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  #76  
Old 02-17-2014, 09:47 AM
Legolas1971 Legolas1971 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Racerbob View Post
Great job of explaining the real issue Alan, it's at the nut.

Great explanation found here. Can be fixed.

http://setitupbetter.com/Understandi...Intonation.php
I'm intrigued by this....Has anyone had this nut compensation done? Will any
tech be able to do this?
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  #77  
Old 02-17-2014, 12:09 PM
bshpmark bshpmark is offline
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I have the same issue with the B string and the harsh metallic ping. I found in my case that I simply was not close enough to the fret and also not playing on the tip of my finger. When I make a conscious effort to watch my finger placement, I do not have the issue. I use either Pearse Bluegrass or D'Addario Bluegrass strings.
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  #78  
Old 02-17-2014, 12:34 PM
Alan Carruth Alan Carruth is offline
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There's a good article on nut compensation in the most recent 'American Lutherie' magazine, from the Guild of American Luthiers (www.luth.org). It's also covered at length in the books by Trevor Gore and Gerrard Gilet. You can find those through a search on Trevor's name, I'm sure: expensive, but worth it.

For those who want the short synopsis:
When you fret a string at the first fret it goes a little sharp, and as you go up the neck the notes tend to get a bit sharper. You can plot this out as a rising graph of 'cents sharp', and each string works a little differently.

Compensating the saddle works by adding a bit of length to the sounding part of the string. Since a given saddle offset amounts to a larger proportion of the string length as you go up the neck the flatting effect gets greater. In graphic terms, the slope of the line is reduced. By moving the saddle back the correct amount you can get the string to sound an exact octave at the 12th fret. However, this does nothing (or next to nothing) to correct the intonation at the first fret. Thus, with only saddle compensation you end up playing a little sharp in the low positions, and flat above the 12th fret.

To get the intonation right at the first fret you could move it back toward the nut, but that would make the wrong interval from the first fret to the second. In the end, to keep the intervals right, you'd shift all the fret back, and that's the same as moving the nut forward a little, and re-tuning. It turns out that shifting the nut forward drops all of the fretted notes by about the same amount in terms of musical cents. Graphically, this amounts to shifting the whole line down. With the right nut offset you can get the first fret note in tune, but the rest of them still go sharp as you play up the neck.

The trick, then, is to use a combination of nut and saddle offset: shift the nut to get the first fret in tune, and shift the saddle to flatten the line. There's no way to ever get an acoustic instrument to play exactly in tune on every note without a lot of tweaking of individual fret locations, if for no other reason than that the resonances of the instrument throw things off. Still, nut and saddle offset will get you a lot closer than either by itself.

There's nothing particularly new about any of this. Bartolini wrote an article about nut compensation in the old 'Journal of Guitar Acoustics" back around 1982, and Greg Byers had an article in 'American Lutherie' a few years back. The problem is that, until recently, nobody's explained it very well, so I always found it hard to get on the bandwagon. Once you see how it works, it makes a lot of sense. Once you hear it, it makes even more.
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  #79  
Old 02-17-2014, 12:54 PM
John Arnold John Arnold is offline
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I just called Guitar Center about this because my G string makes that ping and goes flat. Then when wind it up to pitch, it ping's again and goes sharp. I bought the guitar there less than a month ago and he said bring it in--it's a bum tuning key and they'll replace it.This is, it kinda happens to the B sometimes to. But the G is my culprit for sure right now. I thought it was that the nut needed lube. But I'll take the new peg.
You are right and the GC tech is wrong. No surprise there. Instead of lube, I just use a properly-sized nut file to round the edge of the slot on the peghead side of the nut. The G string is the worst about catching in the slot, because it has the smallest windings.
One more word on the funny buzzing sound of the B string, particularly when played open. It almost always is caused by a badly-cut nut slot.
Quote:
I have the same issue with the B string and the harsh metallic ping. I found in my case that I simply was not close enough to the fret and also not playing on the tip of my finger. When I make a conscious effort to watch my finger placement, I do not have the issue.
On fretted notes, I would be checking to make sure the frets are properly crowned. A flat spot on the top of the fret will cause your symptom.
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  #80  
Old 02-17-2014, 01:02 PM
Nailpicker Nailpicker is offline
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I'm glad I'm not the only one with the B string issue. Regardless of which strings I use or which guitar, I never like the sound. The intonations are good, but I don't like the (what I call) clanky sound to my B strings. I've learned to adjust my playing to minimize if not eliminate this. I figure it's just rather innate to the B string since I've heard it to some degree on virtually every guitar I've played regardless of brand or price.
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  #81  
Old 02-17-2014, 01:50 PM
DesertTwang DesertTwang is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Clifton View Post
I have the same issue on a couple of guitars. The B string always seems to sound different than the other 5. It always has a metalic harsh ring to it. I wish I could make it go away.
I wish I could make the B string go away. Everything on the guitar it seems, all the confusing patterns and shapes, is only so complicated because someone, back in time, decided to build an instrument with six strings that are all exactly the same interval from each other, except for one string. I still don't understand.
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  #82  
Old 02-17-2014, 10:07 PM
Azi Azi is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Misty44 View Post
There are three separate and unrelated issues being discussed here.

...I've always liked Kevin Ryan's overview and Tempered Tuning method http://www.ryanguitars.com/NewsandEv...ning_Terms.htm, but there is also an entire Google-search world full of other good explanations.
I clicked on the link and it's no longer active, but I figured out that it had been moved to a different area of his site, so here's an updated link to Kevin Ryan's Tempered Tuning for Acoustic Guitar for those that are interested.
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