Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a question about cutting the nut end of a fret board. From getting pre slotted fret boards in the past I was always told to cut the board at the zero fret when not using a zero fret. So if the nut is flush with the end of the board wouldn't that put the crown of the frets closer to the nut until the frets wear to where the bridge edge of the slot is? Shouldn't the nut end of the board be cut at the center of the zero fret slot for the best intonation. Or is that one reason a compensated nut is used to correct? I'm getting ready to slot my own fret board this time around and I'm wondering if it would be best to cut the nut end of the board and aline it with the center of the zero fret slot and then slot the rest of the board from the template?

Bob Taylor has a bit about this at FRETS.com

http://www.frets.com/FRETSPages/Luthier ... #TaylorNut

_________________
Jordan Aceto
Ithaca, NY

Well, you're really only talking about a 0.012 difference which (in my limited experience) won't make much if any negative difference. There are many now who take much more than that off at the nut end (lazy nut compensation maybe), I know I do and it has actually helped with intonating the first few frets as string tension decreases as we move away from the nut. By moving the nut closer to the first fret, we effectively eliminated that extra string stretch and thus can tune in the intonation of the instrument more precisely. Mike Doolin wrote about this in his intonation articles found on his website here and this will give you a much better understanding of cutting the fretboard back at the nut.

Also when setting up the intonation, I've started to capo at the 2nd fret and use the 16th fret harmonic to dial in the intonation, thus eliminating the nut all together. I've found I get better intonation along the fretboard and at the 1st and 2nd fret as well as the open strings this way.

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Having the nut positioned slightly forward (toward the bridge) of its theoretical position gives you a little bit of nut compensation. This is a good thing. The reason is simple: for every fretted note, the string is stretched slightly, causing it to sound slightly sharp of what it theoretically should. The saddle is compensated to accommodate this; in other words, the saddle is positioned to make FRETTED notes play in tune. But what about open strings? Since the saddle is positioned to take the fretted (slightly sharped) notes and flat them a bit to put them back on pitch, the nut should be positioned so that it, too, will produce a note that is slightly sharp of the theoretical, so that the saddle compensation will work the same way for the open string notes. Exactly how much compensation is anybody's guess, really. It's not an exact science, even if you want to get into different compensations for each string, which most people would agree is splitting some very thin hairs and is really unnecessary (for most guitars, at least). The dang thing is never going to play perfectly in tune, anyway. But, with a little forward shifting of the nut, and a good job of intonating the saddle, most guitars can be made to play in tune well enough to satisfy well-trained ears (as long as those ears flank a brain that understands that a fretted instrument can never play perfectly in tune, and is also savvy enough to do a good job tuning the guitar).

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

I was writing at the same time as Rod. I should also credit Mike D for being a big help in advancing my understanding of intonation. Rod describes an issue with regard to string stretching that is not the same as what I was saying... but related... that's a bit of a different slant on it that I'm not so sure about... but what do I know...

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Rod, did you mean the 14th fret harmonic?

_________________
Rian Gitar og Mandolin

OK, thanks guys for the reply and the links. I guess I have some more reading to get too. So for now I'll just continue to cut it off at the zero fret.

Errr..... ya, that's it

Doubled up one to many times there.

Yes, 14th fret harmonic. Thanks Arnt

_________________
My Facebook Guitar Page

"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

Rod, I've been thinking some more about this, and I believe that the reason for the nut compensation is as I described it, and not what you've said here. I'm not interested in being "right" and you being "wrong", only in the pursuit of the most accurate and useful information. Perhaps we'll just agree to disagree.

