source file: mills2.txt Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 08:47:51 -0800 Subject: Cheap Explorations -- the Temporary Guitar From: Gary Morrison <71670.2576@compuserve.com> Steven's temporary fretting scheme struck me as interesting. Moveable or removable frets can certainly be a benefit. But once you've found a tuning you want to explore for a while, a really good permanent refretting job, is also very gratifying. I recently had the pleasure of using the official luthiers' tools for the first time in a refretting job. I learned two lessons in the process: Refretting with the right equipment makes the process a lot easier, and the right tools don't really cost a whole lot. The proper tools are available from the Luthiers Merchatile (800) 477-4437. Another comment: It's easy to precisely calculate fret positions, especially for equal temperaments. We've been over this on the list before, but here's here it goes again: BASICALLY fret positions can be calculated best measure from the bridge. The first thing to do is measure the open string length. That varies from guitar to guitar, but it's typically about 65cm. Next calculate the frequency multiplier for adjacent steps in your tuning. That is given by the Nth root of 2, or the 22nd root of 2 for 22TET for example. (That is also the same as 2 raised to the 1/22 power, by the way, if your calculator doesn't have a root key.) The first fret position, again measured from the bridge, is the open string length divided by that frequency multiplier. The second fret position is the first fret position divided by that same number. The third fret is the second-fret position divided by that number, and so forth all the way up the neck. There is an important complicating factor though: When you press a string down to the fingerboard, you add tension to it, and that added tension is greater for higher fret positions, meaning that you get sharper as go up the neck. To compensate for this, the usual procedure is to adjust the bridge a little away from the nut. This ensures that higher frets endure a greater percentage lengthening, and thus flattening, than lower frets. This has two important ramifications: 1. You can't use the distance from nut to bridge for the open string length. You instead have to measure from nut to octave fret and double that to get the theoretical open-string length. 2. Although it's easiest to CALCULATE the fret positions from the bridge, you're better off MEASURING them from the nut, since the bridge position isn't trustable. To measure them from the nut instead of from the bridge, just subtract them from the open-string length. A footnote to #1 above: If you find that the octave fret mismatches the octave-fret harmonic by much, you may want to compensate for that so get a more ideal octave-fret position. If the octave fret plays a little sharp of the octave harmonic, you need to move the ideal octave-fret position toward the nut. But be VERY careful of moving it too much, you rarely need to move it more than a millimeter or two. Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 18:02 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA17678; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 18:02:36 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA17641 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) for id JAA01413; Tue, 28 Jan 1997 09:02:29 -0800 Date: Tue, 28 Jan 1997 09:02:29 -0800 Message-Id: <199701280908_MC2-104A-4D81@compuserve.com> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu