Loopy Pro: Create music, your way.
What is Loopy Pro? — Loopy Pro is a powerful, flexible, and intuitive live looper, sampler, clip launcher and DAW for iPhone and iPad. At its core, it allows you to record and layer sounds in real-time to create complex musical arrangements. But it doesn’t stop there—Loopy Pro offers advanced tools to customize your workflow, build dynamic performance setups, and create a seamless connection between instruments, effects, and external gear.
Use it for live looping, sequencing, arranging, mixing, and much more. Whether you're a live performer, a producer, or just experimenting with sound, Loopy Pro helps you take control of your creative process.
Download on the App StoreLoopy Pro is your all-in-one musical toolkit. Try it for free today.
changing the neck of a guitar and the pitfalls
![[Deleted User]](https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8ae0fa4a3859f845b0672e0a7763ceca/?default=https%3A%2F%2Fvanillicon.com%2F10752938bc53b68bf36e6ca2aca3b6f8_200.png&rating=g&size=200)
The user and all related content has been deleted.
Comments
Yep, it’s not too complicated, and can be a really simple process. Essential - to get the most accurate measurement of the neck pocket, use vernier callipers. The neck you want to put in should be snug, definitely not too loose, although if it is, you can use tape around the edge of the neck, almost like a shim.
@Danny_Mammy I’ll offer some advice. As long as you are thorough and precise, it’s an easy mod.
https://warmoth.com/guitar-body-neck-pockets
you could consider a Fender neck from Fender.com, but I would consider officially licensed necks from companies like Warmoth or AllParts. This is because they will offer many more variations of necks shapes and thickness, could be better quality, vintage correct, super thick, non-stick, etc… on top of that you can get a neck without holes drilled in the heel, and make the holes yourself to exactly like up with your squier. Several companies offer officially licensed necks.
Take the neck off and measure the heel pocket of the body. Exact width, depth, height. Notice the end of the pocket is square shaped and not rounded. This is because Tele neck heels are square. You can certainly put a rounded neck in there as well, like a strat neck, but you’ll have tiny gaps where the neck is rounded off. Not a big deal, but perhaps less contact between neck and body could mean less resonance. What you definitely can’t do is put a tele neck in a rounded pocket, because the squared off neck won’t fit. Anyway let’s assume you’re getting a neck that says “Fender Telecaster” on the headstock.
So all you really have to do is make sure the heel of the neck you’re buying is the exact size as your neck pocket. Meaning, don’t worry about scale length, nut width, radius, etc… the scale length is the same on Fenders, and things like radius and nut width are your personal choice. You’ll have no trouble finding replacement necks that will fit, but make sure of the following…
Squires sometimes have thinner bodies, like 1 5/8 instead of 1 3/4. So if your squire is thinner it’s possible the heel of the neck you buy will be deeper than needed and the frets will be positioned too high up. So make sure you buy a neck with the correct depth, you could look at a thin line Tele. It’s possible that even on thinner Fenders/Squires they take the thickness off the back anyway and the neck pocket depth is universal, but make sure of this just in case. You can buy a neck that’s not deep enough and just put a shim at the base of it, but you can’t go the other way unless you route out the neck pocket which I don’t recommend.
Check the tuner holes on the neck you want to buy. They could be 8mm or 10mm holes, make sure that the squire tuners or the new tuners you buy can be installed on this neck. The neck could have “vintage” holes for the tuner screws, or different positioning.
Reference the squire neck for dimensions, but really you should use the body to get the right neck. Cheap guitars could have imperfections in sizing, better to get the perfect neck for your neck pocket instead of a replica of the neck you have.
Make sure to take note of the four holes in the pocket and neck heel. I’ve seen them crooked, or off to one side. You don’t want to buy a neck with pre-drilled holes only to find out that your neck pocket has holes slightly off center. This should all be standardized, but imagine a production line of cheap guitars where you have to drill four holes in the neck and the body for a perfect alignment. I’ve seen guitars where it’s slightly off center, so if yours is not symmetrical, you may consider a neck without holes in it. In that case all you do is put the neck into the slot and put the screws into the body ever so slightly. Then you take off the neck and there should be tiny marks in the heel where the screws want to go. That’s where you drill the holes, and don’t overdrill, just drill the length that the screws need and nothing more. Do not use the screws themselves to make the neck holes as that could crack the heel in the process. Use the existing neck plate screws on your squire to determine length and width of the holes for your neck. Before you do any of this make sure the neck is seated perfectly in the pocket.
It’s really easy to make this upgrade, just make sure the heel and the neck have identical sizing, that’s really all there is to it, but be very thorough. There are other upgrades to improve a guitar like that. Let’s say you don’t touch the electronics, you can always upgrade the metals. Stainless steel bridge saddles, sturdier bridge, better tuners. Lots of cheap guitars use cheap metals and upgrading that stuff leads to better tone and sustain. After that you could look at electronics. But neck replacement and hardware replacement is easy, just be thorough with your measurements.
