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Wide vs. thick bass guitar necks

Above is a Squier Classic Vibe Precision Bass ’50s, and it’s being shown for a reason. It has a neck that is chunkier than most low-cost basses in the same price range. Incidentally, we do have a pickup that would be a significant upgrade for that particular instrument.

What is wide?

A wide-neck bass typically refers to the nut width. For example, a 5-string is wider than a 4-string.

What is thick?

This refers to the amount of wood your fret hand grabs to play the instrument. This is commonly referred to as chunk, regardless of neck shape. For example, if a neck “feels like a baseball bat,” that’s a chunky neck.

The plight of the big-handed player

A big-handed player usually has a tough time picking out a bass in a guitar store because many if not all of the basses in stock have necks that are just too thin – especially if the player is on a budget and can’t spend too much.

This is, by the way, why so many bass players seek out older Fender bass guitars from the 1970s, as many of them had significantly chunkier necks compared to modern models.

Some big-handed players try a 5-string on the assumption a wider neck will feel better in the hand. Sometimes it does, but many times it doesn’t. What some players want is simply a neck with more wood to it.

How does one get a bass guitar with a chunky neck on a budget?

Basses by Squier will have more neck wood compared to most similarly priced new models made by other companies.

However, if the Squier models aren’t thick enough for your liking, the next step is to either construct the neck yourself, or buy an aftermarket neck.

AllParts, for example, does sell the JRF-FAT Chunky Jazz Bass Replacement neck. While not particularly cheap, it does have the chunk. You can also try an eBay search for “JRF-FAT bass neck” and you may find a few JRF-FAT necks there, sometimes at a nice discount.

In case you’re wondering, yes, the JRF-FAT is Fender Licensed; this gives you good assurance that the neck will be good – although you will obviously have to adjust the truss rod and possibly perform a fret leveling when you receive the neck.

Is going through the trouble of getting a chunky neck worth it?

It is if that’s what your fret hand prefers.

If you’ve played a 1970’s era Fender bass with a chunky neck and said to yourself, “Yes, this is what I want,” get the chunky aftermarket neck. Try the Squier basses first, and if that doesn’t suit, get a bass body you like and buy the chunky neck separately. Afterward, you can get some good tuners from us.

Is getting a wide neck worth it?

Wide-neck basses are available just about anywhere covering all the price ranges from cheap to expensive. All you need to do is go to your guitar store and try 5-string basses.

Do you know of low-cost new bass guitars that have chunky necks?

There are big-handed players that would sincerely appreciate knowing which brands have inexpensive models with chunky necks. If you know of any, feel free to post a comment or two below with your recommendations.

26 thoughts on “Wide vs. thick bass guitar necks”

  1. Warmoth’s standard carve for their Jazz neck is pretty chunky as well. Not as chunky as the Allparts JRF-FAT, but has quite a bit more chunk than your standard Fender Jazz neck.

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  2. I recently bought an Ibanez SRX355 five string that has a pretty good amount of chunk for an Ibanez bass. I may actually sand it down a little bit to make it more to my liking. My Warmoth P bass neck it just like my 1978 Fender P bass neck. Highly recommended.

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  3. If you want ugly, chunk necks, just go back to the 1960’s Japanese instruments. Other wise, enjoy the necks now. It took work to get rid of the feel of a neck made from a baseball bat sawed in half down it’s length and having a fret board glued on.

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  4. It’s funny, cheap basses used to be chunky as a way to get strength without using great wood and a well designed truss rod.
    There’s a fat squire tele bass that feels better than my 70 precision but it has a short scale.

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  5. I happen to buy a Squier 50’s Vibe P-Bass, and I like the “chunky” feel of the neck. I replaced the plain white pick guard with a white pearl one, and replaced the pickup with a Seymour Duncan “Bass Lines” SCPB-2 Hot single coil. It plays & looks great and has plenty of punch.

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  6. My Warwick Corvette V (German, mid-2000’s era) has a neck like a baseball bat. Great for big hands, tons of sustain. You can find one for about $1,000 if you dig around on eBay.

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  7. On the other hand (so to speak), I have wide, thick fingers, but short! So I *love* the thinnest J-neck, and have just put a lined, fretless one on my ’76 P!

