Acoustic Bolt On Necks
 

New member, first post. I found this forum about 2 months ago while doing research on a 2007 Taylor 214ce that I just picked up. Anyway, having 7 years of guitar repair experience (I'm by no means the next Dan Erlewine, or a great builder)

Having had a collection of 14 acoustics total (now down to 5) I've noticed several things. But, it's also brought some questions that I cannot answer myself.

Right now my collection comprises of a 2007 Taylor 214ce, 08 Seagull S6 Cedar GT, 1975 Alvarez Yairi DY-75, 70's Sekova, and an Ibanez AEF20.

The Taylor and the Seagull are the brightest. I tend to like this, as they're not overly bright, but provide great clarity (and with Pho Bronze strings, good bass response). Here's the spinner, they both feature bolt on necks.

Now most people who are familiar with acoustics know of Taylor's NT (New Technology) Neck, and Seagull seems to have followed in their footsteps with almost the exact same construction (I've taken a few apart ) But they don't promote it much like Taylor does.

The Alvarez is the darkest of them all. I'm very compelled to say "muddy", but I believe that has to do with the fact that my ears have adjusted to the Taylor sound.

Unfortunately acoustics rely on so many small details to form their sound that it's almost impossible to compare one brand to another. Martin vs. Taylor vs. Lowden vs. Seagull vs. whoever else.

Here's my question. Is it unreasonable to form the opinion that bolt on neck acoustics give a brighter sound? It's almost glass like in clarity but still incredibly smooth (especially with Godin's Quantum II electronics).

Anyone else have an opinion?

In my opnion, the neck joint has little to do with the intrinsic brightness of the tone. I think that the woods, overall design and voicing of the guitar override any minor difference.

Yes, that is unreasonable. There are too many other factors, and the neck attachement point is a tone-neutral position on the guitar.

The liveliest guitar i own is a set-neck, most of the rest are bolt-ons, and they are all lovely.

I haven't noticed that in my 40 years of playing - but never quite thought about it like that. Probably best left to be answered by builders here who have built both types of guitars and have an opinion based on empirical evidence. I'll watch for the opinions to roll in.

There are some Martin people who will swear that they can hear a dramatic difference between dovetail (old school, and the method used on all high-end Martins) and the newer mortise-and-tenon neck attachments. I've also heard the difference in "punch" between Martin and Taylor attributed to the Taylor bolt-on neck.

This sounds dubious to me, and I've never talked to a luthier who believed it.

- mike

I talked to Matthew Larrivee a couple of years ago when I toured the Oxnard plant...he gave me the tour personally. According to him, the type of neck attachment makes virtually no difference in sound, and no type of neck attachment is "better" than another. It's a builders personal preference.

FWIW.

Just a thought - wouldn't a bolt-on neck be a lot easier to reset?

Haven't you heard, bolt-on necks are by definition a sign of poor quality!
Gibson lovers have been saying it for decades so it must be true!

Seriously, it probably has little or no effect if the neck is attached properly.
Of course, with low quality instruments usually having bolt-on necks because they're quicker to produce, it's quite possible that there is a difference between the average guitar with bolt-on neck versus the average guitar with set neck, simply because the averages in either class will sit in quite different market segments.

Could be. Though some (many?) manufacturers use both glue and bolts when bolting on a neck.

I used to think a bolt on neck was brighter but I was comparing Martin's and Gibson's to Taylor's and Collings. I don't think the neck joint affects the tone. My least favorite neck joint is a bolt on that still uses glue.
FWIW, I prefer dovetails. I use a hardware based dovetail on my guitars. It offers the strength and tradition of a Dovetail, but only takes a few minutes to remove the neck.

I recommend buying a guitar for the total package, not because of the neck joint, finish, or other small factors.

Very unreasonable to think that any form of neck attachment has much at all to do with the sound of a guitar.

That doesn't stop the romantic notions, though.

HE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53PZkJsZ2t0 Playing a bolt-on Flammang maple/red spruce w/non-scalloped bracing

I know some builders use both. I have glued and bolted necks but no longer practice that. I think it defeats the purpose of a bolt on neck. Many other things like wood, bracing and top thickness...even the size of the hole effect the sound of a guitar. But not a good neck joint; bolt on or otherwise.

