The use of zero frets

[Jimbolaya]

My Yamamoto has a zero fret. Never bothered me.
It's one of the best guitars I have ever played.

[stanron]

The very first guitar I owned had a zero fret, and a Stauffer type neck joint. I took a few weeks to discover that the Stauffer neck joint meant I could adjust the action. Brilliant.

In the fifty plus years since then I've owned loads of different guitars, including several Gibsons and a Martin 000 28. None of them had zero frets or the Stauffer type neck joint.

I have a Fylde Goodfellow with a zero fret. It's a beautifully made guitar and has a brilliant sound but the neck is just a bit too chunky for me. Today I mostly play instruments I make. I make them with zero frets and Stauffer type neck joints. Because I can and because I like,

[klobasa]

What I like about zero fret is that it completely eliminates all negative things that come with traditional nut and setting it up for perfection. My guitar has a bone nut and and even if it's fully set up, it's still not perfect. The action, sound, playability is maybe 90% compared to when capoed at first fret.

[murrmac123]

Originally Posted by klobasa

What I like about zero fret is that it completely eliminates all negative things that come with traditional nut and setting it up for perfection. My guitar has a bone nut and and even if it's fully set up, it's still not perfect. The action, sound, playability is maybe 90% compared to when capoed at first fret.

If the action is only 90% of what it is compared to being capoed on the first fret, then it is not in fact "fully set-up".

[Malcolm Kindnes]

As already mentioned Fylde guitars have a zero fret, and any I have played sounded great. Duck Baker plays one, and I'd say he knows a good guitar! I've no idea why it is not more popular.

[klobasa]

Originally Posted by murrmac123

If the action is only 90% of what it is compared to being capoed on the first fret, then it is not in fact "fully set-up".

I didn't mean just action, but everything associated with the nut setup. It has happened so many times that the nut was perfect until that one last stroke of the file / sanding block / whatever and then the buzzing comes. Zero fret just makes life easier.

[sigma0015s]

I really like the Zero fret, just seems to make sense that the open strings are in contact with the same material as the fretted notes.
Love the fact that tuning is generally easier with no chance of the sting binding.
They also have a very consistant feel between the first and second fret.

[Malcolm Kindnes]

Perhaps some luthier could tell us why they are not more widely used?

[ukejon]

Originally Posted by Guitar1083

I have a Zero Fret and i love it.

Nice looking guitar. What is odd, however, is that on the Alma website the section on steel string guitars looks like it features a picture of a Taylor guitar:

http://www.alma-guitarras.com/Alma_1.htm

Very strange....

[Dreadfulnaught]

I have, on loan from the luthier, a new custom Telecaster with a Zero glide nut. I told him about them, and for evaluation purposes he installed one on the Tele, which was being built at the time. It plays smoothly and evenly. It separates the lateral location and string height functions of the nut, so strings don't bind in the slots and a consistent tone between fretted and open notes is possible. I really like it, and it could be retrofit to just about any guitar that was not built with a zero fret.

Some cheesy department store guitars back in the day had zero frets and I guess they got a bad rep because of that, but really if properly done they work wonderfully.

[Pheof]

Originally Posted by rogthefrog

Can you articulate why? I'd genuinely like to know the argument. The zero fret builders are hardly clowns building cheap guitars these days.

I don't know if I can "articulate", but I can explain: 1) it doesn't follow tradition. If you're looking for some big logical explanation, you won't find one.

Except maybe in my case: The zero fret is a great design (in some ways). But traditionalists like me hate it. We don't like the looks and the association it carried with cheapo guitars from the 60's. It was synonymous with inferior craftsmanship by companies too cheap to cut a proper nut. It posed problems in that it didn't compensate for the larger strings because it was just as flat as the other frets: a good nut is usually cut higher on the low E and lower on the high E, but a zero fret is one height. What you got is buzzing E and A, etc. After the 60's, electric players began experimenting brass nuts. Some liked that, but most thought the design looked bad. Same goes for black graphite nuts: if they were so superior, everyone would use them. But most players don't like the way they look. Gibson's new nut - even though they call it a "zero nut" - really isn't technically a zero nut, it's a more refined one-piece brass nut. It's a better design, in that it has adjustable height, let's just hope you can make the low E side higher than the high E. Regardless, many still find its appearance unappealing, and find all the rest of the modern gadgetry on the 2015 tasteless and unnecessary. Do you want mechanical tuners on your $3,000 acoustic guitar because it makes "logical sense"? I don't want one on any of my guitars, acoustic or electric. It's 6 of one, 1/2 dozen of the other.

