Fretboard radius

Riaan

I never thought it mattered that much, but having spent the last few months playing just my Strat, and lately the Strat and the Hamer I bought from Alan, I neglected my Godin. The Strat has a 10" fretboard radius I think, and the Godin has either a 14" or a 16" radius. So this weekend I polished up the Godin, put on new strings and did a setup.

Now it seems my left hand gets tired much sooner when I play rythm on the Godin, almost like when one starts to play after no play for some time, even though I did play the Strat and Hamer quite a lot lately.

Does the fretboard radius play such an important role, that one uses the left hand muscles that much differently?

But after all this, I had almost forgotten how sweet that Godin sounds...especially when using the piezo's with the pickups. I'm actually considering gettings a Graphtec piezo set for the Strat now... 8) And while I'm at it, why not for the Hamer also.... :?

AlanRatcliffe

I find neck thickness makes more of a difference to the left hand, with the thinner "speed" necks being more tiring. Your Godin felt like a 16" or even flatter to me (these days anything beyond a 12" feels too flat for me) and has a very low action. The Hamer is a 15" believe it or not - but a nice chunky roundback neck (so maybe illustrates my point).

Riaan

The Hamer is a 15" believe it or not

Wow I didn't realise that, so it probably has everything to do with the neck thickness then. Looks I've gotten used to the chunkier necks. I raised the action on the Godin somewhat and it feels (and I think, sounds) better that way. After going throught a rather compulsive "action-as-low-as-possible" phase I now realise I'll never be a fretboard acrobat anyway so what's the point in such a very low action? Now that I don't care about the action that much anymore, it's almost as liberating as when I decided to stop being so anal about calculating and recording my car's fuel consumption...it's been freedom and pure enjoyment since!