The heel on our guitars is very important. It keeps the lower part of the neck straight and keeps any flexing to the first frets where a little relief may be required. It also creates extra stability to the body joint. Without it it would be hard to maintain proper alingment.
A super stiff neck is no good if you get excessive flexing at the body joint.
Hope this helps a little

Makes sense,  Has anyone noticed less neck movement when going to heavier string gauges with the Emerald.   Rainsong really tells you on their none trust rod guitars to put light guage strings so I have to assume they will flex with heavier ones.

Steve

On RainSongs, moving to heavier gauge strings causes very little change to the neck and the neck joint.  The soundboard, however, flexes causing the action to go up slightly.  The action can be brought down by using a smaller saddle.

We recommend using light gauge strings because the instruments were designed with this gauge in mind.  There should be plenty of volume and balance with this gauge for most players.

getting scary posting on this board any more, the first people you hear from are the manufacturers, which I guess is a compliment.   Good guitars and they are quick to stand up and give the right answer, thanks.

Steve

Ashvin,

Thank you for answering the question I was going to ask re: my new H-DR1100N2.  

I certainly appreciate having all the owners/CEO's, etc. of CF guitar makers participating in this forum.

Ray

my experience as cargo player and observer about this:

carbon neck are waaaaaay stiffer than wood ones. one easy example is 'neck bending'. i use to do it a lot: playing open harmonics and then pushing the neck, what gives you a downpitching bending (like a whammy when you push it, but not that much). in my cargo it is much more difficult (but doable) than on my wood guitars (i do it in all of them). Erik Mongrain (just search youtube) abuses of this technique on his rainsong jumbo with a 12-string neck (no truss rod) with 6 strings on it with excelent results.

i said it is doable, so the neck is flexible. a truss rod should work. this discussion here and in AGF has lost a bit of the point because the concept of the truss rod is a bit misunderstood. it has nothing to do regarding moving the neck, it is about controlling the curvature of the neck. the truss rod affects the fretboard, no the neck (of course it affects, but not that much). so, neck stiffness is not too much an issue. of course, being carbon stiffer, the truss rod should be stronger,  but doable.

of course it will affect costs, but i don't know to what extent. rainsong offers it with no difference in cost. maybe it is easier on emeralds and blackbirds, as you can use the hollow neck and fill it with the truss rod (just guessing). in fact, Alistair from Emerald offered me this option as a custom feature (correct me if i am wrong). of corse you would lost your stereo effect on this guitars filling the hollow neck and sound port, at they would end up being a bit neck heavier (but maybe not too much)

i understand Larry Pattis point of view. he really need this feature. most of the players maybe won't need it ever. this issue was important as CA lost control of their production. adding a truss rod would have saved them lots of money. anyway, with a superior control of their quality, i've never read anybody complaining that their Emeralds, blackbirds and rainsongs didn't have one.

my opinion: the truss rod is a standard in the market. offering a guitar without it for lots of people is like offering it without frets over the 12th. are they going to use them? i really doubt it, but they need it 'just in case' ;) . sorry for the long post ;)

My completely non-scientific comment from a single truss rod adjustment to my H-DR1100N2 to increase the neck relief (I use 11's and hit them pretty hard, I also raised the action at the saddle)...the truss rod did not turn easily for the slight adjustment I made.  My conclusion is compared to the 100's of wooden neck truss rods I've adjusted (I repair guitars as a hobby, mostly for friends), that is one stiff neck!  Jon

My issues relate (ultimately) to overall playability, up the neck, for any guitar. 

It appears that the the Cargo had several structural issues that ended up causing some concern for certain players, and for retailers (and techs) that may have been aware of how the guitars might change, especially in going to medium gauge strings.  It's curious to me that while the Larrivée Parlor has a 24" scale and their guitars ship with medium gauge strings, the Cargo ships with lights on their sub-23" scale.  Lights on the Cargo always felt waaaay too slinky for me, under both hands.  Add really vigorous playing (even in the fingerstyle world) and/or open-tunings, and a switch to mediums was (IMO) quite necessary....and set-up number changes at the 12th fret (and neck relief) were immediately noticeable to me.  It seems to me that non-guitar-players were involved in the decision to standardize with light gauge strings on the super-short-scale length, and that any following structural testing was less useful in the real-world for what was going to ultimately happen with the guitars.  Just my opinion.  BTW, mediums on the 24" scale give a bit less tension than lights on a 25.4" scale, Larrivée's choice always felt (physically and intellectually) like the correct way to go.  CA's, well, not so much.

Add to this the fact that the built-in neck angle gave a result of very little saddle showing over the bridge (regardless of string gauge), and the Cargo was really limited in the amount of set-up work (for lowering) that one could perfom to make the guitar playable across a range of preferences and styles.

I was unaware (at the time) that in addition to neck-relief changes, that the neck-body joint area of the Cargo might also be flexing with medium gauge strings, and the results of this would certainly add to the set-up/structural woes.  While a truss-rod would obviously help with any changes in neck-relief, it would not affect this neck/body flex, and therefore would have no impact in how this flex negatively affected action at the 12th fret, and the resulting set-up changes that might be needed.

So it's not just about the truss-rod for me...it's the impact that all of these issues bring to the ultimate set-up and playability of the guitar.

Now, maybe all of this is "old news" on this forum, but I struggled with wanting to be able to use the Cargo with two different purchases...and I had a couple of techs out there looking for Cargos outside of the CA "norms" for their specs, in the hopes I could find one (or more) usable for personal and stage use.  I did take possession of two guitars, one early-on in their production, and one just after CA closed their doors.  I had some significant email exchanges with one of their managers with the first purchase, since in fact *that* guitar was worse than most in the resulting final set-up, and they took it back and replaced it with another...the replacement guitar had similar, although not as severe, issues.  Great customer service, but the product itself was lacking.  The fellow I interacted with actually did not seem to come at the set-up numbers (and the problems) from a guitar-player or guitar-tech standpoint...it was more of a manufacturing perspective...they had made their decisions about neck-angle and set-up specs, and that was that...even though tolerances were realy not good for (IMO) the real-world.

This recent (to me) info about the neck-body joint flexing on the Cargo (learned on the AGF) makes a ton of sense (in seeing the resulting problems), and I hope that this is something that Peavey can consider, as they may re-start Cargo production...*all* the issues, in fact...neck-angle, truss-rod, and neck/body flex.

It is a welcome thing to hear that the X7 has some specs similar to the L. Parlor (scale length among them), and that mediums do not seem to affect the guitar...perhaps it was designed and ships with mediums.

I only wish Peavey the best with their entry into the CF marketplace, and I hope for improvements in *all* guitars, wherever and whenever possible!

Neck angle again!?    If I documented that the neck angle on the Cargo was set back farther than the neck angle on the Larrivee Parlor, could we put this one to bed?

Probably not, eh?

Please re-read my entire post, above.

Combine neck-angle with bridge height, neck-relief issues, and the neck-body flex...add in string-gauge/string tension factors, and then we can talk about comparing the Cargo to some other guitars.

It all comes together as a "whole" on how the guitar can ultimately be set-up for an individual.  It's not *just* a neck-angle thing, and I have in fact made that perfectly clear...here, and on the AGF.