i was playing my friends ibanez rg321, and to be honest, its a great guitar, except for the fretboard. the neck is a dream to play, but the fretboard is too flat. i found it hard to pull of sweeps and just play fast in general.

i guess im just too used to the rounder radius of my guitar.
anyways, im planning to get a custom soon and i was thinking of getting the neck made like that of an ibanez because theyre supposedly great for shred, but now im having second thoughts. do you think a compound radius would be better for me as it has a curved radius near the 1st fret and a flatter radius around the 12th fret.

has anyone played a compound radius guitar? if so what do you think about it? do you think i would be better of with a compound radius fretboard instead of a totally flat fretboard?

cheers
User01

totaly flatboard isnt that great imo, alot of classical guitars have complete flat fretboards. also barre chords and sweeps are harder on a flat fretboard that on a fretboard with a radius.

the advantages of compound and totaly flat fretboards are, that you can bend up as high as you wish, and you wont get any fretbuz... ofcourse you MIGHT get some on a compound board, but no way youll get that on a prefectly flat board (assuming that its build right ofcuz)

if your having a neck with a compound radius fretboard build, they you can also choose the radius. so if you dont like fretboard that are too flat, you could get a slight compound radius. say 12'' to 14'' from nut to last fret... or whatever radius you want ofcourse, since your having it build it should all be possible..

you could even get a board that has a 12'' radius, and have the compouns radius a start from the 15th fret to the 24th fret. so the solo areas will slowly go towards a flatter board and the rhythm part of the board will have more radius for nicer chording... just an idea to chshow the posibilities.

i havent played a compound board yet (for as far as i know) but you can bet your sweet ass ill get a compound board on the guitar im building. im also planning on building a asymetrical fretboard.

but yeh, endless posibilities.

__________________

I personally never new much about fingerboard radiuses til I played Ibanez RG's.

550's are great axes but yeah the board is way to flat. At first it seems like you can shred on it but then power/barre chords get annoying on it, not to mention sweeps.

I prefer "normal" radius guitars. Most of my guitars have "normal" radiuses(don't really know what is considered normal, but I have a neckthru Charvel Model 5FX, a NJ BCR, and a Kramer Imperial besides my Ibanez Universe).

If you want to try a compound radius guitar, try some of the mid-priced jacksons. Examples: Dinky DK2M, the MG series I think, most of the DK2 series. Not sure exactly which ones, just check Jackson's site, they say it in the description, write down the axes that have it and go to a store and try the ones they have. Only way to know for sure, and you definately wanna make the right choice on a custom.

Btw if you want a Floyd Rose on a curved radius guitar, make sure you get shims installed under the D and G string saddles, because that'll compensate for the radius of the fingerboard and give you a consistent height on every string and assure that those strings wont fret out when bending and sustain better.. If the fingerboard is already somewhat flat it's not necessary, but you'll probably need to do this on many vintage trem/fixed bridge guitars(ie: Fender strats, some Gibsons/Epis) that have been modded into FR axes.

__________________

canyou tell me what your talking about. i know that sounds really ignorant but id kinda like to know about this stuff

__________________

I think I said pretty much everything I know about fingerboard radiuses(radii in plural actually ) above.

__________________

well i can explain some stuff about radiuses etc.

most guitar fretboard are slightly rounded, wich i guess youve noticed, that rounding is called the radius.

10'' radius ir pertty round (i believe most old fenders have this).
and basicaly the higher the radius goes, the flatter the fretboard will be.

compound radius means, that the whole fretboard doesnt have 1 radius, but more, it slightly changed from a round radius to a flatter radius, wich will improve the possibility to make high ebnds, without having fretbuzz.. although a proper fretted guitar wont have this realy quick..

a compound radius might be more comfortable to play on since, a rounder fretboard (lowerradius) is more comfortable to play chords on, and a flatter radius is more comfortable to solo on, so with a compound radius board, you can have the comfortness of a round fretboard for chords, and have a flatter board in the area where most peeple solo.

http://www.warmoth.com/guitar/necks...seaction=radius

read this, it shows some pictures wich makes the whole idea easy to understand

__________________

I love Wizard I necks, and the radius is perfect for everything I do, including sweeps, chords, and suchlike.

a compound radius would be sweet. the majority of your soloing will be around the 12 fret and up so a compound radius would be perfect. plus chording will be below that i guess for metal so go for it.

One of my guitars has a radius of about 10-12 " (havent measured it out exactly yet), and i feel very comfortable on it since it was my first guitar. My 2nd guitar has a fretboard radius of 400mm (14-16" about). I can feel the change in the curvature of the fretboard, but i still feel comfortable on it after a couple of minutes playing on it. However, i feel its easier to do sweeps on the flatter radius and i dont feel its any harder or more difficult to play powerchords or normal chords than on the 10-12" radius. I'm curious to to try out a entirely flat fretboard (NO radius) and see how that feels...

I've played one of the new Jacksons, the snow white Dinky Dk2-M with JB/Jazz combo, and it has a compound radius. It's really cool because the feel of the board gets different as you play up or down the neck, really good "dynamics".

__________________

grab a classical guitar, these usualy have completely flat fretboards

__________________

Yea, I'll give that I try. It might be hard to play metal or anything for that matter on it seeing how the fretboard width is HUGE compared to my guitars (1 5/8"). But what the hell, i'll try it the next time I go out to a music store. I'll try to play the parts of Spheres of Madness I know, some Slayer and anything else I know and see how it feels on a classical guitar

try a few 6 string chords, youll feel the diference right away

__________________

Yeah like a F# chord, annoying as fuck on a Spanish/classical guitar.

__________________