OffsetGuitars.com

vr6pilot wrote:As stated earlier, the looks of the neck mean nothing if I cannot play it. I would sooner pull one of those neon green necks off a Dean Custom Zone (look it up) if it meant I could play the darn thing.

Yeah I was actually gonna add that if there was something wrong with the neck then it would make sense to replace it. Didn't get a chance to read every comment so I just hedged my bets and assumed the neck was fine. Whoops.

Should I ask what made you go with the arrow headstock and maple fretboard... or have you explained that to someone else already?

I just had a bit of a look at previous comments. It seems like there is nothing wrong with the neck at all besides the chip in the nut. From what I can tell you don't like the dimensions or you find it unwieldy to play or something. Fair enough I guess. Mind if I ask (and possibly get you to repeat) what you didn't like about the original neck? And specifically what about it made it 'unplayable' for you?

vr6pilot wrote:I would sooner pull one of those neon green necks off a Dean Custom Zone (look it up) if it meant I could play the darn thing.

^
Also please don't lie to me.

Lie? Certainly not! Mis-spoke, perhaps. I actually was thinking of the pink one.

Yeah, biggest issue for me was simply the narrowness at the nut. The chip in the nut, itself, never caused any problems and the string never came out of it. Looking at it long-term, the wear on the frets is far more pronounced than the "barely touched" replacement neck so that, too, factored-in. Then there's the aesthetics, which we all know is in the eye of the beholder, and I found the maple fretboard more to my liking than the rosewood.

You could argue that I might have ordered a Warmoth guitar neck and specified a maple fretboard along with a CBS-er, Strat headstock and possibly made everyone happy. But then we are talking another few hundred bucks as opposed to the "free" neck which I sourced from ye old parts bin.

Oh yeah!!

Settled on a DiMarzio 'Injector' for the bridge.

How can you not want to touch something so pink... truly a thing of beauty. They should experiment with the pink fretboard on the green guitar and vice versa. Shit, remember when steve vai and joe satriani were considered relatively imortant in the guitar world and kids were still buying Ibanez guitars? Some real ugly guitars came out of that era.

As for the old neck. I can understand how a narrow nut can be annoying. I used to get frustrated with narrow nut guitars. But the only time it annoyed me was playing A major. But as I became a more experience (and lazier) guitarist I started playing Amaj with just the first finger barring the D, G, and B strings and the high E only ringing out sometimes, when it happens to not get muted by my finger.

I probably should not be revealing any of the creative or tonal secrets that go into creating my musical web, but I'm sure I can give you one chord voicing with no context and not risk revealing too many trade secrets. These days I prefer to play Amaj here;

0
5
6
7
0
x

So narrow nuts dont bother me anywhere near as much as they used to. And this isn't a playing adjustment I've employed to deal with narrow nuts either, I just happen to find the most interesting chord voicings for E and A to be around the fifth and seventh frets.

Fret wear doesn't bother me at all either, unless there's like a skinny deep groove in the fret that pinches the string when you try to move or bend it and that is very rare. Otherwise I find years of typical everyday fretwear on a guitar quite charming and it has never inhibited my playing. In fact a brand new set of jumbo frets makes my playing way clunkier than worn down old frets from yesteryear.

The chipped nut is a bit of an issue cosmetically, but if it still holds the string then I guess that's kosher, or halal or whatever you wanna call it.

I'm curious about the maple still. I understand the aesthetics, some guitars look great with maple fretboards. But how do you find playing on it comparative to rosewood or ebony? I hate em personally, Find them really gummy and claggy to play on. Especially at gigs when you start gettin sweat all over everything. I think it may just be a case of too much finish, which is I've sanded down the fretboard on the one and only guitar I have with a maple fretboard. Makes it way more playable, but rosewood is still the shit as far as I am concerned.

I understand that money is an issue. But pretending it wasn't, here's what I make of neck replacement on this kind of guitar. The warmoth with big Fender headstock would suit the vibe of the guitar. But I would still feel weird about it. However a replica Univox neck, with a wider nut and longer scale could be fucking amazing. But it would cost a fortune. But it would be worth it if someone could recreate the contours and beveling on the original headstock. For me that would be the ideal. Obviously this is hypothetical though because real life aint that convenient.

