Official Luthiers Forum!

I didn’t want to hijack an earlier posting on nuts.

Is there a reason that we don’t use adjustable nuts on acoustic guitars similar to the adjustable saddles on electric guitars? If your bridge was in the correct position you wouldn’t need the adjustable nut to be huge but just big enough to handle the expected compensation for the string and action. A quick adjustment and you have good intonation. It would seem that this would be a good thing. The only negatives that I can think of would be weight and esthetics. Just kind of thinking out loud.

Philip

_________________
aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

     We can achieve good intonation by compensating our saddles so the
nut compensation isn't necessary. If you take care in placing your bridge
and saddle and then understand the compensation requirements for your
scale length, you can get it very close. The temperament of the scale on a
guitar with its tuning intervals is probaly one of the most faulty of all
instruments, but it can work fine if addressed properly.

   I've installed more than 500 Earvana compensated nuts on both electric
and acoustic guitars and have done alot of work with Buzz Feiten's
system. The results are always intersting and make the customer very
happy, but I've never had a problem playing a guitars with a standard
intonation set up between the nut and saddle.

    I'm a pianist as well as a guitarist with close to perfect pitch so my
pitch sensitivity sometimes lets me know that the guitar's intonation is
not equal in accuracy to a properly tuned piano, but ti works well enough
in almost all live and recording situations.

    It is fun, though, to experiment with nut compensation and those
alternative tuning methods to understand them. They will always help to
deepen your understanding of the tuning capabilities and limitations of a
standard nut/saddle set up too.

Regards,
Kevin Gallagher/Omega Guitars

     I've seen fret compensation along with bridge intonation used because of fret sharpening but not intonation. Taylor uses about 1 mm setback to give a general nut compensation. I'm not particulary familiar with the Buzz Feiten system but he also sells compensated nuts for this purpose.

     I believe the problem comes in when you adjust the nut string length, if this is what your talking about, you also change the distance, nut to first fret, altering tone as well as string length.

     I'm no expert but intonation is a pet peeve with me! I'll be interested in what the experts say on this one.

_________________
Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)