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New Musicman Nut Design

#81
bovinehost said:
So then Buzz ripped someone off? Cutting corners, is he? He wouldn't happen to have a team of corporate lawyers making him all big and brave, would he?
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-and-

bovinehost said:
My comment, "Are you SURE you're a bass player?" had nothing to do with your talent, degrees or whether or not you can actually play anything at all.

It was about attitude.
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I gotta say I agree with Bovinehost here. Everybody oughtta know I'm definitely not an EBMM fan, but I do respect the fact that they make instruments that a LOT of people really love- and that's worth something.

Now, when somebody starts talking about their degrees, and all their talent, as a means of establishing their expertise, or whatever, I kinda automatically shut down and go into 'bullsh**' mode. Like when I'm listening to the radio, and I hear somebody say 'liberal'. I know their fulla crap.
 
#85
Micro Frets guitars were doing the comp. nut in the '60's. In most every NAMM show I've been to since '84 someone has been selling their new patent pending invention of the compensated nut. I've always been of the school of thought that if your nut isn't too high or with too much break angle there is no problem to fix in the first place. IMHO.

The idea has been marketed for more than 40 years, I'd be interested in seeing what the patent is for.
 
#86
Last Saturday night, I'm playing in a noisy bar and on the break,after the second set, this seventeen year old girl comes up to me and says " You guys killed on "Smokin' The Water" but I noticed a little dissonance in the bass on the second note of the riff. Maybe you should tune your bass two cents sharp to compensate..... LOVE YOUR BAND!" And then she was gone....

(not a true story)

Seriously guys, A bass guitar is a piece of wood with four or more strings tied on it and it either plays good (or bad) and or sounds good (or bad). The same could be said for the player as well. Unless you're playing intricate chordal pieces for an unbelieveably discriminating audience, I doubt you or the listener will hear the subtle difference with one nut or the other.

That said, let me quote B.B King on the subject of intonation; " I just bend the notes where they're supposed to go."
 
#100
True story: My G string was so tight my nut broke. Ah... the old Fender Squier.

Anyway, interesting thread. The modern tuning system is a compromise. The 5th of G is not necessarily the major 3rd of A#, even though they're both D - one will be a little sharp of the other. If you made an instrument to be perfectly in tune in one key, it would be out of tune in all other keys.

Piano has an even tempered system, and can because each note is tuned individually. 5ths are slightly flat so that when they're thirds, they're slightly sharp, somewhere in between the two places where it would sound right. Guitars suffer from a slightly different (additional) problem where - and I'm a little fuzzy on this - the lower notes on the fretboard are somewhat flat relative to the higher notes. I think I used to understand this (probably from reading on Buzz Feiten's website) but I don't remember anymore.

Buzz Feiten & similar tuning systems are supposed to compensate a for this, at least a little, by sharping the lower notes on the fretboard just a bit. When you reach the higher notes, they'll be flat *relative* to the lower notes, and it'll all work itself out. It isn't a perfect solution - you can't have a perfect solution without having an instrument made for each key (or playing fretless), but it's a step up from what we had before.

At least, that's the theory how I understand it.

As for whether or not it's important for the bass to have this feature because it doesn't play chords... IDK, it is involved in making chords with the other instruments. Does it being a bass making it "2 cents sharp" make it more or less forgiving? I'd guess more forgiving - bass frequencies are giant waves, and I'd suspect the ear is more forgiving to subdivisions of a 14 foot wave being a bit off than subdivisions of a 1 foot wave.

Anyway... Ernie Ball Music Man basses rock. Of all the "$1000 mass manufactured" basses out there, they're the most consistent. I'd never buy a Fender sight-unseen because you never know what you're getting, even American made, but with an MM, as long as it's recent (not 80's) I know exactly what I'm getting. And Bravo to Ernie Ball for experimenting with & using somewhat more esoteric technologies on their instruments.
 

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