Traditionally bolt-on neck guitars are secured with wood screws driven directly into the neck. This practice was developed by Leo Fender to speed up the production of factory line guitars. It is still used by many guitar companies around the globe, especially on budget guitars. A bolt-on makes repair work much easier than on a set-neck or thru-neck. However, it requires a chunky heel block, which makes getting to the high frets less smooth.
Arguably, bolt-ons have less resonance yielding in decreased sustain and tone loss. The neck joint is crucial for these things. Thru-necks have the advantage that there is no breaking-point from the headstock to the body, allowing for direct tone transfer and good sustain. Gibson has proven that their glued set-neck is a recipe for excellent sustain, with the added bonus of tight, non-moving bond that closely mimics the tone transfer of a thru-neck. The tighter and stronger the bond of a neck joint, the greater tone and sustain is achieved.
So there are metal screws, glue, and natural wood grain that separate each of these neck joints from one another, each striving to be the best.
TruBolt™ is an advance for the bolt-on, with the small exception that it uses actual bolts not screws. Luthiers have tried everything from threaded inserts to t-nuts to achieve a tighter bond. TruBolt™ uses proprietary threading setup that sandwiches the neck to the body, creating the tightest bond between two woods without glue. Not to mention, it allows for a smooth thru-neck heel contour.
Omnitone™ allows a player to get most out of a single setup. Coil-tapping is all the rage these days, even the high end, traditional guitar companies are getting in on the action. The down side is that the guitar company determines which one single coil is selected. Omnitone™ allows you to choose.
Omnitone™ Blend is a unique system that allows you to blend any combination of coils in or out-of-phase in series or parallel. The main use this setup is to help players dial in the custom tones they want in their guitar. If you can imagine it, Omnitone™ can find it.
The Phoenix prototype features the Omnitone™ Select. With only two humbuckers and no blending capabilities, there are 15 defined tone options. This refined setup allows for quick selection of individual coils when coil-tapped, as seen below.
