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compensated nuts

#2
IMO, a compensated nut is a concept that works in principle far better than it does in practice. The most meaningful advantage it has is to the bass builder who claims superiority of his instrument over others that don't have it. It's a sales advantage. In practical players' terms, very little if any advantage.
But if you really must have one, any competent luthier can make you one.
 
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#4
Assuming you mean each slot being individually positioned ...
(I expect most normal nuts are already placed slightly away from their mathematically perfect position to 'compensate').

An open string is sometimes slightly out of tune with the fret 1, by a degree affected by: nut height, the string used and how well the 'witness point' has been formed.
This can be experienced by setting intonation by only checking the fretted notes, such that the frets are perfectly intonated, sometimes the open note will then be slightly out of tune.

A compensated nut aims to 'fix' this mistuning by shifting the nut for each string. It certainly *could* help but seems an impractical solution because nut compensation adjustment is a tedious process of reshaping or replacing the nut. Once it is done for a set of strings, it is highly likely further adjustment would be needed in the near future due to various reasons.
A more practical solution is a mechanical intonation-adjustable nut like the one for headless guitar by Toone & Townsend.
So i agree that a compensated nut is mostly marketing and will only occasionally be beneficial.
 
#6
cnltb said:
What do you all think of compensated nuts and do you happen to know someone who can make such a nut for a slightly wider than standard neck?
I'd be interested in a bone one, potentially.:)
Click to expand...
My former SR4H had one. Can't say it made any real world difference in intonation compared to the (whole lot of) other basses I have owned over the past 50 years.
 
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#7
cnltb said:
What do you all think of compensated nuts and do you happen to know someone who can make such a nut for a slightly wider than standard neck?
I'd be interested in a bone one, potentially.:)
Click to expand...

You are limited to the strings it was cut for (e.g. light TI flats.) If you use anything else there's no advantage and quite possibly disadvantages.
 
#8
I get the strings as low as I can when I file the slots, but beyond that...
It just gets to the point of splitting hairs within a range of cents that your average player will likely never hear IMO. Even if they haven't been blowing out their eardrums since the age of thirteen...
 
#9
Just for kicks I just put one of my basses to the test with a Peterson Autostrobe 490. Yes, I have nothing better to do...
This is a bass that was beat up on the road for 3 solid months in 2019. And the strings are probably several gigs old. So using a light touch close to the first fret, in order to not muscle it sharp...
E string - F is 2 cents flat
A string - A# is 1 cent flat
D-string - D# is 1 cent sharp
G strings - G# is 2 cents sharp
And the results were pretty much identical at the 3rd fret.
I intonate my basses as close to perfect as possible, but it all depends on how the player plays! If you mash the strings hard, it will go about 6 cents sharp. At that point you may hear the difference. But that takes some effort. You almost have to have something to compare it to.
 
#11
They work much better on maple fretboards, unless your neck is made of mahogany.

but if you have a 2+2 or a reverse headstock the opposite is true.
 
#16
i suspect they can have some potential advantage on guitars when using open tuning where 1st position chords are pretty common or you have 'drone' notes going on. can't say i've experimented with it nor had the urge to do so.

imo, having the intonation compensated at both the bridge and the nut seems to ignore the fact that instruments are always moving around, players are changing string gage, playing differently, setting action differently, etc... perhaps this is a case where technical minutiae gets in the way?
 
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#17
Arie X said:
i suspect they can have some potential advantage on guitars when using open tuning where 1st position chords are pretty common or you have 'drone' notes going on. can't say i've experimented with it nor had the urge to do so.

imo, having the intonation compensated at both the bridge and the nut seems to ignore the fact that instruments are always moving around, players are changing string gage, playing differently, setting action differently, etc... perhaps this is a case where technical minutiae gets in the way?
Click to expand...
In a word, yes. I have found that for my custom fan fret P-style bass, the nut compensation really helped the first few frets, as well as the bridge intonation to help out everything else. Then again, I play that bass with both string bands (guitars, pianos, etc.) that like to be in either sharps or middle of the road keys, and horn bands, playing mostly in flats keys. It helps all round.
 
