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wider neck for a Yates.

From Bribak on 10/2/2014 8:01:53 PM

Hi guys.  I posted this on the Setup/Repair forum and then realized the first place I should have posted it was here:

Hello all. 

Before I talk to Warren, I’d like to hear if anyone else has ordered a Yates with a wider neck (or a wider neck for their existing Yates).  I would love to have another 1/8” inch width at the nut on my RS Mahogany.  Right now mine is just a hair over  1 1/16” wide at the nut.  I am constantly deadening the 1^st string with the palm of my left hand when I do the 3-2 pulloff followed by the open 1^st string (triplet?).  That 1^st string gets muted about 75% of the time I play that lick.  Now before anyone tells me…I know I should be able to correct it with better technique.  But my last banjo had a wider neck and I spent about 20 years developing a good pulloff technique that unfortunately uses my palm touching against the 1^st string side of the neck.  When I try to change my technique to move my palm away from the side, I feel like I lose all the power in the technique.  I’ve been working at it and it just isn’t coming along.  The thing is -  I love the tone of this banjo.  I used to actually dream of being given J.D.’s Banger…and now I feel like I’ve acquired a banjo that gives me that same kind of sound.  If I was to have Warren make me a wider neck (if he’d even do that) and the extra mass of another 1/8” width made a significant tone change, I would be devastated!  I’d rather continue with my existing problem than end up with a banjo I wasn’t as happy with tonewise.  I don’t see how it couldn’t help but change the tone unless the extra width was compensated by less depth or something else that results in an overall same neck weight/mass.  Am I wrong on this?  I have gone from a Crowe spaced bridge to a regular spaced (which I don’t like as well) and I’ve even gotten a new nut from Warren which I cut new slots in that moved the two D strings in just a hair.  Even with all that I’m still muting that 1^st string…not to mention missing the extra space I used to have between the other strings.  This is really only an issue for me within the first five frets.  After that,  as the neck gets wider, I don’t have this problem.

I guess my post is really to find out if anyone has ordered a wider neck from Warren for their Yates and thought it affected the sound negatively in any way.  I know that Warren is basically attempting to re-create the old Gibson sound and I’m assuming all these dimensions are critical in achieving it.  Am I correct to worry that having a new neck made for my Yates could ruin the tone I love so well?

Any opinions/suggestions will be appreciated.  Thanks.

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