I believe that your statements, "string tension decreases as we move away from the nut" and "By moving the nut closer to the first fret, we effectively eliminated that extra string stretch and thus can tune in the intonation of the instrument more precisely" are incorrect. If the nut slots are properly cut, there is very little deflection of a string when fretted at the first fret, just a tad more at the second, and more and more as you fret up the neck. So, the string is actually stretched - and therefore sharped - less when fretted at the first few frets, not more. This has to be the case, or else saddle compensation would not work. Let me explain that statement. For any given string, the saddle is a certain distance further toward the tail end of the guitar than the theoretical scale length. That's the "compensation". That distance can be understood as a certain percentage of the speaking length of the string for any given fretted note. The higher you move up the neck, the greater that percentage is, because the distance that the saddle is compensated is fixed, while, as you fret higher and higher up the neck, the speaking length of the string is getting shorter. Pitch difference is determined by the percentage that a string's length is changed (e.g. reduce a string's speaking length by roughly 50% and the pitch is raised an octave). Therefore, the higher you fret on the neck, the more each note is flatted by the saddle compensation, which is necessary to compensate for the greater deflection/stretching/sharping of the string.

If the nut is not compensated, there may be the perception that the notes played at the first few frets are sharped more, simply because that's where we'll notice the out-of-tuneness of the pitches relative to the open string pitches. But it isn't really that the fretted notes down there are being sharped more - the problem is that the uncompensated nut makes for too great of a pitch difference between the open string notes and the fretted notes.

Another issue to consider is the use of harmonics to set intonation. I don't recommend it. Harmonics don't actually give you perfect intervals, because strings have stiffness. Only a theoretical string with perfect flexibility would produce perfect harmonics. If you use a strobe tuner, you can often see this - you can have the open string tuned dead on, and a given harmonic will be sharp. When we set the intonation on a guitar, we're not really concerned with how the harmonics sound or how they compare to the fretted notes. We're concerned with whether the fretted notes are on pitch or not. So, IMO, it's better to just use open strings and fretted notes (checking with a strobe tuner) to set intonation. There's no real reason to limit that to notes played at the 12th fret (or 14th or whatever). You can check notes all over the neck. And, IMO, you'll get better results if you do not use a capo, because you really want to know how all the fretted notes sound when the open string is tuned exactly to pitch. If you can't get the fretted notes all up and down the neck to sound pretty darn close to in tune when the open string is tuned dead on (don't expect perfection for every fretted note) by adjusting the saddle, that tells you that your nut compensation should be adjusted a bit.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

What about just using a zero fret?
The other problem that also seems to come into play when setting intonation is how high the frets are and then how hard someone pushed when fretting which can even throw off the pitch .

An interesting thing about tuning is that, while it's theoretically possible to tune a guitar to perfect pitch, everything goes out the window as soon as you touch one of the strings. The practical application of these theories, for most of us, are quite simple. An accurately fretted board with correct placement of the nut and a compensated saddle will give adequate intonation for 99.99% of players. Are there inaccuracies in this method? Sure. But are they audible? Not for most people. Occasionally you'll find players with perfect pitch (they do exist, don't ask me how I know this), and they can drive you crazy. I've spent countless hours with electronic tuners with a nut file and a stack of bone blanks trying to satisfy some of those, and while you can get really close, you can't get it perfect.

I sat through Mike Doolin's intonation class at HGF, and while I had a better understanding of the problem and possible approaches at the end of his talk, I haven't changed my approach. You can drive yourself nuts with minutia on this topic, and it's like most everything else, there's no perfect approach, so figure out what works best for your clientel, and do that. This works for me.

_________________
Jimmy Caldwell
http://www.caldwellguitars.com

As far as intonation is concerned, there is no difference between a properly located zero fret and a properly located (and properly slotted) nut. That is to say, in both cases the open string produces its pitch without being stretched by fretting, and therefore the zero fret should be compensated just like the nut, locating the crown of the fret where the front edge of the nut would have been. In fact, if the zero fret is located according to the fret scale template, i.e. it is not compensated, then intonation will be worse than with a non-compensated nut, because the crown of the fret is further back from where the front edge of the nut would be. That difference may be barely noticeable, but my point is that just using a zero fret will not make it better; if anything it will make it slightly worse.

