Official Luthiers Forum!

Anyone know of a definitive study on nut material. Its confusing with bone, micarta, corian, tusq, etc. I've built with Corian and Tusq, but not yet bone. I'd like to know what is best and stick with it. One of my ukes is especially alive, but I don't necessarily attribute it to the Tusq nut and saddle because there are other variables. I'd like to see a scientific study that shows the sound tranmissive [such a word?] characteristics of these materials.

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

Each individual piece of natural material will have different transfer rates. Synthetics for the most part will be more consistent. That said I have used darn near everything out there at one time or another. My favorite is bone, Camel bone to be specific. FWI is very nice but can be inconsistent from one piece to another and prone to breakage. Yes there has been may comparisons done, and Al probably has info that is more scientific than just audible comparison as that kind of testing is too subjective preconceived notions.

IMO it is had to go wrong with good bone

the tone depends on the box, I dont like a bone saddle with my '66 gibson j-200 ( maple back and sides) too bright and tinny (to my ear anyways ) but sounds good on a martin d-28,
I used black corian for a nut and saddle, it tends to chip where the strings ride over it . Jody

I've used Brazilian Rosewood for nuts on a couple and couldn't hear any difference when I swapped them out for bone. I suspect that unless the material used for the nut significantly changes the neck mass there will be little effect. More important will be how the strings move in the slots.

Saddle material will probably have more impact - particularly if you are using under saddle pickups. I saw on another forum where Matt Mustapick used cocobolo for both nut and saddle on a guitar and said that the sound was as good as with bone.

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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

I don't know of any such study. Here's an idea: why don't you do it!

I did do a few experiments last summer on saddle material as part of the runnup to my 'string' talk at the ASIA meeting. I made saddles of bone and HDPE for my 'test mule' classical and a Dread that one of my students loaned me. We swapped them out and tried some informal listening tests, and I also tried to get some measurements of how the output of the guitars differed.

What was interesting was that, although you could hear differences, I couldn't measure anything consistently different. To me the audible differences seemed pretty small, considering how great difference there was in the materials.

My thought was that the softer plastic would 'eat' some of the highs, and maybe also give less prominance to the octave-doubled signal from the tension change in the strings by bending as it was pulled on. I used a 'wire pull' technique to pluck strings in the same way in the same place with both saddles, and looked carefully at the spectra of the guitar's output. Neither of my expectations was confirmed as far as I could tell. So all I can say for now is that different saddle materials seem to alter the tone a bit, but I don't know why or how, exactly. It's probably going to take more time and better equipment than I have to figure that out. Given that the nut material probably has even less of an effect I'm going to pass on that one for a bit.

Alan, I think the density of material from high to low would be: tusq, bone and corian. I think one would have to have some sophisticated measuring equipment to understand the characteristics of these materials - equipment I don't have. Taylor must think tusq is the way to go, I think all their guitars use it. On the other hand, many people swear that bone is the best.

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A higher purpose for wood.
Rich Smith
Issaquah, WA

All I know is if you put a piece of Corian right up to your ear and listen really carefully, you can hear a married couple fighting in their kitchen.

Took me a second

-Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Also, keep in mind that the nut only affects the sound of open strings - as soon as a note is fretted, the nut is out of the picture. Saddles, though, affect every note. Choice of nut material is probably more important from a tuning ease and stability standpoint more than sound, I would think. myself, I prefer bone, mostly for historical reasons.