I'm not debating the validity of the BFTS, just saying the nut is not just a regular nut with a silly logo on it. That's all.
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The Official MTD USA Thread
- Thread starter johnpaulbass
- Start date
I guess if anyone is interested in my opinion of the validity of the BFTS, I'd simply say I've played a helluva lotta gigs with all kinds of horns and pianos and straight up stringed instruments without any kind of TTETS compensating features, and not had a problem. Note that the BFTS is just one of multiple attempts at this kinda' thing. Some get downright crazy with oddly shaped frets and such.
Aye, it works no doubt... you can't argue with the math either... I think my only point is this isn't a "product" inasmuch as it is a method you could simply just use to intonate any bass, with or without a cutetastic nut. If you visit uspto.gov you can see the actual patent for it and the method (or just follow Mike's instructions in his newer paperwork).
Admittedly, it's only relevant to open strings, but for however significant the benefit is for someone, I would think that the breakpoint forward movement would be just as important as the alternate tunings, otherwise the open strings would be "out" as a result of the technique's alterations. So I guess if the BFTS is important or beneficial enough to use, it's also important or beneficial enough to have the compensated break point location as well.
- Jun 5, 2008
- 541
- 104
- 44
- Disclosures
- MTD Bass (USA & Kingston) & Strings, R.Cocco Strings, Gruvgear, Noll Preamp, Nordstrands
The guys at DanaB have been great any time I've dealt with them. I haven't dealt with Bass Central, but I've had good luck in the MTD string department with the folks at BassXchange.
I gotta say, I can't stand wood pickup covers. I know some people love them but I just find them tacky. I like the plain old look of the Barts as they are (just in case Mike is reading this)
I know Vic has already posted a link, so I'll just add this: you really don't need to worry about the BFTS unless you are setting your intonation. Once the intonation is set on your bass, you tune it just as you would tune a regular bass. If you'd like Mike's instructions on setting intonation on a BFTS-equipped bass, I can send them to you.
Thanks for the offer, but for now I'm good, it seems that the guy I bought it from still hasn't change any setup regarding the intonation. And that's why I bought the MTD single B-Strings of the same gauge, so I don't have to re-intonate, when I change my strings. Not because of the BFTS thing, just because it currently has a 130 gauge exposed core.
The guys at bassexchange are great... And I didn't realize that they have the single strings until I ordered from basscentral.
As for the wood covers, I'm one of those guys that likes them, just for the looks. I guess Mike doesn't made the covers from wood to save time, coz the MTD 535 is all different. I never saw two basses alike. I guess it'll be kinda an unnecesarry waste of time finding and making matching covers, OR this is something that has to do with functional issues... I know that the barts Epoxy cover are feedback, noise proof from outside interferance, such as amps, etc, and Mike doesn't want to sacrifice this just for the looks. I'll ask him about this for sure.
Lemon oils are my fave too... They're cheap and work well. I use it on every of my oil finish basses, though if overused it can somewhat damage the finish too. Thanks for the suggestion... For now, as Chris Stambaugh suggest me how to treat oil/satin finish instruments, I use Fingerboard conditioner (any brand) to clean and prevent the woods from drying. It works very very well. You guys should give it a try. I use the Planet Waves 'Hydrate'. Again, this is just to clean and maintain the finish, not to make it shiny or stuff like that.
I've been tuning by ear for the last 2 years or so. There's no tuner allowed in my previous school. And sorry to say this, I found no difference whatsoever between a properly intonated good bass, with a properly intonated good bass with BFTS, at least by ear. IMHO, a Bass such as MTD USA will be as perfect as it gets in terms of anything, including intonation, with or without the BFTS.
I guess that's why I asked the question at first, coz I just don't seem to see the neccissity... I'm glad I'm not the only one
- Jun 24, 2006
- 2,560
- 90
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: MTD basses and strings; Bergantino Amps & Cabs
Actually, it's a hindrance.
