12 fret neck on 14 fret body

[arktrav]

Two guitars I need some help in understanding the theory behind are Martin's Norman Blake 000 28s and the 0000 28s Wood songs. They both talk about 12 fret necks being configured, put on, on 14 fret bodies. This involved moving bracing back, etc. My question to you wonderful people is why is this a good thing or a bad thing. Why do idt in the firsst place? What would be the expected result?

thanks, J.C. Bryant

[Rudy4]

There are some 12 (13) or 14 fret necks that were joined at these positions on the body to increase the comfort of playing by bringing the nut closer to the player. In some cases the design is part of changing to a shorter or longer scale length.

The larger effect on the neck position shift is the effect it has on bridge position, which can have a large effect on volume and/or tonality. The bridge position change often makes it necessary to modify the underlying brace structure and/or sound hole position.

Although these stylistic or comfort changes may have initially come about for reasons other than the effect on tone, often it's the tonality of the instrument that people most seek out today.

The only way you'll know for sure if YOU appreciate that is to actually play and listen to them. That's often difficult to do, so internet sound demos such as posted on Youtube by Acoustic Guitar magazine, etc. are often the only way to actually hear them.

...or you can take the word of forum members.

In any case, non-hands-on evaluation is tough.

[Misifus]

In the 1930s when Martin introduced the fourteen fret neck, they modified the shape of the body of a 000 by creating what has come to be known as the square shouldered body. That way, the position of the bracing and the bridge remained unchanged but allowed more reach up the neck for players like Perry Bechtel who had been playing banjo. Ever since then Martin, and other makers, have followed that practice.

More recently various builder have made twelve fret guitars in two ways, by changing the shape of the body to allow the shorter neck length, or by moving the bridge and the bracing further down the body.

In theory, the latter should (could) provide a different tone due to the bridge being closer to the center of the lower bout. However, I have conducted that experiment. I had a custom guitar built with a twelve fret neck and the bridge moved closer to the center of the lower bout. After a year of playing, I sat down in a quiet room with a friend who had a very similar instrument, same builder, same body, same woods, same cutaway, and brand new strings the same make, alloy and gauge that the luthier had put on our guitars when new. His guitar was one month older than mine, but his had a fourteen fret neck..

I played mine, he played his. He played mine, I played his. Neither of us could detect any difference in the two. They played the same, they sounded the same. I could have saved our luthier the trouble of modifying the bracing to accommodate the different bridge position. It made no difference.

hth

[godfreydaniel]

Here’s some information on the Bourgeois 00 Coupe, which is very similar in design to the Martin Norman Blake 000, just smaller:

https://pegheadnation.com/instrument...-db-signature/

[Mr. Jelly]

One thing it does is naturally move your picking hand away from the bridge. That alone will give a rounder sound to the individual notes. A person can compensate for that by keeping their hand back closer to the bridge. And a person playing a normally configured 14 fret can compensate by keeping their picking hand closer to the neck.

[arktrav]

Thanks for the input so far, I appreciate it very much.