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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 18:18:44 GMT
I'm intrigued, as I have a friend I am communicating with on another forum whose brand new fan fret guitar has had a few issues with deadnotes. By this I mean, notes that very quickly die away than others. He also has intonation issues.
Firstly the dead notes- I've never quite known what causes this, so could luthiers enlighten me? Is there a way to stop them. Could the fact it's a fan fret be the issue?
On the subject of intonation, if a luthier sets up a guitar so that it is perfectly intonated in standard tuning for a given string gauge, can we expect that guitar to then have perfect intonation when tuned to something like CGCGCD?
Also, does one intonate a guitar for a given strung gauge or a given tuning? A guess this question is negated according to the answer to the question above.
Looking forward to hearing different views on this,
Cheers,
Robbie
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Post by earthbalm on Mar 24, 2017 18:43:16 GMT
Something I'd like to learn about too.
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davewhite
Luthier / Guitar Maker
Luthier
Aemulor et ambitiosior
Posts: 3,544
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Post by davewhite on Mar 24, 2017 19:01:45 GMT
Robbie,
I'm afraid the answer is "many things" and "it depends" - without seeing. hearing and playing "the patient" it's impossible to start a diagnosis.
A few comments and then questions for you. First of all guitars using the equal tempered system are never "perfectly intonated" - it's always a workable compromise. As for "dead notes" there are a number of common causes. Firstly it could be "wolf notes" where different resonances in the guitar's components are perfectly matched on a particular note and re-enforce each other. On a plucked instrument this results in a very short loud note (that sounds dead) and on a bowed instrument the constant supply of energy from the bow keeps the loud note going an "howling". With fretted notes if the note fretted matches the neck resonance then you can get a "dead note" that may not be dead when played on an open string. You can also get a fretted "dead note" when a fret is not properly seated.
So the first question - are the dead notes all the same note - open and fretted played in different positions on the fretboard or are there a number of them?
As for intonation issues that's a whole can of worms - can you describe what intonation issues your friend is having?
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Post by nkforster on Mar 24, 2017 19:10:13 GMT
Big topic this Robbie. A short answer is most guitars have an uneven frequency response. But according to boffins like Trevor Gore, if one of the three main soundboard modes the placed inadvertently, directly on a note from the equal tempered scale, that note will react quickly, then die. A dead spot or "wolf note." I might be wrong about that as I'm no scientist, but that's my recollection. Good news is, it is possible to shift a naughty mode.
As for something being "perfectly intonated", it isn't, never was and never will be. It's not possible on a guitar. The best you can hope for is to get close to equal temperament, which means you're perfectly out of tune in every key. And to achieve even this compromise you MUST intonate but saddle AND nut. If you don't, you can't. The easy way around this is to make a warm, woolly quiet sounding instrument where the errors are masked. But the louder you get, the more these things can stand out. And yes, you can intonate for a specific tuning - a saddle/nut for DADGAD looks different to a standard one. I used to set Ian Stephensons B string so it was flat - he bends it into tune and how much he bends it depends on the key he is playing in. Not everone has this skill, but Ian really likes it like this.
If a guitar has a strong wolf note this can actually "pull" the intonation out further. Sometimes you can hear the guitar fight with itself as the note wavers. Fascinating.
So, you might think the answer is to make a guitar with a perfectly even response, where no modes or frequencies dominate? This is possible. And some folk are striving towards this. But I've played guitars made with this in mind and they are about as exciting as a trip to the post office. Imagine playing a recording of a guitar through your hifi. It's the 80s. You've got a graphic equaliser in your hifi. Do they still? Anyway, I seem to remember they did then. Now push all the sliders to the top. Nice sound? No, not really. That's what it will sound like.
I remember a conversation with Stefan years ago and we were talking about dead spots. He quoted Julian Bream who (I think) was comparing very "even" German guitars to very "uneven" Spanish guitar which he much preferred. The quote was along the lines of "You can have "even" without magic, or magic with "uneven" but you can't have both, and I prefer magic."
Me too.
I don't know if this guitar you've been playing has any of this magic, as some guitars have neither. But hopefully, I've helped you understand what might be going on.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2017 22:01:37 GMT
Thanks guys.
