#76
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tech be able to do this? |
#77
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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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Eastman E8D Alvarez AJ80CE Alvarez AD80SSB Alvarez RD20S12 Fender Telecaster Ibanez AG-75 Martin 000X1AE Cort Earth 70DE |
#78
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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. |
#79
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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:
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#80
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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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"To walk in the wonder, to live in the song" "The moment between the silence and the song" |
#81
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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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"I've always thought of bluegrass players as the Marines of the music world" – (A rock guitar guy I once jammed with) Martin America 1 Martin 000-15sm Recording King Dirty 30s RPS-9 TS Taylor GS Mini Baton Rouge 12-string guitar Martin L1XR Little Martin 1933 Epiphone Olympic 1971 square neck Dobro |
#82
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Playing for an audience of One since 1996. ******************************** My Taylors: '09 Taylor T3 '09 414ce Fall LTD '10 GT-6 '11 GS-8 My Fenders: '13 Fender/Roland GC-1 (Roland-Ready Fender Stratocaster) ...and an '82 Lead II that I just can't part with. |