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  8. I love chunky necks. After playing upright for years, Jazz basses feel like Ukeleles to my hands. Seems there’s a move back to thicker necks too, after the toothpics of the 1980s. I suspect there might be ergonomic advantages to a more open thumb.

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  9. I am not a fan of the chunky neck. My Carvin BB70P has a thin neck, not as thin as my Ibanez 405, but thin and I love it. It’s my favorite neck out of all the basses I’ve owned in the last 35 years.

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  10. Guys I am missing something here. I can completely understand the upright guy (BTW major props for being a BASS player but like most, I started playing rhythm or lead or whatever Keith Richards likes to call it. My 2010 Fender Pi-Bass has a guitarist friendly neck but I love and always have a J neck. It pays like damn near a Strat! Bros, I am now a bass player first even though I can shred with the best of them on a Strat with humbuckers but I LOVE playing bass for the last 40+ years. Give me a thin J neck with Rotosounds anyday!

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  11. I like big necks and I can not lie. You other bassists can’t deny, that when I wrap my hand around an itty bitty nut, with a thick neck in my palm, I get sprung!

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  12. I’ve found after player bass for 45+ years that I’ve been comfortable on wide and flat to round and narrow, depending on the style of playing required in a specific setting. In an 50s rock/Motown setting for example I’d prefer 50s-60s p bass style necks. They happen to work best for faithfully re-creating those techniques. Then I’ll use a 70s or 80s Jazz bass style neck for funk/slap techniques, or a nice wide flat 5 string for more modern tunes requiring the range extension.
    Because I need to recreate so many styles I’ve accumulated a small arsenal of basses to make it easier to fall into the original bass players techniques. Having the right tool for the job helps tremendously, as does being able to aclamate to various necks. My personal fave is a 60s p bass style with 1.75″ nut width. Love ’em.

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  13. I think that the shape of the hand– the thumb being set far back– dictates that a neck should have an accommodating distance from front to back– and then the width can be set to a player’s preference-
    If you hold your hand out in a relaxed fashion, you can see that pushing the thumb up against the index finger causes tension– just my two cents

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  14. I have contemplated putting a 5 string neck on one of my 4 string basses but that would be a nightmare to get done. I don’t play 5 string but love the feel of the width of the 5 string neck. With a blank 5 string body and neck I think it could be done. You could then set everything from the bridge and bridge spacing to a custom nut and correctly located tuner holes. Might be a good winter project!

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  15. I purchased a 7 string bass neck, replaced the nut with a 4 string one and put da neck into an old std p bass body. I don´t have big hands but I love fat necks

