source file: mills2.txt Date: Mon, 3 Mar 1997 23:07:27 -0800 Subject: Fretting and non12 mentioning 12tET guitars ;-) From: clucy@cix.compulink.co.uk (Charles Lucy) Apologies for earlier part-message. I was having telnet delays between Hawaii and London, and answering on-line live. This first fret change seems to me to be a desperate attempt to compensate for the most obvious error on conventional guitar fretting. It seems as though even the LA music retaillers are beginning to get the point about 12et problems. Does this mean that the whole planet is about to accept, that 12et will soon be moribund? It was this error, (which is particularly noticeable, on the third string, when playing E Major as an "open" chord,) which was one of the earliest things that I noticed causing problems with 12ET guitars. I used to retune my 12ET guitars dependent upon what key I was playing in. I have dozens of different programs and spreadsheets to calculate the frettings for various different tunings mostly done on Amiga. So let me know whatever anyone may need. Mark Rankin's system is quite clever, as it prints a paper template, which can be used to mark out the fret positions. There is a guitar workshop on Sunset in Venice CA, about five blocks from the ocean, which had set up a milling machine to cut a variety of necks, heads, and fretting some seven years ago. John Carruthers 346 Sunset Ave. Venice CA 90291 (213) 392-3910 The deflection of the string, from my experience, is a "red-herring". This first fret, because of its large distance to the nut is larger in millimeters than any of the other errors despite the integer ratio method of calculating fret positions. When adjusting the bridge position on guitars, it is usual to fret at the octave, and compare to the "ghostone" above the same fret. The bridge is then moved nearer or further from the nut until the pitches co-incide. So if JC is right about the fractional fretting arithmetic, the octaves will be correct and everything else will be out of 12tet. For more info. on microtonal guitars, fretting, and retuning see our website at: http://www.wonderlandinorbit.com/projects/lullaby lucy@hour.com Received: from ns.ezh.nl [137.174.112.59] by vbv40.ezh.nl with SMTP-OpenVMS via TCP/IP; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 14:56 +0100 Received: by ns.ezh.nl; (5.65v3.2/1.3/10May95) id AA04022; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 14:56:26 +0100 Received: from ella.mills.edu by ns (smtpxd); id XA04074 Received: from by ella.mills.edu via SMTP (940816.SGI.8.6.9/930416.SGI) id FAA18778; Tue, 4 Mar 1997 05:53:59 -0800 Date: Tue, 4 Mar 1997 05:53:59 -0800 Message-Id: <331C28A1.6D2B@top.monad.net> Errors-To: madole@mills.edu Reply-To: tuning@ella.mills.edu Originator: tuning@eartha.mills.edu Sender: tuning@ella.mills.edu