Dave- this guy has made a recording of a number of notes, all over the finger board where the notes audibly did away very quickly. It's a bit weird. It doesn't seem to be a particular pitch, and not even at one particular fret. I must admit, I played the guitar some time before he got it, and I didn't notice these issues.
Nigel- so if you intonate a guitar for dadgad, does this bugger up the intonation for standard? And is intonation effected by using different timings?
Robbie
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 24, 2017 22:55:45 GMT
Sounds like a crap guitar to me!
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Post by dreadnought28 on Mar 25, 2017 3:28:05 GMT
Interesting topic and answers.. I've been blessed/lumbered/stuck with a very good ear for pitch and I can often tell when a guitar is tuned as best it can be but not quite right. I've never liked electronic tuners because of this. The lights all show the guitar in tune but my ear says it isn't. I've been very impressed by the T C Helicon Polytune Clip-on tuner lately. The best thus far. Isn't the most common wolf tone in standard tuning F played at the 8th fret on the 5th string, 13th fret on the 6th string, and, to a lesser extent, the 10th fret on the 3rd string? I've had some really bad wolf tones on some highly revered guitars in the past Is this the perfectly intonated fingerboard? www.truetemperament.com
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Post by nkforster on Mar 25, 2017 6:10:41 GMT
Intonation is influeced by tension, so yes. Most of us don’t notice. If we did, we would avoid the guitar altogether. For dadgad, the main culprit is the B string tuned to A. The amount we intonate that string should be different. So yes, if we intonate specifically for dadgad, we can achieve near perfect equal temperament for those strings, with that set up on that guitar. Everything we play will be equally out of tune in every key. If we then tune up to standard, we will no longer be able to achieve the same compromise. We will be unequally out of tune in every key. But we usually ignore these compromises, and it’s a good idea to. If we don’t, we get obsessed and stop thinking about music, blaming the guitar when the issue is our obsession over intonation. We have to be practical. Look at how many tunings Martin Simpson goes through. Every one is a compromise, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is the music. If it’s a great guitar, good chance is it might have a strong wolf tone. Remember me quoting Stefan, quoting Bream “Equal guitars = no magic, unequal = magic.” So we’re not talking about the maker messing up, we’re talking about players expecting luthiers to go beyond the laws of physics. But the common place to find it on a guitar is around G. The trick is to shift it between scale notes. No. Read their stuff and they will tell you themselves. It’s another compromise. They are trying to achieve “meantone” which differs from “equal.” It will mean some positions and keys will be closer to “Just” temperament (the holy grail) at the expense of others. I got obsessed with this topic around 2009, and realised after a lot of research that there is no solution other than trying to achieve "equal" temperament. The luthiers to Google on the subject are Greg Byers and Mike Doolin. Both wrote long papers/articles on the topic. I published a more “lightweight” version HERE. Nigel www.nkforsterguitars.com
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 25, 2017 10:10:03 GMT
DADGAD. B string. Yep. A bit of a swine that one.
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 25, 2017 11:15:27 GMT
A couple of more serious contributions to an interesting debate.
I play almost exclusively in open tunings now and I play live a lot. A typical 30 minute spot will see me use three or four tunings, moving from C tunings to G tunings to DADGAD. While I would agree that it is possible to intonate for different tunings I am not sure this provides anything but a marginal difference. The second string issue with DADGAD is always an issue but not that serious. When tuning into DADGAD I always tune the 2nd string first, then the others and finally come back to the second again. It will have gone flat. Very occasionally I will adjust it during a song but it is always just a touch to get it right.
In practical terms,I will chose my set list with partial view to tuning. For example, starting in CGCFCD, CGCGCD, DGDGCD, DADGAD. This avoid putting too much pressure on the 3rd string (which is the one that breaks) and minimises tuning time. I tune while introducing a song _ something that becomes pretty effortless with practice. OK, sometimes I hit problems with temperature or humidity in a room but again with experience you can make a joke out of it. Simpson (I suspect) does this as well, although nunlike me he doesn't have to pay for his strings so he can probably a bit more cavalier with the 3rd string.