Moving the nut up is a BFTS thing; Mike does this with the zero-fret, but others use the lame BFTS nut with the lightning bolt on it
:scowl:
Get a grip, you guys. Buzz Feiten is an EXTREMELY experienced studio musician, not some fly by night hack, and Michael Tobias is arguably the greatest bass luthier ever on planet earth; do you really think he would fall for a sham tuning system, pay for the licensing of it, and go to all the technical trouble of installing it on his basses if it was useless?
With horns, you'll be buried in bad intonation and it won't matter, even with the finest players on earth. Try doing some playing with JUST a digital piano, the hardest thing in the world to tune to because they are so damn PERFECT, and almost pure sine wave tone wise. THEN you'l see the advantage of the BFTS. Or a freshly tuned grand...the intonation in the lower registers is perfect.
Just because you can't hear it doesn't make it useless...put a tuner on the piano and your bass, and then a bass without the BFTS, and you'll see what it does. Our instrument is NOT properly calibrated to a tempered tuning system, and especially if you tune with harmonics, you'll be out quite a bit, particularly in the lower octave, where we do MOST of our playing; the BFTS corrects this, and compensates for a lot of inadequecies in our instrument. Whether you can hear it or not, well, that depends on experience, expertise, and judgement, or lack thereof.
Michael Tobias puts NOTHING that is useless on his instruments, IMHO. If it was any good, he'd use it; if it was no good, he'd leave it off. And that includes the BFTS.
Period.
Yup...lots of benefits, including making the open string sound like a closed one.
It's official...I HATE THIS THREAD!
That is so ******* gorgeous I can't stand it.
And BTW, I've sold my Bongo 6, and I'm about to sell my Taylor AB1 (possibly serial no. 1 - Taylor's checking into it) to get an ash/ash/BEM/Walnut 635-24....now I'm thinking COLOUR>>>!!!
Personally, I'd lose the knobs...need some black to match the pickups...
Cheers,
Cameron
Yeah, the theory is that an open note should sound identical to a fretted note, so just essentially make it a fretted note, and as you probably know, Mike isn't the only one that's used zero frets either.
Cameron, if you're going to soapbox to this level, don't lump us all together, because most of your rebuttal does not at all apply to me, yet you inlcude my comments in it.:scowl:
Get a grip, you guys.
...
Buzz Feiten is an EXTREMELY experienced studio musician, not some fly by night hack, and Michael Tobias is arguably the greatest bass luthier ever on planet earth; do you really think he would fall for a sham tuning system, pay for the licensing of it, and go to all the technical trouble of installing it on his basses if it was useless?
I never ever said (or even indicated) that Buzz was a fly by night hack, and I never even came close to saying Mike's done something not worth doing or foolishly fall victim to a sham. Nobody is a bigger or more respectful fan of Mike than myself.
The only thing I ever said was, I've done a lot of playing with pianos on instruments that don't have any TTETS compensating features, and not had a problem... and that's the absolute truth... and so have countless other bassists, many of whom are truly fantastic recording artists, and I'm pretty sure nobody's complaining about the fact they're not using the BFTS on their basses in their recordings.
That said, I also never said the BFTS had no merit. I understand what it does, and how it works. I know it has value. However, the significance of that value will be player dependent, because the BFTS is only an improvement... it's not total correction. Total correction would be far too complicated to implement and support, at least on a traditionally built fretted instrument.
You wanna' REALLY get around TTETS issues? Get a fretless.
Cameron, if you're going to soapbox to this level, don't lump us all together, because most of your rebuttal does not at all apply to me, yet you inlcude my comments in it.
I never ever said (or even indicated) that Buzz was a fly by night hack, and I never even came close to saying Mike's done something not worth doing or foolishly fall victim to a sham. Nobody is a bigger or more respectful fan of Mike than myself.
The only thing I ever said was, I've done a lot of playing with pianos on instruments that don't have any TTETS compensating features, and not had a problem... and that's the absolute truth... and so have countless other bassists, many of whom are truly fantastic recording artists, and I'm pretty sure nobody's complaining about the fact they're not using the BFTS on their basses in their recordings.