Honestly, I would never buy any acoustic guitar with anything other than a traditional nut. I even dumped my HD-16R because the fretboard was made of Richlite. They made that guitar with many "vintage" appointments, then used a modern man-made board. Not cool, and I couldn't live with that when there are better guitar to be had for the same price (like my new D-18 with solid ebony board for $400 less than the HD16).

The argument doesn't have to make sense, it's not a logical debate. It's a debate about long-held American guitar making tradition. It's about keeping historical tradition and simplicity alive. It's about the craftsmanship and the passion that goes into building an instrument that can serve as an extension of your soul - your voice to the world.

[MikeBmusic]

Originally Posted by pjroberts

Actually, not. Gibson just recently announced their 2015 line with zero frets, which in that case are basically an adjustable nut height (same effect at the end of the day). The zero frets in the 60s were mostly a money saving tactic on cheap guitars because it is expensive to properly cut a nut - that need has obviously gone away, meanwhile the benefits remain for some. If you've played with a capo on lower frets you might feel the benefits of a seemingly low action and bouncy responsiveness.

Stuart, interesting you bring this up for discussion as I have raised the question before about above use case without knowing what zero fret was ... after someone recommended I look into zero fret like tweaks (one mentioned was zero glide DIY, though that thing scares me).

Because zero fret seems a little gimmicky to me, I've been wanting to start similar discussion about other options to achieve a similar effect. I have no problem fretting barre chords or anything else closer to the nut, but this bouncy responsive playability I love, so much that for certain songs I will tune down and capo up to get that playability. Any other ways to get that?

And please, bring on the zero fret debate!

The new Gibsons are not really zero fret at all, it's just a two-part nut. What's the difference? If you remove the nut, there is NO zero fret!

[s2y]

I have 2 guitars and a bass with zero frets. I don't think a zero fret or traditional nut will be a deal breaker for me.

[fazool]

Originally Posted by Pheof

...but Gibsons best days are clearly behind them as far as traditionally accepted, time-tested, quality guitar making goes. They're on the verge of becoming toys at this point....

Gibson has always been a very trial-and-error experimental company. They always come out with some weird guitar that's gimmicky and, usually, not well-received. That's not new - it's the way they've been doing things for half-a-century.

There's a small website dedicated to weird Gibson guitars (somewhere but I can't find it right now).

I think half of Gibson's technology "advancements" are pretty stupid and fail because they are a bad idea. I think the other half are actually very good ideas but they fail because their public is so traditional they have zero tolerance.

For example:

I have (my second) Gibson Sonex. It was a 1980's guitar made with an engineered body material. The electronics are the same as in top-end Les Pauls, the fingerboard is solid ebony, etc. This engineered body material actually sustains better than a solid wood Les Paul body. Gibson even tried selling it with charts of sustain, etc. But it was a marketing flop because it was so unconventional it was scorned. And the weird thing about that is that it was the 1980's when big-hair rock stars had weird guitars made of clear acrylic and aluminum necks etcetera. Those were acceptable, but this was not. I am an expert in this model and I can attest that it is (IMO) a fantastic guitar. It is also a totally derided and scorned guitar. So, it's cheap (which is good for the few of us that like them).

Now, that said, I am as bad as any : as an engineer, I love the electro-mechanical elegance of the robot tuners. But I would not want one on my guitar. Ever. In fact I won't buy a Gibson - even if I love it, if it has a robot tuner on it. I don't want some big clunky "machine" bolted on to my headstock. I just don't. So, I am as fickle as all Gibson customers.

And a final note, I am thrilled that Gibson's 2015 lineup is touting a return to "low, fast frets" and getting away from jumbo frets.

[sirwhale]

I have a zero fret on my charango and it has really nice action