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Location: South of most, North of few | Do you guys in the know think the nutwidth has an effect on the sound/sustain of a guitar? I didn't know if the distance between the strings, or width of the neck, be it ever so slight a difference, would make one sound better than another. |
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Location: Earth·SolarSystem·LocalInterstellarCloud·Local Bub | heh, I thought this thread was about a completely different topic... |
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Location: closely held secret | "Slim" Whitehead. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | All things being equal ... no, not really. |
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Location: Chehalis, Washington | To answer the actual question...I have no idea. :confused:
That said, I know if you give the nut more space it will naturally change some things... |
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Location: 6 String Ranch | The short answer to the question is, NO. |
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December 2004
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Location: East Tennessee | Originally posted by cwk2:
The short answer to the question is, NO. I agree. The wider nut width, 1 3/4", 1 7/8" are more suited for finger picking. |
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Location: Houston, Texas | Except for the point that a wider nutwidth would contribute to a larger neck mass to some degree which might increase sustain a little. ? |
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Location: South of most, North of few | Originally posted by Joyful Noise:
Except for the point that a wider nutwidth would contribute to a larger neck mass to some degree which might increase sustain a little. ? Thats where I was going with this. I know very small changes in design make changes in sound. I remember a post where someone sent an O back home and had a satin neck refinished in gloss, and it made it sound better. |
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December 2004
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Location: East Tennessee | I forgot to mention that with the width neck it also increases the string spacing at the bridge.
This makes a difference for the right hand.
It also makes the saddle a little longer.
Slightly more surface contact with the top of the guitar might make a difference. :confused:
I doubt if most people would notice the difference. |
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November 2005
Posts: 1126
Location: Omaha, NE | Here\'s everything you need to know about nut width.
As to the impact of guitar nut width on tone, who knows. My view of those subtleties is that whatever infintessimal impact things like that may have are completely overwhelmed by conscious and subconscious changes in the player's technique. |
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June 2004
Posts: 580
Location: NW NJ | IMHO ... it is clear that no matter how consistent the mothership or any other instrument maker is in manufacturing, no two (even of the same model, made sequentially) ever sound/play exactly the same. Similar maybe, but not the same. Woods are variable, amount of glue holding the braces to the top is variable ... everything is a variable. With that in mind, a wider nut and the correspondingly wider saddle and the heavier (more mass) neck, are just three fleas on the dog when it comes to variables affecting the sound of an instrument. If you sent your axe to the mothership for a wider neck and everyting else that entails, it'd certainly come back sounding great, but different. A whole lot more that just the nut & saddle width and mass of the neck will have changed, for better or for worse, depending on the physical variables in the materials and processes involved to make the change, and how you perceive the difference in play. I agree with Omaha - a lot of the way you hear the sound and sustain on a guitar is due to what you expect to hear and how you are playing that particular moment. Maybe you're a little tired and are resting more of your arm on the top while playing - there goes some sustain, and tone, and other things, I'm sure. |
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Nutwidth