So, a zero fret, in and of itself, does nothing to address intonation. It only changes the tone of the open strings.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Jimmy, I pretty much agree with you. The way I look at it, though, is this: since it's impossible to make a guitar intonate perfectly all over the neck (not to mention that the equal tempered tuning system is inherently "imperfect", although that is a separate issue), I want to get it as close as I reasonably can, so that the inevitable imperfections are not compounded by my not having done everything I reasonably can to get it as close as possible. Where we draw the line on what is "reasonable" is the question. I compensate the nut by simply cutting a smidge off the end of the board after making my initial cut from the fret template. I don't even measure it, I just eyeball "a smidge". It has worked well for me so far, and I believe it improves intonation by comparison to a non-compensated nut. I generally don't compensate the nut for each individual string, and, to me, that would be excessively obsessive for 99% of guitars and players. Another way I believe I can make my guitars intonate a little better is by checking intonation at several locations on each string, not just the 12th fret. I might make the 12th fret play a hair sharp or flat if it makes most other frets on that string intonate better - such irregularities are not uncommon, because resonances in the guitar can affect intonation of various notes; never forget that when you pluck, the whole guitar vibrates; the strings are in no way isolated from the rest of the vibrating beast.

In my observation, I'd say that most of the intonation problems people have (on well made guitars) are a result of the way they tune the guitar or the way they play, such as pressing too hard when fretting.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

[quote="Todd Rose"] I compensate the nut by simply cutting a smidge off the end of the board after making my initial cut from the fret template. ]

I do the same for my dreads. I just built a 2/3 size childs guitar, with a 17" scale length, and was pondering whether you would compensate the nut more or less on a shorter scale length. i.e. take a little more or a little less of a smidge? Would the effect you described be exagerated as the scale length decreases?

[quote="Todd Rose"] I compensate the nut by simply cutting a smidge off the end of the board after making my initial cut from the fret template. ]

I do the same for my dreads. I just built a 2/3 size childs guitar, with a 17" scale length, and was pondering whether you would compensate the nut more or less on a shorter scale length. i.e. take a little more or a little less of a smidge? Would the effect you described be exagerated as the scale length decreases?

Good question, Jason. I assume your 17" scale guitar is not tuned to standard tuning. If the tensions are about the same as a standard guitar, then I don't think it would make much difference. As a general rule, I'd say that the more compensation you need at the saddle, the more you should have at the nut. String tension is one of the things that affects how much compensation is needed at the saddle.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Ever notice that those with perfect pitch tend to shy away from guitars and end up playing piano? Wouldn't you just love being their piano tech

Actually tuning a piano is not that bad, I find it easier than intonating a guitar although it can be more time consuming.

Still the problem with piano, much like a guitar is they use a tempered scale but with many over tones that are audible for a longer duration than a guitar. Some go flat and some sharp and you can’t do anything about it. When you know what to listen for, it is noticeable even with out having perfect pitch.

I suppose you could tune each string on a piano to the pure note and satisfy the “perfect pitch’er” as long as you only play one note at a time and mute the string before the next string is struck.

_________________
Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

For us ordinary folks without perfect pitch but with fairly well-trained ears, what it mostly comes down to on the guitar is whether chords sound in tune all over the neck. And that mostly comes down to whether notes that are supposed to be an octave apart sound smooth or "beat" against each other; also whether perfect fifths and fourths, which are supposed to have slow beats in them, beat too fast. All the other intervals in the tempered tuning system are supposed to beat.

Yeah, Rich, I hear ya on the piano thing. I've done some piano tuning, too. As I'm sure you know, you really can't do stretch tuning on a guitar. And other ways of deliberately deviating from equal tempered tuning on a guitar, like the Feiten system, have their pitfalls as well.

...and then there are the inadvertent ways guitar players sometimes deviate from equal tempered tuning, such as using harmonics to tune, or trying to tune 5ths or 4ths - or even worse, thirds! - to be beat-free.

_________________
Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/