From our perspective,
feel
starts with the neck. If the neck doesn't feel right in the player's hand, well, things aren't going to go much further.
We pay attention to the small details to give the neck a comfortable, worn-in feel right from the start. We also spent considerable discussions around neck profiles, tapers, nut widths and fretboards. Since we are not offering customization (at this time), we settled on specs that we believe would appeal to most players we think would enjoy our guitars.
Here's what we came up with:
Neck Shape
We are using several neck shapes in varying combinations of profile and taper. Overall, our design target is a more full neck that is comfortable in the hand, not too thin / slim, but not overly big and chunky. We are using combinations of these profiles and tapers for our shapes:
Profiles
- D Profile (general purpose rounded profile) or
- U profile (a little more meat in the shoulder)
Tapers
- 825-915 or
- 850-940 or
- 880-970
Nut Widths
- 1.7" or 1.75"
- Future plans include bringing back Jim's original "fingerstyle" spacing of 1 13/16".
Scale Lengths
We are using 24.75" and 25.5" scale lengths as our standards. We will be adding a 27" scale length and a 24" scale length in the future.
Contoured Neck Heel
For players who play up the neck, we have designed a very comfortable neck contour which allows easy access to upper frets.
Neck Finish
We think that a neck with a simple oil finish feels the best and is the most playable. We use only roasted maple necks with carbon fiber rods so our necks are innately stable, allowing us to use a light oil finish on the back of the neck.
