suited for the job at that moment; I guess I’m just a practical guy.
Joe Zon – I don’t subscribe to the idea that a “custom bass” should be custom, in the sense that the player gets to choose all the materials and components for the bass desired. I feel that is a recipe for disaster, which with some players, can lead to enTBess tail chasing and result in a bass not sounding anywhere near what the player wants. To me, basses can be much like wine. As there are many different basses, there are many different wines. Let’s take a cabernet for example. When you open that bottle, you are enjoying the experience and craft of a vintner who knows the nuances of the terroir, the fruit and how to blend them in a way that the wine will exhibit the best characteristics of those elements. That same idea applies to the boutique basses we all in this article build.