Hi sordid tales,

Welcome to ths wonderful forum.

IMHO the necks joints, bolt on or dovetailed have got no bearing on the sound of the guitar. The guitar sound is dependent on the voicing, bracing, wood selection and the general skill of the builder.

I have a Bourgeois OM which sounds heavenly and has a bolt on neck. Dana Bourgeois has a great system where the neck as well as the fingerboard extension is bolted, so if you unscrew 6 bolts the whole necks comes out and neck resets are a cinch.

some builders have bolt on necks and the fingerboard extentions are glued. Some offer both bolt on and dovetailed. Kevin gallagher is in this category. Some are only into the traditional dovetailed like Jim Olson and my Larrivee.

It depends om how the builder is set up. But to me bolt on necks is the way to go and i have guitars with both methods, there is no difference in sound.

Micheal Baskin, John Ostoff, Tom Doerr, Gerald Sheppard etc are all doing bolt on necks.

I do hope someday everybody shifts to bolt on necks.

Best,

Keyshore

... or wings, or bearclaw, or strap buttons, or... Well said, Woody.

- mike

Absolutely!

I must admit, for being an acoustic player for so long most of my repair experience has to do with electrics.

About 2 years ago I did a little experiment where I took a strat and did a basic recording with it. No effects, no overdrive, straight into the board. The response was quick, sharp, and had the strat attack.

I then glued the neck joint (using the neck bolts as clamps, and then removing them once the glue had dried) using traditional hide glue. The following recording was sluggish, warmer, and the response had diminished (I'm almost compelled to call it "tube amp sag").

I noticed a little increase in sustain, but the tone had changed dramatically.

Now I know that 80% of an acoustics tone and color comes from the top (the amp if you will) and bracing. It's the way acoustics are, but I find it absurd to believe that the construction techniques in a guitar have no holding in the overall tone.

Just wanted to add that Marc Beneteau has been using a Bolt-on neck joint for some 20 years.

Sure as heck didn't affect the tone to my ears!

You know that (true but misleading) statistic that says shoe size is related to IQ? It holds true only up to a point.

The brightness of a bolt-on neck joint (if it has any effect) might be like that.

It's possible that those who build with a dovetail happen to favor a different bracing style, deeper scalloping, thicker tops, two finger braces instead of one, not tucking the tone bars into the lining, etc., etc. -- all things that can have an effect on tone (in my opinion a much greater efect than the type of neck joint).

So, if there is more brightness in guitars with bolt-on necks, it could be related to something not at all connected (no pun intended) to the neck joint.

I'm willing to believe that the neck joint can affect the sound of a guitar. But that doesn't mean it generally does. What I mean by this is that the effect is not so great that it can't be offset by other apsects of construction or material choice. As a case in point, my Goodall grand concert in European spruce and Indian rosewood has a bolt-on neck and it's Mr. Mellow. James Goodall's overall construction methods give his instruments tons of overtones. The EIR on mine further reinforces those overtones. So, although the trebles are plenty strong, the overall impression of the guitar is by no means bright. (Some might say the same of me, I suppose).

People replace bridge pins and change saddle material and claim changes in tone/sustain etc. It's ridiculous to think that something as critical as the neck joint has no effect on tone.

Guitar Player did a huge article on set neck, versus neck through, versus bolt neck in electrics back in the 90s and the differences in string amplitude, attack and sustain were measured. The differences were dramatic.

Tonally,the differences between a set neck, versus bolt neck versus neck are equally as dramatic.

It's not to say that a builder can't compensate, but I've seen the demonstrated differences in the world of electrics. It's hard to believe that they don't exist in acoustics.

Yes, bolt-on necks are infinitely easier (and thus less expensive) to reset. Absolutely no comparison.

But when done properly, whether the guitar has a bolt-on or dovetail neck joint it has no discernible effect on the sound.

When Fender started making acoustic guitars with bolt-on necks back in the 1960's, and some lowball European manufacturers like Eko and (I think) Framus followed suit, the results were not good.

But the designs nowadays are much more sophisticated, and as result more companies have embraced bolt-on systems.

