Official Luthiers Forum!

I am a novice at intonation and in reading some articles by Mike Doolin, I
am even more of a novice.
I compensate my guitars by angle slotting the saddle and placing it
0.15inches from the scale length....cumpiano
I am aware that many of you intonate each string by changing the break
point of the saddle.   With my peterson tuner I cannot seem to figure this
out.
1. Do you use the equal temp. setting when doing so or do you use the
"guitar" temperment setting
2. in shaving the saddle to change the break point, you will be lowering it
a bit which will change string length and shorten it...correct???
3. Do any of you intonate the nut...by shortening the fretboard at the first
fret so that the open strings aren't compensated as much. Since they are
not being fretted.... If you do, how much

HELP
Andy

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

I use the open, 12th harmonic, 12th fretted method and my Peterson VSII. I use a piece of B string to find the location. mark it on the saddle. I first compare open to 12 harmonic, mark that as the start to my fine tuning. then I move that position till I get the 12th harmonic and 12th fretted to dead match per my strob. I do not shape the saddle crown till after this process. I do this for each string the go back and double check. Once I am happy all positions are right, I shape the crown to that point. so no I am not lowering the saddle as I ad just because I have not yet crowned the saddle.MichaelP38780.5964699074

thanks
so it sounds like neither of you intonate the nut...shorten the fretboard or
make an extension for the nut to shorten the open strings
Andy

_________________
Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Hesh
I not necessarily speaking about the Feiten system, but if compensation is
done for fretting and stretch per se, then you would need no or little
compensation for the open strings. To do this I have heard of some
shortening the fretboard at the nut so the 1st fret is a bit shorter, so the
open string compensation would be less. How much??? who knows. I know
that Mike Doolin does something in this regard. I am just curious if anyone
here does it and by how much.

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Andy,

I take 0.4mm off the distance between the nut and first fret on my fingerboards after reading something by Bob Taylor many moons ago. I have used this distance with all my fingerboards irrespective of scale length. I can't really tell you if it helps as I haven't done any fingerboards without this adjustment, but I like the intonation results that I get.

ps I'll send you those bridge pictures/measurements soon, apologies for the delay.

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Here's a commercial setup that accomplishes shortening the distance from nut to 1st fret on fretboards that haven't been shortened. Also, creates a zero fret. Same thing can be done by removing the tang from a piece of fretwire and installing it in front of the nut.

http://www.monteallums.com/Stretch_Tuning_DW.html

CrowDuck

_________________
Chris Nielsen
Soquel, CA.

[QUOTE=MichaelP] I use the open, 12th harmonic, 12th fretted method
and my Peterson VSII. I use a piece of B string to find the location. mark
it on the saddle. I first compare open to 12 harmonic, mark that as the
start to my fine tuning. then I move that position till I get the 12th
harmonic and 12th fretted to dead match per my strob. I do not shape
the saddle crown till after this process. I do this for each string the go
back and double check. Once I am happy all positions are right, I shape
the crown to that point. so no I am not lowering the saddle as I ad just
because I have not yet crowned the saddle.[/QUOTE]

This is the method I use also. As Michael points out be careful not to
lower saddle while your filing same. The aim of the exercsie is to move
the break point of the string over the saddle either forward or back..not
down.

I also shorten the nut end of the fretboard for exactly the reasons you state. Mine are shortend .05mm and I haven't changed that based on scale length just as Robbie stated. My results have also been good.

I use the same system of shortening the end of the fingerboard, but there is more to it than that if you choose to get into it. It works just great, too! Everything I learned is in this article over on the MIMForum, here The Compensated Nut It's one of the Articles on that page.
Hesh, it answers your questions better than I could!

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Mark Swanson
Swanson Guitars
http://www.MarkSwansonMusic.com

Man, do i feel lucky that my first build has sound! i know nothing of what is explained here! I guess i'll be learning forever!

