What effect will neck design (mass) and fret size have on the sound of the guitar?
We all love the feel of a well proportioned neck. It enhances the playability and enjoyment of our guitars. The mass of the neck will indeed affect the tone of your instrument. Whether this is a positive or negative influence depends on your taste in tone. When I design a guitar for Jazz applications I want a precise tone with excellent projection to showcase the players single note leads or rapid chord comping. One of the factors to facilitate this is to increase neck mass. This can be done with the use of a heavier tuning machine in a larger headstock or with a denser neck wood. The effect is to prevent vibrations from chimneying up the neck and dissipating. The results are more efficient transfer of string energy to air movement through the sound hole, thus increasing projection. In the case of a guitar designed to have vintage appeal or a roundness, warmth, and openness of tone we benefit from a lighter weight headstock and machine. In this instrument the vibrations transferred to