The biggest issue you might encounter is whether the holes line up correctly. Hopefully they’re close, but if they are not aligned, be prepared to fill one or more holes in the body and redrill.
Once you have the neck on you should obviously do a full setup to correct any minor issues from changing the neck.
Some excellent advice in this thread.
I’m glad you asked this because it’s been on my mind too. my electric is so worn down that when I’m playing the low E and high e strings sometimes my fingers slide off the edges of the fretboard. It needs a new pickup too, but that’s another conversation.
Definitely just started this thread. Thanks for that info @JoyceRoadStudios
Yes, thanks to @JoyceRoadStudios for telling the full story
I‘ve been lucky with 4 Fender/Squire P-Basses (MiM/MiJ), all necks interchangeable, no more than adjusting the bridge saddles required.
Recently I switched to former GDR brand Musima, got 2 Basses and necks/pockets would need rework to switch necks.
These instruments weren‘t from an equally automated manufacturing process like Fender, but ... the wood was good
You gonna get a Tusq nut for that? Is the nut slot bottom curved or flat? What’s the width?
You’re gonna need to install one or two string trees as well, but I would do that after you put the strings on. That way you can get the break angle and screw holes just right.
What kind of tuners does it take on the back? Two brands make great tuners with universal mounts, Hipshot and GraphTech Ratio.
I don’t have any string trees on my home-made Strat, and it has a trem, and stays totally in tune. Just as a counterpoint.
I get emails from Gerry from Haze guitars, he writes mails about guitar repair. https://hazeguitars.com/subscribe
This one is about neck replacement, I am not sure I can post it here, if not I will remove it.
Hi again
Last time, we looked at how to deal with a common problem when fitting a replacement bolt-on neck—namely that the new neck is sometimes too big for the pocket in the body. This week, we’ll check another common issue with aftermarket necks:
The screw-holes don’t match.
In this case, the replacement neck came with the usual four holes whereas the original neck fitted with five screws. More often, you’ll probably be replacing a four-hole neck with another four-hole neck but will find one or two (or all) holes don’t quite match. Either way, the fix is the same. By the way, the necks in the photo above are as-they-came. Those machining marks are from the factory and not any plugging like we’ll discuss below.
First off, you want to find out what matches and what doesn’t. Offer the new neck up to the pocket and mark the positions of each hole. You can do this by inserting the screws through the holes and giving them a little tap so their point makes an impression on the new neck. I prefer to use a brad point drill bit. Chose one that closely fits the screw holes in the body but allows enough movement to easily twist. I can give each a little twist to mark the position on the neck heel. Either of these methods works fine.
Now, to plug the unwanted holes in the replacement neck heel. What you don’t do is squirt in some glue and shove a dowel into the holes. If your new hole location is anywhere near the plugged holes, the difference in grain direction between the dowel and the neck can cause the drill bit to wander, leaving you with a less than precise hole. Better to make some plugs so you can better control the grain direction.
You can see the grain at the end of the neck. This is pretty closely flat sawn, with the grain running mostly across the neck. It’s good to roughly match this if at all possible. You don’t need to go crazy with matching but something that’s close is best. Cutting some plugs from the wood shown will keep things in pretty good shape. On the other hand, if you were to use dowels to plug the holes, the dowel grain would run perpendicular to that of the neck.
Run your drill slowly when cutting plugs. A pillar drill is much better for this job than handheld.
After cutting your plugs, you’re almost certainly going to have to widen the holes in the neck heel to accept them. This is one occasion where a twist drill will likely be fine. However, if you have to widen the holes by more than a millimetre or two (maybe 5/64”) I’d recommend stepping up in stages.
Again, a pillar drill is best for this job. If you have a vice for your drill table, you can use that to hold the neck but a radius block underneath the fretboard works well to keep it from wobbling.
Widen the holes and glue in the plugs. Use a super sharp chisel to cut back the plugs so they’re flush with the surface. Then, you can (re)mark your hole positions and drill for the neck screws. The hole nearest in the photo above is the only one that matched. The other three had to be plugged.
Hurrah! We’re done with this neck. At least that’s what I thought. As it turned out, though, this one had a final annoyance up its sleeve. And it was a doozy. More next time.
Oooh, the suspense.
Hit reply if you gotta. Otherwise, talk soon.
Cheers
Gerry
Just remember the golden rule for all woodworking - measure twice, cut once.
So both the tuners you bought and the tuner holes are 8mm? If the holes are too small for the tuners, I know a safe and cheap way to ream them out.
Also, what string gauge are you using? If you’re using heavier than 9s, you may want to run the strings back and forth in their designated nut slots to file the nut, so to speak. Especially important on the wound strings. You don’t want the strings sitting on top of the nut if it’s not cut big enough for the gauge, you want only 50% of the wound strings showing above top of the nut slots. Plains can sit lower down. You also want to make sure the nut is cut low enough but not too low. When you fret the third fret, there should be little to no daylight between the first fret and the bottom of the string.
I find all of this so much fun, so far I have built three guitars out of cheap starters that play better than anything I’ve bought off the rack.