[looper's] RE: guitar necks

[goddard.duncan@mtvne.com]

Title: [looper's] RE: guitar necks

>>Also, I've been doing it to my
own guitars for almost thirty years, including the occasional Belew-inspired
pull-back, causing the strings to "fret out" and squeal, with no apparent
damage. Also, just moving a guitar from horizontal/table position to
vertical/playing position can generate a pitch shift of 5 cents or so. So my
belief system embraces the guitar neck as a flexible item. Mild neck
wrenching probably should'nt  critical....<<

anyone remember levitation or dark star? bic (the guitarist, now working with pet shop boys) used a jam man and occasionally an edp, as did the bassist lawrence. the latter used a musicman stingray and managed an effect which, before I'd seen him do it, had me convinced he'd fitted a kramer whammy bridge to the thing. he could bend down a whole semitone just by pushing the headstock forwards while bracing the upper bout of the body. no damage in evidence, though I noticed he kept a spare close by....

I can do the same thing (just) on my rickenbackers, but it makes me nervous.
I too have noticed a tuning and action change between sitting with the guitar or bass at an angle, and standing with it perpendicular to the ground. I attributed this to the weight of the strings which, on a bass at least, is not inconsiderable.

it's surprising how many guitarists and bassists are terrified of doing anything to the truss rods in their instruments. adjusting them a quarter turn at a time and giving the instrument time to settle down again is, or should be, a significant part of the operation of setting a guitar up, and it really ought to be looked at whenever the strings are changed. certainly with a change of gauge. ricks have two, so that the amount of relief (the neck should exhibit either no bend under tension or a slight bow away from the strings) can be separately adjusted for the thick strings and the thin ones. fender have arsed about and moved the adjustment from one end of the neck to the other a couple of times, making it difficult to adjust on some instruments without removing the neck first.......

duncan/r.m.i.

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