True Temperament Fretboards

[St. Louis Scot]

What do y'all think about true temperament fretboards like the one Henrik Linder plays. Do you think nailing a third or a thirteen or whatever mathematically perfectly is a big deal? Personally I think Linder is such a badass that I don't really notice his intonation. Hahaha!

Googling "true temperament" returns a lot of information, if you want to read up on it. Here's a video of Linder playing his bass.

 

[almost human]

I think it's a great concept, and one of the biggest leaps forward in fretted instrument design. I'd really like to get one of those systems on one of my guitars/bass.

 

[20db pad]

C'mon TB - where's the remarks that say Henrik is a wanker, has no feel, has no soul, is a clone of (insert name) and plays too many notes?

 

[40Hz]

Cool concept. But with that much slapping and speed playing I don't think it really sounds that noticeably different from well-tempered intonation on a bass.

I think it's a great concept, and one of the biggest leaps forward in fretted instrument design. I'd really like to get one of those systems on one of my guitars/bass.

All you need is cash!
All you need is cash!
All you need is cash...cash!
Cash is all you need.

(With apologies to the Beatles.)

 

[esa372]

C'mon TB - where's the remarks that say Henrik is a wanker, has no feel, has no soul, is a clone of (insert name) and plays too many notes?

I dunno... he sounds pretty solid here:

 

[Fernando Costa]

Great concept, to play alone... And about the tune of the other instruments to play with?

 

[20db pad]

Great concept, to play alone... And about the tune of the other instruments to play with?

You watched the video where Henrik played the bass with tempered frets with his band, right? It works just fine.

Normal fretted instruments are a compromise as far as tuning goes - the bent frets make for less of a compromise, but do not go into just intonation territory. More info here:

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[Obese Chess]

what about... a fanned fretboard with true temperament frets!??!?!?!?!11?!?!?

 

[megafiddle]

What do y'all think about true temperament fretboards like the one Henrik Linder plays. Do you think nailing a third or a thirteen or whatever mathematically perfectly is a big deal?

With perfect equal temperament, the 3rds will still sound too sharp.

If you want perfect sounding 3rds, you need just intonation, but it comes at the expense of only being in tune in one key. Other keys will sound even worse than equal temperament.

One has to be careful when using the term "perfect".

An equally tempered 3rd is mathematically perfect in relation to a scale based on the 12th root of two. But it does not sound perfect.

A just intonated 3rd is also mathematically perfect, but in relation to a scale based on the ratio of small integer values. It does sound perfect.

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[Fernando Costa]

You watched the video where Henrik played the bass with tempered frets with his band, right? It works just fine.

Normal fretted instruments are a compromise as far as tuning goes - the bent frets make for less of a compromise, but do not go into just intonation territory. More info here:

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Yes, I watched, works fine, the tuning differences are negligible (but are there), as says in the very good FAQ you quoted.

"...What does "True Temperament" mean?...
...What we mean by TRUE TEMPERAMENT™ is that our fretting system will give you super-accurate intonation over the whole fingerboard in the temperament it is constructed for.

What happens when True Temperament guitars are used with other guitars, bass, piano etc?
Our THIDELL FORMULA 1™ temperament works just fine together with “ordinary” instruments. The offsets from Equal Temper are not so severe that they normally create dissonance..."


In bold, that's what I meant. Solves the tuning only of the instrument that has this kind of frets/intonations. But as I said (and heard), is negligible.

 

[SteveCS]

True tempered frets will improve intonation in some keys but will further compromise it in others. In my book that counts as making for a less versatile instrument.

 

[Leo was right]

An

You watched the video where Henrik played the bass with tempered frets with his band, right? It works just fine.

Normal fretted instruments are a compromise as far as tuning goes - the bent frets make for less of a compromise, but do not go into just intonation territory. More info here:

Invalid Link Removed

Anyone heard about fretless?

You know, J.S. Bach cannot be so wrong.

 

[SlimS]

This guy swears by the true temperament frets. I know nothing about these things on any instrument, bass included. It is interesting though.

