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Radius. Scale. Frets. How picky are ya?


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Playing my li'l "collection" of guitars (instead of getting online and booking some shows) it's funny how my preferences are. Ya hear a lot about scale length, fret size, and neck radius, which makes sense. Usually it's the fretting hand that has to do a lot of contorting, and you get your groove on better with some hardware than others.

The conventional wisdom is usually that the flatter radius and bigger frets are for shred, and the smaller radius and smaller frets are old-fashioned. This wisdom goes on to say you can't bend as well on small frets and radius, and then there's a lot of opinions about scale length and ease of bending or flying over the frets.

I'm finding I play best on more old-school guitars, which is kind of weird. I'm fanatical about getting guitars set up to my preference, with action on the low side and no choking on bends... I'll tweak for days then get Jeff at Maple Street Guitars to level the high bits if that's what it takes. But on the Jazzmaster with vintage frets and 7.25" radius - a guitar with a reputation for being weird in every way and the bottom of most "easy to play" lists - I have a blast. I twang on the vibrato, and go bendy-bendy and feel completely at home. Next in line is probably the old Fernandes Tele copy, which also has a round neck and little frets.

No right or wrong answers, but it's a rainy Friday and interesting question. How attached are you to a particular kind of neck?

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I find that, for my style of playing, I have a little more difficulty with the flatter radius guitars. Also, the small, vintage frets make it harder for me to bend strings because the meat of my finger tips drag on the fret board whereas the taller frets eliminate that problem. I do prefer the longer scale necks because the strings feel slinkier than they do on a short scale neck. 

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Over the years I've found a general recipe for what I like.

1 3/4" nut width

Average C shape profile, hate baseball bats

12-14" range for radius

Tall-ish frets

Also I suck and barely play anymore.😄

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I get along with all sorts of different shapes / radius / scale lengths.  And what the guitar gives me drives me to play differently.  I got different ideas from playing a Strat than I did playing the Studio.  So I gotta try different flavors of guitars and, thus, why this place is so dangerous. 

 

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In recent years, I've come to find that the edges have become a consideration as much as scale, shape radius and frets. Gotta be rolled. Binding is usually a bad scene as the edges can be a bit irritating after while. Otherwise, I prefer a comfy C or modest sized D neck shape (with rolled edges), 12" - 16" radius, jumbos and long scale. My meat hook sausages have a hard enough time getting between those tiny little frets spaces above the 15th, I'm pretty much hosed if I am soloing in, say, A above the 12th on a short scale.

The irony of the fact that I have such particular preferences for a player of my <ahem> caliber, does not escape me. Shee-ooot, you'd think with all these nit picky specs I insist on, I'd be some lightning-from-my fingertips-guitar god. Only in my wildest dreams. 😆

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It always comes back to either the Les Paul or Hamer Junior - bigger-than-medium C-shape neck, 12" or 14" radius and medium jumbo frets are what I gravitate towards. Anything flat/wide or pencil thin doesn't last long, even if it's an otherwise great guitar.

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I've moved from medium necks (like a PRS wide-thin from ~89) towards the Hamer Vintage profile (Artist P90 and Shishkov Ultimate).

I was never particularly into the Wizard neck even when I was younger.  I remember even in my teens my left hand would cramp on certain songs and it wasn't until I got a larger neck in my 30s that I realized it was probably that the neck was so small, since it doesn't happen on larger necked guitars.

I'm not particularly picky about any aspects though.  As @veatch has often said, I can find something to love about almost any guitar.  :)

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I've been logging a lot of hours lately on a '72 reissue Tele Custom. 7.25" radius, tiny frets, and .010 gauge strings. It's been an OK experience, but I do wish for meatier frets. I'm going down to a .0095 gauge set on the next string change to see if that helps. 

 

 

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It changes every day with me. Some days I prefer this some days I prefer that. I have four in rotation and each is different. They are all on stands or leaning against an amp and I just grab the one I feel like playing. I can say I believe I like the 25.5 inch scale best.

