Wide neck electric guitars

[jamesson]

Hello all,

As a child, I learned to play on a Spanish acoustic guitar and got pretty good at it. Then life got in the way and I stopped playing. Recently I've got back in to playing but instead of the nylon string variety, I bought an electric (or three ).

However, I'm struggling with string muting owing to the narrower neck width (1.65") compared to the Spanish one (2").

To a degree, it's also my soft sausage fingers. I find my tips splay quite a lot when I apply sufficient pressure for the string to play correctly, but the splaying is hampering my ability to play adjacent strings cleanly.

Is it simply a question of perseverance to toughen up the tips, or like trying to fit a size 13 foot in a size 8 shoe, is it simply the wrong guitar for me because I might always have this problem?

Which brings me on to wide neck guitars. There's a company called Big Lou guitars which offers facsimiles of Strats, Telecasters, Les Pauls etc with 2" wide necks as well as 1 7/8" and 2 1/8". They're affordable and the quality is probably on a par with other budget models so it's not like I'd have to spend a fortune to find out, but I don't really have room for another guitar and I would have to sell two of my current ones for it to be a cost neutral exercise.

I don't really want to sell them, but if I'm never going to be able to play them properly, it doesn't make much sense to keep them.

Does anyone else have a similar finger problem? If so, how did you overcome it? Has anyone bought a Big Lou guitar? I can't see them anywhere for sale in the UK (their British distributor on their website is out of business) so can't try before I buy. You just have to buy them direct from the US website it seems.

Thanks in advance.

[Mastodon2]

The problem isn't about toughening up your fingers or getting some baseball bat neck to have enough room, you simply need to develop the technique and dexterity to play on a smaller neck. Millions of players do it without incident, you just need to program your muscle memory to the smaller neck. It will benefit you enormously if you do, because then you'll be able to play any guitar rather than being limited to the mega neck specials.

[singlecoil]

I'm in the process of re-establishing my guitar build and repair business and it's my intention to offer replacement guitar necks for existing guitars as well as complete guitars, repairs etc. A wider version of a standard neck would be among the many options I intend to offer, along with different neck profiles, fretboard cambers etc.

Hopefully ready to go in a few weeks though it depends on when my new CNC machine arrives, due in a couple of weeks if there's no further parts supply difficulties.

[suthol]

Popa Chubby and Redd Volkaert both have sausage fingers so it can be done

[lockhart flawse]

I have a similar problem. I have a Strat with a 43mm nut and Gordon Smith will do you a 45mm nut. Only a few Strats have 43mm nuts though.

My 1970s Gibson has a great neck with plenty of room.

[jamesson]

Mastodon2 said:

The problem isn't about toughening up your fingers or getting some baseball bat neck to have enough room, you simply need to develop the technique and dexterity to play on a smaller neck. Millions of players do it without incident, you just need to program your muscle memory to the smaller neck. It will benefit you enormously if you do, because then you'll be able to play any guitar rather than being limited to the mega neck specials.

I hear you, and you're absolutely right, millions of players have no issues, but I do and it's spoiling it. It gets disheartening, particularly when I pick up my acoustic and there are no problems.

[jamesson]

singlecoil said:

I'm in the process of re-establishing my guitar build and repair business and it's my intention to offer replacement guitar necks for existing guitars as well as complete guitars, repairs etc. A wider version of a standard neck would be among the many options I intend to offer, along with different neck profiles, fretboard cambers etc.

Hopefully ready to go in a few weeks though it depends on when my new CNC machine arrives, due in a couple of weeks if there's no further parts supply difficulties.

That's interesting, thanks for that. In terms of swapping necks, the guitars in question aren't bolt on necks though, they're glued in. I imagine that would make it very difficult to swap them. Let me know when you're in business and perhaps we can have a chat.

[jamesson]

suthol said:

Popa Chubby and Redd Volkaert both have sausage fingers so it can be done

Absolutely it can be done. The question is - can I do it?

[jamesson]

lockhart flawse said:

I have a similar problem. I have a Strat with a 43mm nut and Gordon Smith will do you a 45mm nut. Only a few Strats have 43mm nuts though.

My 1970s Gibson has a great neck with plenty of room.

What size is your Gibson?

[lockhart flawse]

43.5mm but it feels like a much wider neck higher up.

I have a 1982 Tokai Silver Star with a 41mm nut. Its actually a really good guitar but I cant play cowboy chords on it cleanly. It doesnt help that I have short fingers too. Goalkeepers hands my piano teacher used to say.

[Skyedriver]

OP, when I started I had exactly the same problem but over time I got better.
Electric should be easier than acoustic as you don't usually need as much pressure. If you do maybe the set up needs adjusting.