 

[Shabz]

Seems to be some confusion here that this is about alternate tuning probably due to the stupid choice of name

Reading the linked FAQ its clear this is about tweaking the frets to try and make every note as close to ideal equal temperamant as possible. I can definitely believe that placing the fret wire mathematically perfectly would not necessarily give you perfect vibration lengths especially on bass where the strings are thick enough to stray from the ideal physics notion of a string

call it an advanced setup

 

[megafiddle]

Seems to be some confusion here that this is about alternate tuning probably due to the stupid choice of name

Reading the linked FAQ its clear this is about tweaking the frets to try and make every note as close to ideal equal temperamant as possible. I can definitely believe that placing the fret wire mathematically perfectly would not necessarily give you perfect vibration lengths especially on bass where the strings are thick enough to stray from the ideal physics notion of a string

call it an advanced setup

That's true, but perfect equal temperament still has errors as large as +17.5 cents from perfect sounding (17.5 cent sharper than just intonation). How good can you possibly make that sound? (+17.5 cents is better than +19 cents, certainly, but not by much). For brass in fact, perfect equal temperament sounds pretty bad.

And who's to say the errors (from true equal temperament) that you now have on your bass are not working in your favor? For the songs (and keys) that you normally play, the errors could be closer to just intonation and sound better. Other keys might sound worse, but if you never play them...

If you have a decent bass, ie, free of any problems, and tune carefully to the instruments you are playing with, I believe you will sound just fine. I tune both open strings and 12th fret (for intonation purposes) to chords on a keyboard. My open string and octave note both sound perfect under the chord. Don't care what the tuner says.

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[St. Louis Scot]

what about... a fanned fretboard with true temperament frets!??!?!?!?!11?!?!?

Oh dear God now my brain hurts!

 

[St. Louis Scot]

True tempered frets will improve intonation in some keys but will further compromise it in others. In my book that counts as making for a less versatile instrument.

I've been wondering about that. I don't know enough about this yet, but that's a question I have.

 

[St. Louis Scot]

My understanding is that true temperament (or well-temperament) was sought by Bach, and discussed as early as a century before him.

The Well-Tempered Clavier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Handyman]

True tempered frets will improve intonation in some keys but will further compromise it in others. In my book that counts as making for a less versatile instrument.

I think you're misunderstanding what the True Temperament fretboards do. They're not trying to create some sort of new temperament system - they're just trying to get a guitar to actually be IN TUNE with the equal temperament system they're already trying to achieve, albeit not very well, with straight frets.

This results in something that should sound equally good (or bad) in all keys - exactly what equal temperament was meant to accomplish.

Or to view it from another angle, traditional fretboards are trying to be equal tempered, but the placement of frets was determined by equations that assume more or less ideal strings. They're also obviously limited by the fact that squiggly frets are hard to make and install.

FWIW I think the True Temperament six string guitars sound more noticeably improved than the squiggly frett-ed basses, probably due to the fact that an instrument being slightly out of tune with itself is much more apparent when playing many notes simultaneously.

 

[SteveCS]

I think you're misunderstanding what the True Temperament fretboards do. They're not trying to create some sort of new temperament system - they're just trying to get a guitar to actually be IN TUNE with the equal temperament system they're already trying to achieve, albeit not very well, with straight frets.

This results in something that should sound equally good (or bad) in all keys - exactly what equal temperament was meant to accomplish.

Or to view it from another angle, traditional fretboards are trying to be equal tempered, but the placement of frets was determined by equations that assume more or less ideal strings. They're also obviously limited by the fact that squiggly frets are hard to make and install.

FWIW I think the True Temperament six string guitars sound more noticeably improved than the squiggly frett-ed basses, probably due to the fact that an instrument being slightly out of tune with itself is much more apparent when playing many notes simultaneously.

I do understand, and even the information on the true-temperament builders sites agrees that some keys will improve and others will get worse compared to a standard fret-board. I know it is not looking for just temperament - that would be impractical as you would need multiple positions for each note to be used or not in line with the chosen key - a bit daft to say the least. One of the videos I watched even had the guy playing with a ton of distortion and bending all over the place - almost sounded like he was trying to cover something up...