Good link Mark here is another... Nut compensation

The idea behind cutting .05mm off the nut end is that we are just finding a happy medium. Similar to the compromise that is reached in guitars that use only a slanted saddle to compensate and do not take the extra step of individual "seat locations" on the saddle.

You just have to pick which mountain you want to die on.

Thanks for that link Ronn, hopefully, it will help me understand the whole process better.

You can place me in the nut intonator group. I've read an article on it and believed it. I cut 1/64 off the fingerboard and then compensate the bridge based on 12 fret harmonics. I do that by stringing her up and intonate each string, using a Stew-Mac intonator, mark the spot and then cut the bridge slot. Works for me.

_________________
Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Check the article on intonation by Mike Doolin on the OLF Resouce Page. Its got some good information.

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Don Atwood
Arlington, VA

I also do a similarv thing as the others. I remove About .015 from the nut end.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Nut Removal on the Fretboard

Okay, I see this again, here is my experience on shortening the fretboard.

I purchased a run of 12 ebony boards from LMI when I started out, radiused and slotted. I sliced the nut end off at the first fret slot, the zero slot. Only one problem, it seemed not to be a zero slot, but a half-zero slot. So, the fretboards onced trimmed were half a fretslot, too short.

Second issue, Taylor guitars shortening their fretboards. Maybe they did at one time, but the four Taylors I have owned did not have this board shortening going on. They measured precisely to length, full length according to the math.

So, that left me either having to go with the short LMI boards or having to correct it to match my Taylor guitars. I elected to repair the boards adding a thin slice of ebony to rebuild the halfslot cut that was missing. Of course, but the time I got the board cleared and flat on the end, I was adding between 20 and 40 thousandths to the end of the fretboard.

I figured Taylor was as good a guitar to copy as any. Now before you jump on the difference between Taylors 25.5 " scale and Martins 25.4 scale, let me say I took that into account and worked with percentage differences. So, I'm a non-compensator on the nut end, and it seems to work. However, the compensations mentioned above for the saddle, seem to be about what I do there.

_________________
http://www.dickeyguitars.com

Hesh,

I don't buy pre-slotted fretboards, I measure and hand cut my own slots. What I do is to take 0.4mm off the standard measurements in my scale length spreadsheet and mark out as normal with these. This in effect takes 0.4mm off the distance of the nut edge to centre of the first fret and all the other relationships between frets are as normal.

As to the theory, Mike Doolin's articles are the best together with Stephen Delft's nut intonation piece. Also do a search in any luthiers forum on intonation and be prepared for long reads!! This whole area reminds me of a Goon Show episode I heard on the radio when I was a boy. They were building a rocket to go to the moon and Harry Secombe was the mad professor who went through a 2 minute monologue on the theory behind the rocket design and how it all worked getting more ad more convoluted by the second. At the end there was a 10 second pause and the iddiot character, Eccles, (played by Spike Milligan) piped up with "Ah,. . . but it's not as simple as dat!"

In my simple brain it goes as follows. The saddle is compensated to give the 12 fret to saddle string lengths longer than the nut to 12 fret lengths and half the pure scale length. The open string is tuned in line with the harmonic at the 12th fret. Fretting notes from the 12th fret upwards, the saddle compennsation helps correct the "sharpness" from finger pressure etc, but from the 12th fret downwards this makes the fretted string length longer as well and there is a tendency to "flatness". Shortening the string length by shaving the distance from the nut to first fret helps compensate the saddle compensation - if you see what I mean. I have seen it said that the "shaving" only impacts the first fret as once you fret notes they are in the same distance relativity, but I think not. By tuning the open sring and the 12th harmonic, the length of string from nut edge to saddle break point has an effect on ALL fretted notes (but then having written that and thought about it .. hmmm, thinking is bad for you sometimes!).

Intonation is one of those fascinating areas where science meets player interaction (via how they play and how they hear). Try intonting a guitar for someone who is "blessed" with perfect pitch. I remeber Martin Simpson telling the story of a great blues guitarist (forgotten exactly who) who was playing a concert with John Sebastian (who has perfect pitch) in the audience. At the interval John could take no more and sneaked onto the stage and retuned the guitar. At the start of the second set the guitarist launches into his number, then stops and says "Sorry folks, this (adults insert your favourite word here) guitar has gone out of tune!!" and proceeds to re-tune.