#18
iiipopes said:
In a word, yes. I have found that for my custom fan fret P-style bass, the nut compensation really helped the first few frets, as well as the bridge intonation to help out everything else. Then again, I play that bass with both string bands (guitars, pianos, etc.) that like to be in either sharps or middle of the road keys, and horn bands, playing mostly in flats keys. It helps all round.
Click to expand...
Just so you know, the compensated nut does not affect intonation on any fret. It only affects the intonation of the open string. All other intonation is a function of the distance between the fretted position and the bridge. Look at it this way - if you tune your bass by bringing the note at the first fret to tune rather than the open string, you would find the open string to be flat. The compensated nut moves the break point (witness point) closer to the bridge to compensate, making the open string play in tune.

However, the difference is really small and if your non-compensated nut is set up properly (most are not), the difference is more theoretical that real-world.

Here's the real world...

I ran a test using a high-end bass from a highly recognized maker. It has a conventional (non-compensated) nut that I have set up properly (most are not). I used a strobe tuner for super accuracy and took multiple measurements. With the open strings (EADG) tuned as accurately as possible and measuring in tenths of a cent I found notes fretted at at the first fret to be sharps as follows:
G - 0.5 cent
D - 0.2 cent
A - 0.4 cent
E - 0.5 cent

If this seems significant, consider that if I moved at all during the test the measurements were far different. And if I got the bass in tune on open strings in playing position, then laid the bass on my lap all strings were sharp:
G - 7.2 cents
D - 7.9 cents
A - 6.1 cents
E - 7.0 cents

The difference is simply the effect of gravity on the neck.
So how effective will a compensated nut be over a properly adjusted conventional nut? Maybe a correction of half a cent on a high quality bass if you hold your breath and don't move.
 
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#19
Turnaround said:
Just so you know, the compensated nut does not affect intonation on any fret. It only affects the intonation of the open string. All other intonation is a function of the distance between the fretted position and the bridge. Look at it this way - if you tune your bass by bringing the note at the first fret to tune rather than the open string, you would find the open string to be flat. The compensated nut moves the break point (witness point) closer to the bridge to compensate, making the open string play in tune.

However, the difference is really small and if your non-compensated nut is set up properly (most are not), the difference is more theoretical that real-world.

If you are experiencing an "improvement" past the first fret, it is an indicator that there is a different problem.
Click to expand...
I respectfully and completely disagree with you. Before I compensated my nut, the first three frets tended to pull sharp, no matter how I cut the nut slots or had my luthier help me cut the nut slots. After I compensated the nut, the notes on the first three frets, especially the E string, were in tune with a digital tuner. I know all of the theory. I can quote the decimal conversion of 2^12 power, the theoretical spacing of frets on an equally tempered fret board. I have played basses with all sorts of compensation, from none, to Feiten, to the EBBM nut, to all the others. I have been doing this for over forty years. On this particular bass it makes significant difference, and there are no other problems with the fingerboard. I have recorded on national TV with this bass and the sound engineer complimented me on how little he had to do, whether level, eq, or anything else, to slot the DI into the broadcast mix.

I do agree that I have another couple of basses where the nut does not need to be compensated.
 
#20
iiipopes said:
I respectfully and completely disagree with you. Before I compensated my nut, the first three frets tended to pull sharp, no matter how I cut the nut slots or had my luthier help me cut the nut slots. After I compensated the nut, the notes on the first three frets, especially the E string, were in tune with a digital tuner. I know all of the theory. I can quote the decimal conversion of 2^12 power, the theoretical spacing of frets on an equally tempered fret board. I have played basses with all sorts of compensation, from none, to Feiten, to the EBBM nut, to all the others. I have been doing this for over forty years. On this particular bass it makes significant difference, and there are no other problems with the fingerboard. I have recorded on national TV with this bass and the sound engineer complimented me on how little he had to do, whether level, eq, or anything else, to slot the DI into the broadcast mix.

I do agree that I have another couple of basses where the nut does not need to be compensated.
Click to expand...
Just explain to me how a compensated nut can change the distance between any fret and the saddle.
 

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