Okay so all in all I think it's a good job. Cant relate to your choice regarding the neck. But the refinish seems like it is done really nicely and I'm a bit fan of the wiring mod.

If it was in my hands and money was no object I'd have left he finish, made up a long scale replica neck (including inlays and binding and the whole nine yards), cleaned up the hardware and made sure the trem was working properly and done the exact same pickup switch mod as you and then put it in weird open tunings. Voila, one Univox Spacerock Dreamweapon.

Should I decide to sell it, I'll look you up and give you first dibs.

Actually, I was a commited ebony player finding rosewood to have too much drag for my tastes so, for me, transitioning to maple isn't much of a leap. In my hoarde of guitars, I've somewhere on the order of 4 or 5 with maple fretboards. Clearly a minority vs. the remaining 20 which are mostly ebony boards.

I kinda know what you're saying Re; ebony vs rosewood. I'm a big fan of both actually. I find the ebony to be harder under your fingers, way slicker on runs or anything requiring speed and fluidity. I like rosewood for other reasons, the more spongey tactile thing is has going on feels really nice to me at the moment. A little more 'drag' as you say but seeing as I'm moving further away from prog and psych and heavily technical styles and more towards blues, and garage and more emotional and visceral styles I don't find the 'drag' to be a drag. It feels right for the styles I'm playing.

Maple is a whole other world to me though. Never felt right playing fast runs cause the clear coat was too sticky and claggy always, especially with a bit of sweat added. And for slower styles like blues it always feels wrong to me just because it doesn't feel 'woody' enough and never feels like you can dig in as much. But anyway..

I get your preference for ebony over rosewood, even though I don't share it. Makes no sense to me preferencing maple over anything though. I'd take velcro over maple. That's a lie.

I prefer the looks of the original neck but cmon... if he doesn't want to play it then why should he play it? I think it's awesome that he now has his completely custom guitar. Taste is overrated.

It certainly is that: completely custom.

Maple finishes can vary. I've played some that were uber-slick to the point where I had difficulty keeping my notes un-bent. But if I had to have just one guitar, it would not have a maple fretboard. There again, I had the neck on a shelf and preferred the aesthetics of the light maple with the surf green paint.

Maybe, if you forget for a minute that this is a UC-2 and just look at it as a one-off custom unit shooting for some of that 50's, Art Deco, or Danelectro vibe, you may start to see it the way I do. Besides, I do not personally have a hard-on for the original stock which is really just a Fender cop anyway. The aged clearcoat is another matter. Maybe I'll just leave it outside for a few days.

quarterpound wrote:I prefer the looks of the original neck but cmon... if he doesn't want to play it then why should he play it? I think it's awesome that he now has his completely custom guitar. Taste is overrated.

I never said that he should or shouldn't do anything. Please don't misquote me or distort the meaning behind what I am saying. I just said, without trying to impose my opinion on the man or his guitar, that he took the guitar in a direction that would not work for me or my tastes or my guitar ideals. Does that really matter? No. Does it bother me that my opinion is ultimately meaningless in the big scheme of things? Not at all. Will that stop me from piping up and saying what I think when something provokes an opinion? Aw, hell no!

But yeah, no one made over my guitar without my consent, so I'm not exactly worked up over this.

taste is in no way overrated. good lord.

Grousing about the questionable choices strangers make with their guitars on the internet is underrated.

I agree with this last post.... the only thing he did even remotely questionable to me is the headstock shape but he had it in stock and I would have probably done the same thing.

ken

Jaguar018 wrote:Grousing about the questionable choices strangers make with their guitars on the internet is underrated.

croatan wrote:taste is in no way overrated. good lord.

I like both these comments a lot.

But I agree with ken's sentiments as well. If anything it is the headstock shape which really alienates me from appreciating this guitar post makeover. Unlike ken I probably wouldn't have used it on that sort of guitar just cause I had it in stock. But I don't like flying Vs so I can't imagine a reason why I would ever have a neck like that one in stock anyway. In my case it would be more likely to end up with an awkward looking telecaster style neck on it, and even then I would seriously consider whether this would compromise the general balance and character of the guitar.

As long as people realise that discussions like this open us all up to varying and often conflicting opinions but that in most cases there is no one who is more right or wrong than anyone else, then we should be able to keep these kinda disagreements on a good-natured level.