That said, I also never said the BFTS had no merit. I understand what it does, and how it works. I know it has value. However, the significance of that value will be player dependent, because the BFTS is only an improvement... it's not total correction. Total correction would be far too complicated to implement and support, at least on a traditionally built fretted instrument.
You wanna' REALLY get around TTETS issues? Get a fretless.
I'm going to +1 this. I don't personally notice the difference between a BFTS-equipped and a non-BFTS-eqiuipped bass. Put that down to whatever you want. In the types of settings I play in, I can pretty much guarantee that no one is going to notice any of the benefits of Feiten's system. Having said that, I don't for a minute dispute the effectiveness of the system. I also don't doubt Mike's judgment on the issue of using the BFTS, I'm just saying that I can't hear the difference (being tone-deaf and all
)
Cameron, if you're going to soapbox to this level, don't lump us all together, because most of your rebuttal does not at all apply to me, yet you inlcude my comments in it.
I never ever said (or even indicated) that Buzz was a fly by night hack, and I never even came close to saying Mike's done something not worth doing or foolishly fall victim to a sham. Nobody is a bigger or more respectful fan of Mike than myself.
The only thing I ever said was, I've done a lot of playing with pianos on instruments that don't have any TTETS compensating features, and not had a problem... and that's the absolute truth... and so have countless other bassists, many of whom are truly fantastic recording artists, and I'm pretty sure nobody's complaining about the fact they're not using the BFTS on their basses in their recordings.
That said, I also never said the BFTS had no merit. I understand what it does, and how it works. I know it has value. However, the significance of that value will be player dependent, because the BFTS is only an improvement... it's not total correction. Total correction would be far too complicated to implement and support, at least on a traditionally built fretted instrument.
You wanna' REALLY get around TTETS issues? Get a fretless.
+1 all the way. The Feiten system is surely not a 'sham'. However, it surely is not necessary for intonating an instrument correctly. Many set-up guys have been using complex offsets for years, and the 'trick' of moving the nut up slightly to improve the first few fretted notes' intonation is as old as the hills (Paul Reed Smith has been doing it for years and years).
I personally don't find much use for it, since any bass can be tuned using more complex offset intonation targets than just the harmonic versus the 12 fret note... that's really all the Feiten system is.
My guess is, Mike thought it would give him a point of marketing difference, probably for very little cost. If I were him, I would have just used the nut compensation and called it a day!
But that is all he did! That truly is the only alteration on the instrument. The rest is, as you've said, just a tuning/intonation method that works on any bass.
- Jun 5, 2008
- 541
- 104
- 44
- Disclosures
- MTD Bass (USA & Kingston) & Strings, R.Cocco Strings, Gruvgear, Noll Preamp, Nordstrands
Agree... BFTS or any other things out there won't have any effect if there's no effort to set the instrument to a proper intonation point.
- Jun 24, 2006
- 2,560
- 90
- Disclosures
- Endorsing Artist: MTD basses and strings; Bergantino Amps & Cabs
My happiness can be equated to that of a runaway slave... I guess...
I love MTD's man. I have sold a couple on here and I miss them all. No biggie though... I'll just order more!!!
Almost. Lose the lines. They have the TTETS problem! HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING TODAY?????
As I like to play my basses, I like to take pics as well. I know sometimes, light enhances colors, or wood figuring.
This bass was already a real killer...
... but this pic really enhances wood figuring and colors in a really nice way:
Really really nice
This bass was already a real killer...
... but this pic really enhances wood figuring and colors in a really nice way:
Really really nice
As I like to play my basses, I like to take pics as well. I know sometimes, light enhances colors, or wood figuring.
This bass was already a real killer...
... but this pic really enhances wood figuring and colors in a really nice way:
Really really nice
Thanks man! Mike T. is the best luthier in the game. That first pic was taken with a cell phone upon delivery. The second pic was done right by my photographer, Inez Lewis @ ilcreative.com.
