12 vs 14 fret neck join. What is your experience.

[Deems Davis]

I'm a noobee just finishing my 2d ss falcate cutaway . I am thinking ahead to #3. And am thinking about using the same body mold (minus the cutaway) and using a 14 fret neck join. With each build The I'm trying new stuff to challenge myself and gain new skill and experience. So far it's working and the lessons from the mistakes are a sharper focus for the next build.

I am particularly interested in any feedback about the differences in sound/tone resulting from a 12 vs 14 neck join. Is there an audible difference? If so how wold you characterize it?

I am using EIRW and Engleman Spruce on all my build so far hoping to get some 1st hand experience of any difference myself.


Thanks for any feedback

[Dave M]

I am in the same position. My recently completed 12 fret got a lot of praise, but the serious players wanted not only a cutaway but a 14 fret body join.

Is the fact of moving the bridge up from the centre of the lower bout very significant, and if so, is there a design solution to mitigate this?
I want make a guitar that satisfies the finger picker so this is important to get right.

Cheers Dave

[kiwigeo]

My take on this one.....bridge is more centrally located on lower bout with a 12 fretter. The analogy is hitting a drum at centre versus hitting it at the rim.

I think Trevor covers this in his books.

[johnparchem]

I built one of each both close to the same size, one was 14 fret to the body and one was 12 fret to the body. I liked the sound of my 12 fret better. but there were many other factors that could have affected the sound. The guy I made the 14 fret loves the clean sound he is getting and has used it for his recordings.

I get that the center of the lower bout is the center of the active area on a classical guitar with a transverse under the sound hole. Also X-braced guitar have heavier bracing on the neck side of the X so I suppose that the the center of the lower bout is still close to the center of the active area of the top.

On a falcate it seems like the top is active all the way up to the transverse brace. Sure the wider lower bout will still pull what I call the active center towards the center of the lower bout. But intuitively to me it seems like the active center may be more towards the neck, like where it might be placed with a 14 fret design.

[Dave M]

I realise this is a slightly old topic but I don't think we have really bottomed it out.

If a player is saying to you that she really wants a 14 fret body joint (plus a cutaway) is there a good way to do this and still give a great sounding guitar.P

I'm thinking in terms of falcate bracing here.

In other words can we mitigate the effect of the bridge not being in the best position with other design ideas?

Dave

[Deems Davis]

.....

In other words can we mitigate the effect of the bridge not being in the best position with other design ideas?

Dave

I had a thought on this over the weekend and its a bit "off the wall" but I thought I'd throw it out for comment/feedback.

The distance between the 12th and 14th fret on a 24.88" scale is 1.35". If you increased the scale length by half that amount (I'm sure the actual amount would require a more precise calculation) that would leave the bridge closer to the same place and solve the soundboard efficiency issue albeit at the expense/opportunity of changing the sound/voice of the strings as well as play ability. That puts us back into a subjective area when it comes to determining if this is good/bad.

btw (This got me thinking, why aren't there more 26+ " scale length guitars built? for you guys with giant hands!

Deems

[Dave M]

Deems yes I have gone through this loop and I simply don't know enough to form an opinion. I notice that the pretty much universal standard for classical at 650 mm is around 25.6 inches so that would be moving in the right direction.

But maybe there are good reasons for not going to a longer scale length on steel strings...?

Dave

[Trevor Gore]

...she really wants a 14 fret body joint (plus a cutaway)...

Is this intended as a stage guitar? If it is, there are other things that should influence your decision.