source file: m1414.txt Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 10:53:56 -0600 (MDT) Subject: Re: Buzz Feiten 2 From: John Starrett All- I just got off the phone with a luthier who learned the Buzz Feiten system from Buzz, and currently modifies guitars to aaccomodate the system. He tells me that Buzz figured out the system by ear and that the patent does not tell the whole story. Further, he states that the luthier who helped Buzz implement the physical modification of the fingerboard is responsible for some of the misinformation and misuse of the terms meantone and well temperament appearing in the ads and interviews. I am told that the nut is shifted and angled, the strings are tuned slightly differently from 12TET and the bridge compensation is tuned differently from standard practice. My luthier contact, who is familiar with the history of tuning and temperaments says that the method really does reduce out of tuneness, especially when a modified guitar plays with a piano. This seems to indicate that there is some stretching. I still don't know the lowdown skinny on what it does "really", but it would be interesting to find out in more detail and do an analysis. Was my previous post a little harsh on Buzz? Perhaps. I was incensed by the misinformation in the literature I had read, but apparently the patent does not tell the whole story, and the ads a distorted story. I am told that Buzz is innocent of the promulgation of buzzwords, and I aploogize for any blame I may have thrown his way. John Starrett http://www-math.cudenver.edu/~jstarret