Intonation doing this has not been a problem with my guitars. OK, I only have three but they are all decently intonate, a jumbo Martin, a Santa Cruz OM and my Adrian Lucas Pavillion. The Lucas was custom designed and built for C tunings and is fine. But then the other two are fine enough as well. What sets them apart for me — with these tunings — are other features of the guitar. The fingerboard on the Santa Cruz is a bit too thin line and while the string spacing is OK I would like a little more wood on either side of the two extreme strings — only a couple of millimetres but that makes a big difference. The jumbo dealt with these tunings for years but these days I feel the depth of the body is just a bit too uncomfortable. These are far bigger issues than intonation, but then intonation on each of them is good.
The problems Robbie talks about seem more basic to me. We don't know the make of the guitar or the price range. But I wouldn't expect these kinds problems from either my Martin or SC, given the cost of them. This sounds like a poor guitar to me, I just hope it didn't cost too much!
Finally, I agree with Chris about tuners. All they do is put you in the right general area. They lie. This also seems to depend on the room you are playing in as well as temperature. But expertience will (9 times out of 10) put you in the right place. Trusting (and training) your ears again comes with practice and experience, especially is using open tunings.
I agree the Polytune is the most effective but the on/off switch on mine broke after about a year. These are not cheap tuners and I've just gone back to the much cheaper Snark which, in all honesty, is no more inconvenient to use when playing live. By far the bets tuner I have is my BOSS tuner pedal which I bought for outside gigs — it has a very bright screen option.
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Post by andyhowell on Mar 25, 2017 11:26:59 GMT
A second set of thoughts on fan frets, as the guitar in question is a fan fret.
Fan frets tend to be an option on bespoke guitars for a real reason. I learnt a lot about them after commissioning mine from Adrian. I knew what I wanted from the guitar and ended up with a modest angle of the fan. As this guitar was for open tunings I knew the 1st string would never be higher than D and so on the top end I stuck with the standard OM length that I was used to. I wanted to avoid that slightly lose Martin Carthy plonking sound (if you know what I mean). The bass strings are stretched a little but to give that extra definition on the bass. If you look at the Dream guitar video of Paul Heumiller describing his own custom guitar he uses more or less the same scale length as me for the same reasons. I often play this guitar in C tunings without a capo which is possible but nowhere near as successful on the two guitars above. I have accompanied singers in Bb tunings which is taking me into the baritone area. I'd rather not go down there but the guitar copes with it.
I am convinced that there is no point in commissioning or buying a fan fret guitar unless you know what you want and what you want it for!
So, I am a bit suspicious of standard fan fret designs. Often the angle of the fan seems to be extreme for effect. I have played several Lowden fan frets which left me cold. I don't know what they are for. They were damn expensive as well. I see some higher end mass production makers are experimenting with them and I guess if you pick up a good on e in a store that is fine. But don't ever buy one of these blind!
A luthier will spent a lot of time on fret spacing as well as intonation with a fan fret. This strikes me as being very important. I now Adrian fretted over mine as it was the first that he had built. But he was up for the challenge and he has produced a fine guitar with no intonation problems. I am a convert to the principle for the music that my guitar was designed to play!
If this guitar was a mass produced model the fret design may not help with these wolf notes. But basically, this just seems like a poorly built or purely executed idea.
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Post by nkforster on Mar 25, 2017 15:06:49 GMT
It's not clear to me that a fan fretted guitar will have better intonation than a regular guitar that is intonated properly. It is already possible to get within a cent or two of equal temperament on a regular guitar with a regular scale. And you can't get any closer than that. Wolf notes are related to how the body moves or reacts, and not clearly related to scale, fanned or otherwise. These are two separate issues Andy on a low Wolf notes are related to how the body moves or reacts, it's "modal" behaviour, and not clearly related to scale, fanned or otherwise. These are two separate issues Andy on a regular run of the mill low output guitar. Whether it be handmade or factory-made. Intonation and "modal behaviour" are only related with high output instruments, which rules out 99% of what's out there. It is possible to improve both on a guitar: the worlf note and the intonation. Both require totally different actions by the luthier. You should be able to find someone to sort out the intonation. Very few folk will know how to find or shift a naughty mode. n www.nkforsterguitars.com
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