[jamesson]

I think the set up is OK. Nice low action on all three guitars, it's just those damn fingers.

I also think it's probably poor technique on my part. I tend not to use the very tips of my fingers, but more the pad. On the acoustic there is room for this so it's masking my shortcomings.

I'll keep chipping away at it and see how I get on.

[Mastodon2]

jamesson said:

I also think it's probably poor technique on my part. I tend not to use the very tips of my fingers, but more the pad.

Yeah, that will definitely hold you back. If you're not intentionally trying to fret more than one string at the same time, you really want to be only touching the string with the tip of your finger.

[NMNeil]

To negate the "You only need to get used to it"
I have a Yamaha Pacifica with the standard Strat width neck.
I trim my nails, slowly and carefully place just the tips of my fingers behind the frets with the action set as low as possible, and a B7 chord will still mute certain strings. No matter what I do, they get muted.
So my option was to get a standard bolt on body, like a strat and fit a Warmouth wide neck, but it's a bit pricey.
https://warmoth.com/guitar-neck-nut-width
Or buy a Big Lou neck
https://www.biglouguitar.com/product/big-lou-wide-...
Or complete guitar.
https://www.biglouguitar.com/products/
I'm sure there are other companies making wide neck guitars out there.

[jamesson]

In my original post, I mentioned Big Lou guitars and asked if anyone had any experience of them.

Also, all my guitars have glued in necks as opposed to bolt ons so simply buying a wider neck isn't really a solution.

[sociopath]

jamesson said:

Hello all,

As a child, I learned to play on a Spanish acoustic guitar and got pretty good at it. Then life got in the way and I stopped playing. Recently I've got back in to playing but instead of the nylon string variety, I bought an electric (or three ).

However, I'm struggling with string muting owing to the narrower neck width (1.65") compared to the Spanish one (2").

To a degree, it's also my soft sausage fingers. I find my tips splay quite a lot when I apply sufficient pressure for the string to play correctly, but the splaying is hampering my ability to play adjacent strings cleanly.

Is it simply a question of perseverance to toughen up the tips, or like trying to fit a size 13 foot in a size 8 shoe, is it simply the wrong guitar for me because I might always have this problem?

Which brings me on to wide neck guitars. There's a company called Big Lou guitars which offers facsimiles of Strats, Telecasters, Les Pauls etc with 2" wide necks as well as 1 7/8" and 2 1/8". They're affordable and the quality is probably on a par with other budget models so it's not like I'd have to spend a fortune to find out, but I don't really have room for another guitar and I would have to sell two of my current ones for it to be a cost neutral exercise.

I don't really want to sell them, but if I'm never going to be able to play them properly, it doesn't make much sense to keep them.

Does anyone else have a similar finger problem? If so, how did you overcome it? Has anyone bought a Big Lou guitar? I can't see them anywhere for sale in the UK (their British distributor on their website is out of business) so can't try before I buy. You just have to buy them direct from the US website it seems.

Thanks in advance.

I don't understand the highlighted bit.

More seriously it is just practice, I have massive hands and occasionally have issues but it does get better.
But different guitars with the same spec can feel different, so maybe you need to try some other guitars and see if you can find one to suit you.

I have 3 strats (not all fenders) , that are nominally identical in terms of the neck, but they all play completely differently.
I also find gibsons easier to play then fenders, due to the shorter scale length, but can't get on with Gretsches, so maybe try different manufacturers

[jamesson]

sociopath said:

jamesson said:

I don't really have room for another guitar and I would have to sell two of my current ones for it to be a cost neutral exercise.

I don't understand the highlighted bit.

I don't have a large house and space is tight so I don't have room to keep another guitar somewhere without it getting in the way. I also don't want to spend another few hundred pounds on top of what I've already spent on guitars because money is a bit tight, but selling two would mean I'd sort of break even.

[Stan the Bat]

[sociopath]

jamesson said:

sociopath said:

jamesson said:

I don't really have room for another guitar and I would have to sell two of my current ones for it to be a cost neutral exercise.

I don't understand the highlighted bit.

I don't have a large house and space is tight so I don't have room to keep another guitar somewhere without it getting in the way. I also don't want to spend another few hundred pounds on top of what I've already spent on guitars because money is a bit tight, but selling two would mean I'd sort of break even.

I didn't mean I didn't understand it logically, I just didn't understand it emotionally. I have 10, though most of them are cheap Chinese strat copies, not a brilliant guitarist, but still building one and looking to buy another

Edited by sociopath on Saturday 23 July 21:15

[jamesson]

Emotionally, I'd love to have ten guitars like you and we all know the correct number of guitars to own is n+1, but money and space are factors I have to take into account, unfortunately.