By the way the good old imperial/metric confusion seems to have crept in here. I shave by 0.4mm or 0.0157". 0.04mm I couldn't even measure yet alone cut to.

End of Sunday morning ramble - I feel better for that!Dave White38781.3284722222

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

[QUOTE=Dave White]
This whole area reminds me of a Goon Show episode I heard on the radio when I was a boy. They were building a rocket to go to the moon and Harry Secombe was the mad professor who went through a 2 minute monologue on the theory behind the rocket design and how it all worked getting more ad more convoluted by the second. At the end there was a 10 second pause and the iddiot character, Eccles, (played by Spike Milligan) piped up with "Ah,. . . but it's not as simple as dat!"
[/QUOTE]

Oh, nostalgia, nostalgia, when I was at school we used to recite word for word whole Goon shows! In fact somewhere I've got half a dozen or so on disc. And I even went to the recording of the special they did "The last Goon Show Ever". A friend of mine who works at the BBC has them all on tape including two that were never broadcast he also has the entire set of Beyond our Ken and Round the Horne.

Sunday lunchtimes just aren't the same without the Navy Lark and Round the Horne!

Sorry chaps it's a British thing.

Oh yes I take 0.5mm off the first fret space and then intonate the saddle with and old string (b).

Colin

Colin S38781.3374189815

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I use a zero fret. The scale length is from the center of the zero fret to the saddle. I'm not experienced enough to know if the intonation is near perfect, but it notes truer than any guitar I've played, all the way up the board. Don't know if I can do it again, though.

Ron; luthier in training.

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

i think its not so much about just the 12th fret and the open string, if you are at your tuner try playing the same notes at different locations on the fret board, then try and play open and barred versions of the same chord, i think you will find the results interesting,

i think the goal of intonation is to make all the notes on the guitar play in tune, rather than having some sharp some flat and some right on, and having barre chords sounding in tune with open chords, this will allow the player to really explore the fretboard instead of being drawn to favorable positions,

of the intonation systems i have tried, the Buzz Feiten system is the closest to the intonation i am looking for.

I shave .75mm or so off the end of the fretboard. I read an article in the GAL years ago and there was quite the math and theory reaoning behind doing it (albeit it was done for classical, and hte average comp was about .6 or so mm). I think of it as the following - if you play a simple C chord, you have 3 fretted notes and 2 open strings - by fretting 3 strings, you make those notes micro-tonally sharp - thus compensate by sharpening the open strings. All I can say is it works for me.

I did a repair on a lefty ovation a couple years back - the first position chords were awful sounding, nothing in tune, no matter what you did. I checked with the calipers whatthe fret spacing was, and then figured back that the nut was either dead on scale, or maybe a hair too long. I shortened the fretboard by about 3/4 mm, redid the nut and it played great.

_________________
Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

http://www.buzzfeiten.com/Become_a_Retrofitter/become_a_retr ofitter.html

So, a lot of questions about the intonation eh? Well, here's the short of it..... It's Feitenized.
Here's the long of it.
First. Grab your normally intonated guitar. Play the g and b in intervals of 5th, 4th, 3rd and minor 3rd.
Kinda' dissonent eh?
Second. Google search Werckmeister. Well-temperment.
Third. Understand that the human ear will tolerate the 4th, 5th, or octave slightly sharp or flat. And, that it will not tolerate any sharpness in the 3rd, 6th or 10th. It actually likes the 3rd slightly flat to the fundamental.
Using well-temperment as a template, Buzz has actually sat down and figg'erd out a way to "borrow" small amounts of pitch from intervals that have some to loan. And that is how this guitar is intonated. It' sounds awsome anywhere on the fretboard. And, if you sit down and think about it, it is actually out of tune! If you want to learn how to do this,