Tonal differnce/sustain between Pattern thin and Pattern necks??

Hi,

Can anyone tell a difference ? ive heard that larger necks have better sustain, etc?...not sure how true this is. thx

 

I can’t really tell a difference. To me, more aspects than the neck profile contribute to sustain. That’s just my $0.02

 

Such as neck wood? Just got an S2 Standard with a mahogany neck, and it sounds darker than the SE Custom 24 with a Maple neck.

-k

 

The thinking is with more mass a guitar gains sustain.

 

ya i guess thats what i mean. or what i have heard. I also think a maple neck vs. a rosewood or ebony fret board is brighter

 

You will never know unless you play them, and preferably A/B them. If such small differences in tone are important, then you would have to experience them in person to really know for sure.

-k

 

I’ve never heard a difference between any of the PRS set necks that could be attributed to the carve.

 

right i understand, ya probably pretty hard to tell with a set neck PRS.

 

I have bought guitars with big necks cause I heard they were ‘better’, and ended up selling them because they weren’t ‘better’ for me. Go with what feels best and inspires you to play more.

 

Just to throw a spanner in the works, whilst I've also read that beefier necks improve sustain e.g. a 50's Les Paul compared to the slimmer 60's carve, I've also read that bolt-on neck provides more sustain than a glued neck join.

 

I have to agree with this

 

I'll go out on a limb and say that any theoretical differences based solely on neck thickness or shape would be rendered virtually meaningless once all other variables are accounted for such as weight, density, fretboard, compatibility with body, etc.

 

I dont think the neck profile causes a large physical change in sound, but different neck profiles will make you play differently; and that will make you sound different.

 

This is what I was thinking too. Just the differences between the woods of different trees is going to make more of a difference than the 1-2 mm thickness of the neck.

 

I have seen/heard differences between huge necks and skinny necks (via Warmoth ‘investigations’ and such) on video but I wouldn’t be able to identify those differences in real life. In their experiments (same guitar, same chunk of wood, same pickups, same amp, etc), the thicker neck sounded fuller, deeper, stronger, bigger.

However, the difference between Pattern and Pattern Thin seems a lot smaller than the neck differences in the Warmoth experiment. I doubt that there is a discernible difference between those two PRS necks, because it’s not like Pattern is a Tele boat neck. Because of this, I feel like you’d hear more of a difference if one neck was maple and the other mahogany (or even different kinds of Rosewood) than you would comparing Pattern Thin to Pattern on the sole basis of profile or depth of neck wood.

 

I think it’s hard to reach conclusions on this stuff because two guitars of the very same spec still sound a little different.

Over the years, for whatever reason, I’ve come to prefer the sound of set neck guitars with beefier necks. I certainly can’t explain why. Perhaps, as Paul Smith says, “everything affects everything.”

 

This guy says he can:



I ain’t buyin’ it.

 

I think as long as the player likes the neck radius and the tone of the guitar, that’s all that matters.

But heck what do I know?!

 

With as obsessive as Paul and Co seem to be on the tone of a PRS , if there was a difference they would do something to mitigate it ( like changing the neck heel size years ago )