Nut Slots

[Mike Carr]

Arnold, a most heartfelt and sincere thank you! This is exactly the kind of advice I was looking for by posting my question here.

[bigolbassguy]

Originally Posted by Jazzdogg

I just took a snapshot - and the nut slots on my bass [1939 German] look straight (and very dusty) to me.

It must be painful to have your nut so far up on your cheeks. :x

[George700DL]

Originally Posted by bigolbassguy

It must be painful to have your nut so far up on your cheeks. :x

That's much cleaner than what it could have been.

[robobass]

GEEZ, is this thread still going on?

[Mike Carr]

Just wanted to report that I took my bass to Shen's shop in Shanghai today. I passed on Arnold's good advice to Sam and his staff member who does repairs. Happy to find that my fingerboard had been dressed well enough so lowering the nut down to a business card's height was possible with no buzzing. There was no roll-off at the nut end of the fingerboard. His guy filed the nut slots and removed a bit off wood off the top of the nut to keep the proper amount of string showing above the now lowered slots. And he kept that nice gentle curve I described when first starting this thread. Was just a matter of being very specific regarding how I wanted it done, they were more than happy to do it for me. No appointment, just called and asked if could come in today and get it done. It's wonderful to get personal service from a guy who is as busy as Sam is. He ships an unbelievable amount of basses to the States every month. I'm allways struck by Sam's pride in the instruments his company produces. He truly believes that his basses give players the best value for the money and wants each and every one of them to be right. My bass sure feels a lot more comfortable to play now!

[Jazzdogg]

Originally Posted by arnoldschnitzer

Dog, I hope you realize that, based on your picture, your scroll is broken at the cheeks, and it is pulling forward from the tension of the strings.

Just got back from a road trip to find your comment. Thank you! I'll have to look at that closely.

[Jazzdogg]

Originally Posted by bigolbassguy

It must be painful to have your nut so far up on your cheeks. :x

Makes it difficult to find pants that fit...

[Jazzint]

Originally Posted by belgabass

Nut slots or Not sluts....

Nut slots ARE not sluts.

You made my day, Belgabass (my already dubious reputation was on the verge of collapse)

[rake]

Not hoping for much here, but I'll ask anyway.

The A string slot on my bass is too deep, allowing probably 75% of the string diameter to go in. Is there a good temporary fix for this? I have some gigs coming up before being able to take it in to get a new nut. There is quick a buzz and volume drop-off on the open note that is not there from Bb up.

Thanks!

[Eric Hochberg]

try paper.

[rake]

Originally Posted by Eric Hochberg

try paper.

Had been thinking of that, but was worried that it might cut even more energy transfer.
Do you think that a singer layer of paper under a bit of sax reed could work?

[Eric Hochberg]

Originally Posted by rake

Had been thinking of that, but was worried that it might cut even more energy transfer.
Do you think that a singer layer of paper under a bit of sax reed could work?

Energy transfer? Just try it!

[Mike Carr]

Just go for paper. One piece or a piece of two folded over. Just enough so any buzzing on the open string that's too low stops. If you need more height and insist on something more rigid you might try something like a plastic soda straw. I took that useless plastic thingy that is supplied with Spirocore's that's slipped over the D, I split it with a razor and put it my nut slot that was buzzing. It did the trick until I could get it done right. As far as energry transfer, don't worry about it. At all. If you use paper, it will compress once you bring the string up to pitch. At worst, your open string will sound a little bit darker when played open. But no one will hear this difference or even care the least bit about it even if they did hear this! Only you, and only if you play that open string. Are you going to just play that note all night long? As soon as you press down on any other note on that string any concerns or issues you might have about any sort of diminished energy transfer won't apply, because any amount of energy that is created to a point were you or anyone else might hear it comes from the point behind where a note is pressed down. Don't make yourself crazy, or "nuts" over this stuff, just shim the nut with some paper or whatever for now and get on with it until you can get it fixed right.

[rake]

Will do.
Thank you, Eric and Mike.

[Jake deVilliers]

What those guys said. At the risk of sounding old, match book covers come in a very convenient thickness and are pretty tough. Bear in mind that tightening the string will pull your shim upward, so you might want to start with it hanging down a little.

If the nut is otherwise fine and original to the bass, I prefer to simply glue a matching shim to the bottom of the existing one.

[DoubleMIDI]

The energy loss with paper or card board on the open string will be less than than the energy loss of your finger pressing down the string.
BTW, cardboard is fine since you should have room for 1 or 2 layers of cardboard at the nut.

Sometimes I use thin rubber for thin strings that are too bright on the open string compared to the fingered notes on this string.

The main problem I had was that anything I put in the slot goes slowly out of it when I tune up the string. So I either used something I can hold with my other hand during tuning up or something I can block with my fingernail to avoid moving towards the pegs.

On my bass I found that the fingerboard rises the last few centimeters towards the nut. I think this might be because planning the fingerboard with a glued on nut usually stops a few centimeters before the nut. If this is the case on your bass too, a luthier might lower the fingerboard a bit there and you will have some more room to avoid string buzz.

Under my G which buzzes with some strings but not all, I currently use a piece of bicyle tube rubber (1 by 1/2 inch) so that I can grab it left and right from the string on the nut and I pull it towards the bridge to avoid moving it with the string during tune up. I also used plastic from a yoghurt cup and other things before. The black rubber is nearly invisible from some distance, but you can use black cardboard too (or a brown choclate mousse cup). Probably not the best solution, but it should be temporary and anything works.
(Reaction to tuning is a bit slow with the rubber. The plastic was a bit better I think.)