As for Martin's mortise and tenon neck joint guitars sounding subtly different from their dovetail models, this is true, but it has everything to do with their use of a "modified A" bracing pattern on those guitars instead of their traditional X bracing.

Anyway, I used to believe that no decent acoustic guitar had a bolt-on neck, but that was before I knew that Collings uses bolt-on neck joints on all their guitars. Once I learned that I did a complete 180° turn, because most Collings guitars I've played have been superb instruments. So obviously THEIR bolt-on neck attachment doesn't hurt the tone in any way.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

Exactly my point. It doesn't make sense to me that someone can claim that string type, pick type, pick attack, materials used, and everything down to the type of material of the tuners has an effect on tone but to think that something such as the neck joint has no effect on tone.

I'd noticed that the two main users of bolt on neck acoustics (Godin and Taylor) both of their guitars can be either bright or mellow, but all have an exceptional clarity. Some newer Martins I've noticed have this as well, and I attribute it to the HPL, Formica, etc. used.

So I've come to the conclusion that it is not unreasonable to assume that the bolt on neck joint has some sort of function in this.

I am not saying that the same sort of tones and overall sound cannot be had out of traditional dovetail set necks, and I'm not saying that bolt ons cannot be muddy and jumbled. This is an overall observation.

If I'm not mistaken, these guitars all have bolt-on necks and their tone runs the gamut from muddy to bright.

Bashkin
Bourgeois
Breedlove
Collings
Gallagher
Goodall
Hamblin
Huss & Dalton
Lakewood
McElroy
Mossman
Ryan
Tacoma
Taylor

I do not believe that a set or glued neck provides a more "solid" joint. In my book, both are equally as solid and stable. One does not top the other looking strictly at strength and longevity.

What I am saying is perhaps the glue works something like a capacitor would on a tone knob. It's bleeding off some of the highs. Is this a bad thing? No. I'm not one to tell you what you should believe in terms of tone.

And nor am I to believe that one certain tone is the be all end all. Certain tones have certain applications. My Yairi is PERFECT for bluegrass runs, and songs that I write that lean towards the darker side. But, in the terms of a full band (Rhythm, lead, bass, drums) it dosn't cut through the mix. It's too dark.

The Taylor lends itself more to the upbeat stuff, and cuts through perfectly in a band mix.

Tone is objective, and I'm not one to cross swords. I'm simply stating an observation and wondering if anyone has had the same thoughts.

I would think scale length, tonewoods, shape and size would be the determining factors. Like a scale of 25.5 would be brighter and punchier than say a 24.75 scale length that would be warmer and smoother, if the woods and shapes were the same. ect...

With all the mass in that area, I would think it would be the most acoustically dead area of the guitar. Sure the neck joint is crucial but that doesn't mean it's tonally crucial.
It doesn't follow that because strings, saddles, etc affect the tone that the neck joint would; otherwise you could say the same thing about end pins, pickguards, tuner screws(a crucial component btw). I imagine the neck joint does effect the tone some but I believe it is way down the list of importance.

I own a custom shop strat and a custom shop historic reissue LP that are both superb instruments. But they are bananas and kumquats when it comes to tone.

I don't believe either method is "superior" to the other, but there are differences.

My experience has been that solidbody electric guitars are far more sensitive to these factors than acoustic guitars. The choice of tuning gears, for example, makes a huge difference in tone on electrics; not nearly so much on acoustics.

So I don't believe that acoustic and electric guitars are directly comparable in this regard.

It's also important to note that the simple "slab of wood in a pocket" design of the Fender bolt-on necks is nothing at all like the considerably more elaborate bolt-on neck joints of modern acoustic instruments. So, again, it's not a direct comparison.

If all anyone was using was the Fender-style bolt-on neck joint, then I'd agree with you. But since about the only thing the neck joints that Collings, Goodall, Taylor and so forth are using have in common with those Fenders is the use of bolts, it's not an issue.

What happened in the thirty or so years between those dreadful 60's bolt-on neck joints on acoustics and the use of these modern designs is that luthiers learned how to design bolt-on joints that directly couple the neck and neckblock far more effectively.

So I stand by what I wrote in my earlier post.


Wade Hampton Miller