Neck thru bodies

Royale with Cheese

About to purchase a new bass. The model I'm looking at comes in 2 varities, the standard and the neck thru body version which is more expensive.

What are the advantages of having a neck thru body, is it worth paying extra for?

TelePaul

Greater sustain than a bolt on neck.

Beecher

The main advantage of having a neck through instrument is that theres a practically non existent heel joint. The main disadvantage personally is that the majority (though not all) of neck throughs seem to be painted necks

feylya

Ah, this old chestnut. Main advantages are no heel and greater sustain (this is very much personal opinion).

Voodu Child

Beecher wrote:

The main advantage of having a neck through instrument is that theres a practically non existent heel joint. The main disadvantage personally is that the majority (though not all) of neck throughs seem to be painted necks

Ive known a few Ibanez players sand off the finish on neck-thru RGs and just leave it unfinished with maybe just a coat of tung oil.

One disadvantage for me would be that I couldnt change the neck angle. So the instrument would need to be very, very well made, with a tight build tolerance.

Royale with Cheese

Ok then. I wouldn't consider sustain on a bass to be all that important. What advantage does having no heel bring?

The basses I'm looking at are...



I want the colour design of the one for €999. The one for €1075 has a bolt on neck but has lights in the dot inlays on the fret board. You can flick a switch like the rhythm/treble switch on a guitar to turn them on and off. No real use I know but I thought this was really cool, something unique. €1099 bass has the neck thru body but no fretboard lights.

So I'm choosing between the one with led's in the fretboard or the one with the neck thru body. Roughly the same price. Playability over aesthetics so if having a neck thru body really is that useful I'm going to choose that version. However like somebody said before I won't be able to adjust the neck. These are hand made basses which I have played before and they were beautiful but I will be buying online and cannot try before I buy (I think it's worth it for the price here). If the neck isn't perfect I can't do much about it.

feylya

Damn, they're some nice basses. Head into a guitar shop in town and check out the basses. I know Music Maker has a couple of neck through basses in stock.

Royale with Cheese

feylya wrote:

Damn, they're some nice basses. Head into a guitar shop in town and check out the basses. I know Music Maker has a couple of neck through basses in stock.

They're Fame basses, only available from musicstore.de. I was living in Cologne last year and used to go in and play them all the time, beautiful instruments. These particular versions were never listed on the main site (still aren't), just the bog standard bubinga versions. Was considering going back to Cologne for a weekend just to pick one up but I found these while browsing through a pdf version of their magazine catalogue. I'm sure they'll ship one to me if I ring them up.

I'll try out some other neck thru basses and see what I think. Those basses are basically Warwick copies, but I haven't seen any Warwicks in Dublin for a long time. Would have been handy to try some of them.

feylya

I've been wondering about Fame stuff alright. Some lovely guitars.

It wasn't me!

Royale with Cheese wrote:

They're Fame basses, only available from musicstore.de. I was living in Cologne last year and used to go in and play them all the time, beautiful instruments. These particular versions were never listed on the main site (still aren't), just the bog standard bubinga versions. Was considering going back to Cologne for a weekend just to pick one up but I found these while browsing through a pdf version of their magazine catalogue. I'm sure they'll ship one to me if I ring them up.

I'll try out some other neck thru basses and see what I think. Those basses are basically Warwick copies, but I haven't seen any Warwicks in Dublin for a long time. Would have been handy to try some of them.

Instrumental on the quays stock Warwick.

Voodu Child

Royale with Cheese wrote:

However like somebody said before I won't be able to adjust the neck. These are hand made basses which I have played before and they were beautiful but I will be buying online and cannot try before I buy (I think it's worth it for the price here). If the neck isn't perfect I can't do much about it.

Well, y'know, i was talking from the point of view of a guitarist. I dont play bass, and i dont know if youre as fussy about action and playability as me (or even if it matters much for a bassist). A shim the thickness of a piece of paper makes a small but tangible difference to the playability of my guitars, which is why i havent bought a neck-thru yet. Someone else will tell you, but its probably not such a big deal for a bass

Doctor J

A well made bolt on will not suffer any sustain loss, or at least not enough that you'd ever notice. Consider this: About 95% of the music you have heard in your life was recorded with a bolt-on neck bass (ie - Precision, Jazz or Stingray). I don't hear any sustain problems, do you?

As VoodooChild suggests, a bolt on offers a lot more versatilty when it comes to setups or, if you ever require it, repair. Regarding the heel, unless you're going to spend a lot of time playing from the 18th fret up, it's not that big a deal and if you are, maybe bass is the wrong instrument

From what I see, Fame have a fairly sculpted heel, not like the old Fender style heel, so again, it wouldn't be that much of an issue at all.

Royale with Cheese

I'll probably go with the bolt on neck then. I pretty much never play above the 15/16th fret and hardly ever even that high, and like I said, sustain wouldn't be my top priority when looking for a bass. The sustain with any bolt on neck basses I've owned/played has never been a problem.

Sent an email off to musicstore asking them if it would be possible to buy the LED version with the colour scheme of the €999 version, I don't think it should be a problem. Just got to sell my current bass first though. Keep your eyes posted for a Warwick Rockbass Corvette Special Edition coming to adverts.ie soon!!!