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Believe it or not, I like a lot of different guitars. 🙄

For years, I was convinced that the Gibson model (more or less) was IT. As much as I liked the various Fender-types over the years (Tele, Strat, Jazzmaster) they never became my go to. And would eventually go---Away. I was convinced the longer scale was the problem. So I tended to be in the Gibson/Heritage/traditional Hamer mood.

I am not sure exactly what changed that......Monaco SuperPro, Talladega(?) All of a sudden my opinion started to change. Shortly thereafter, when I got turned on to a certain import with a fat neck, long scale, flatter board (and ebony board) it became my new standard. Not that I will NOT play a shorter scale, but......

What I do NOT like....Thin, skinny necks. I had a Gibson Byrdland for many years. BOTH of those features plus a 23.5" scale. Loved it in many respects. But I could not play it for more than 15 minutes before my hands got all cramped up.

Also, I am increasingly going to bigger strings (11s, even on the longer scales). Not withstanding I am an unrepentant string bender. Not all guitars respond the same, but the 11s do seem to "wake up" many guitars, esp semi-hollows.

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I've gone from a Gibson scale to a Fender scale in the last few years, and gravitated towards old-school Tele-style Partscasters, preferably with chunky necks and medium-jumbo frets, and no particular preference on radius...7.5" or 9" or somewhere in that ballpark works for me.  I'm not a flashy player or a good one, so they suit me just fine.

One of the last guitars I bought was a cut in half '50's Alamo Futuramic Dual 8 Lap Steel...which only has a single eight-string neck (of course), a flat as Kansas radius, string action high enough to look under (or up at), and no frets, just fret markers.  Scale is 25", which is good for harmonics but not as good for bar slants due to the string length (many old lap steels have a 22 1/2"-23" scale length).  Still learning on it, and probably will be for the rest of my life; but hey, everybody needs a hobby!

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I play em all... prefer them to have 6 strings but can do ok with 5 except on tremelo bridges... and a reasonable low action!!! The rest is just what is there!!

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                                                                                         I can play on just about anything w/o any issues, I do like the 15". that is a favorite.

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With the fretboard radius I am comfortable with everything from 7.25" to 16", also I don't mind if either 25.5" scale length or 24.75" (with basses I am picky, 34" scale length). Fret size and material I'm not picky either. Neck shape is a factor, fat necks and Charvel and Ibanez-type necks feel uncomfortable to me.

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On 3/1/2019 at 10:00 AM, Stike said:

Over the years I've found a general recipe for what I like.

1 3/4" nut width

Average C shape profile, hate baseball bats

12-14" range for radius

Tall-ish frets

Also I suck and barely play anymore.😄

I'm not super picky, but this^^^.  All of this^^^

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I've recently been spending most of my time on Warmoth Mustang necks:

  • 1 11/6" nut
  • 24" scale
  • 59 profile
  • 10-16 compound radius
  • 6105 frets

Pretty specific and limiting, but it feels perfect to me.  

 

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What an interesting read.

My preference for fretboard radius is 12-14”, I like medium jumbo frets but more importantly they have to be high - 55095’s are great, and with scale length I like them all.

Medium C/D is ideal but not a necessity.  I have a theory that the neck (wood and thickness) is underrated in the tone equation.  

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The only thing I hate are jumbo frets, which feel like I'm running my fingers over railroad tracks. I like vintage frets. I also could never play a scalloped neck because I like feeling the board under my fingers. I hate the feel of just wire on my fingers. 

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Funny - on a 24,75" scale I NEED a fat neck (Hamer vintage carve or my 58 RI Les Paul that has an even bigger neck). 12" or 14" radius - I don't really care...

On 25.5" scale necks I can live with something skinner and I feel pretty comfy on my C.S. Strat's 9.5" to 12" compound radius with a 60's C-profile. My other Strat's and my Tele's frets (originally with a 9.5" radius) have been pleked and thus got somewhat of a compound radius as well on a modern C radius neck. I do okay on those as well. But as a rule of thumb I do like bigger necks...

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