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  16. I normally just sit back & take in as much info as I can from these articles, but I can see there are people who are also after thicker necks (not necessarily baseball bats), but wider than the average Jazz bass (38 mm or an 1 1/2″ for imperialists). I am only talking about neck width here, not depth (or thickness if you prefer). But keep in mind that if you increase neck width, WITH THE SAME NECK PROFILE, the wider neck will also be thicker, because you have increased the radius of the profile. The other thing to bear in mind is that heel dimensions on most necks are very similar, so the difference disappears the further up the neck you go. BUT, most of the work is done in the first 5 frets anyway. 1 imperial inch = 25.4 mm (rounded out to 25 because .4 of a millimetre is 16 thousandths of an inch .016″), or 1 mm = 40 thousandths of an inch (it’s actually .03937″ & so on, but it’s close to 40 to round it out). So the 4 main neck sizes (this is for 4 string basses only) I have found so far are (and there are heaps in between). 38 mm-1&1/2″ (Jazz), 40 mm-1&9/16″ (Hybrid), 42 mm-1&5/8″ (commonly regarded as Precision) & 44-45 mm-1&3/4″ (early P bass, and G&L, and apparently a lot of 60’s-70’s Japanese lawsuit basses). 43 mm- 1&11/16″ is the missing size, it may exist, I just haven’t found one. I’m a retired motor mechanic, who worked on metric & imperial vehicles which is why I know my sizes. It helps to know the 3/4″ spanner in your hand will also fit a 19 mm fastener. I used to ride pushbikes a bit, & there are very definite physical parameters for frame sizing, based solely on height. I always had the large frame bordering on extra large (I was in that grey area, I’m 6’2″). When I first started playing bass, I couldn’t get a neck thin enough (loved Ibanez & Jazz style necks) then my preferences started changing. And I had started pushing the G & E string off the fretboard (crap technique, I know). Now the space between the string & the edge of the fretboard had become an issue. String spacing has some influence on this too, but a wider neck helps. I think physical size should be an indicator, not a rule. We’ve all seen that miraculous 8 y.o. on YouTube playing a full scale 70’s P bass, that they have to stretch nearly their entire body length to get to the first fret. And they do. I read it on the interwebs so it must be true, that Jaco Pastorius used to practice on a P bass, & perform with a J bass. If it’s not true, it’s a nice story. I know he used a J bass for performances because I’ve seen footage, think it was fretless ?. Anyway my point is, you will get used to whatever you’ve got, with the persistence that you have. I for example could improve crap technique. However I got wider necks, which kind of made sense really. But the cost. I play (when this Covid crap is over) in a concert band (if you were unkind you could call it an oompah band) with a couple of other bassists. One of them in particular a lovely older lady who bought her Washburn new in 1980. Her one and only, & she sounds great. Wish I had done that. But I had to be the full bass nerd. I think I’ve gone past 30. All 4 strings. So here are basses that I’ve actually owned that have thicker necks, not necessarily in any sort of an order.You’ll have to forgive my use of metric measurements, I’m an Australian. Tokai “Legacy” 51P/Tele style bass, 42 mm nut, Tokai “Legacy” J style bass (at last a J bass with a P bass neck), 42 mm nut, Sterling Ray 34 1H, 42 mm nut (I assume Musicman is the same but it would pay to check), Harley Benton PB- 20, P bass, 42 mm nut, Harley Benton PB-50 51P/Tele style, 42 mm nut. But beware of neck profile, I have a Hagstrom, that has a slim “C” profile. Although it is a 42 mm neck width, it’s too thin because of the profile. All of the above are newish basses & are Chinese, so if you are bothered what country the machine that made your bass is in, they may not be for you. Except the Sterling, that is Korean via the U.S.A. I also have a Japanese Ibanez (not normally noted for thicker necks, in fact just the opposite) ATK 300, 42 mm nut. I would describe all of those necks as medium “C” & 42 mm as noted. Lucky last on my list at this stage, is a G&L L2000, 44.5 mm nut. if that was the first thing I bought, it would’ve been the last thing. There is a reason high end American instruments have been copied so much, because they’re really good. Well that one is anyway. I have what I suspect to be an 80’s Korean P bass clone, a “Torch” that has a 42 mm nut, & a medium “C” profile neck. There are a lot of really quite good quality 60’s,70’s & 80’s lawsuit type basses out there, mostly from Japan & Korea that have substantial necks. Yamaha & Ibanez come to mind. The problem there is they’re quite old now & have probably been used & abused. But be careful, manufacturers have different neck specs for different models. You can buy a Sterling S.U.B. that looks nearly identical to a Ray 34, except it has a 38 mm neck. This ended up being a hell of a lot longer than I intended, if you’ve read this far congratulations & I really hope it helps, even if it is 5 years too late.

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    • Splendid presentation, Shaun!
      Read your article during the pandemic autumn and got wiser than be4.
      After some months of searching I am now the owner of 3 darling fat-nex:
      G&L L-2000 Nippon (2000) modified: string-through-body (backup instrument)
      G&L L-2000 USA (2012) all original (main instrument)
      Fender P AVRI63 (2016) modified: defretted, added a Chris Novak J-style pup and
      switched to a Schaller bridge 3-D5)

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  17. Scratch the Tokai Legacy J style bass, TL-JB3-TGL. At the time of writing above I had ordered one. On the Australian website it said a 42 mm nut width, but it arrived & as soon as I picked it up I could feel a narrow neck, so I measured it & sure enough it was 38mm. They have since changed it on the website after I notified them of the error. I’m still awaiting a solution. Tokai do have a Jazz type bass listed at a 43 mm nut width, but I have no idea how reliable their information is on other models. And it’s a lot more expensive, part of their “Traditional” range, but do your own research. Because part of the typical J bass configuration seems to be a 38 mm nut width. I like the idea of single coils like that, just not the neck.

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