Grateful Dead Music Forum

My guitar looked like this once when the band dosed before playing, but ...



http://www.truetemperament.com/site/ind ... go=0&sgo=0

Whoa...I don't think I could deal with that! That's crazy looking! lol

Rob

I'll never understand it. Most guitars even when using all the best of everything are slightly off 440 when using the most sensitive tuners. Nobody can tell me that after perfectly tuning up a guitar with new, but broken in strings, that their guitar is 100% perfectly in tune open after a song.

What people call perfectly "in tune" usually means perfectly in tune to the equal tempered scale that we use in the west. But that equal tempered scale is actually out of tune by nature. Very out of tune, but we're used to it. That guitar shown with the twisty frets could theoretically be truly in tune, but only for certain chords and keys. You couldn't play that guitar normally and go thru lots of various chords and also change keys and expect to be more in tune. That's why Bach helped give us our equal temperament that we see on fretted instruments and keyboards. For example, in nature, based on laws of physics and harmonic ratios, the major 3rd on a piano will always, always be truly out of tune. There is no naturally occurring major third there. The natural one we tend to gravitate to is about 14 cents flat of there. On guitar, you find a better sounding major third by hitting the minor third and slightly bending up about 85% of the way to the next fret. This is why a full chord with a major third in it will sound kind of dense or clashy on a guitar. You can notice Weir and many guitarists often avoids voicings with a strong major 3rd in the middle, or at least they won't let them ring too long and strong. The one note that IS nearly perfectly in tune is the 5th. This is why the power chord made up of a 1 - 5 - 1 sounds so strong, even with the harmonic complexity from added distortion. Van Halen knew about this and would intentionally tune his B string down a bit so that chords shaped like an open A would have an in-tune major 3rd. But then in other positions it's compromised.

We all compromise in the west with our tuning. The Indians have it down and do play worlds more in tune than us. But they can't modulate and play all the chords we can, and we can even do it in the same song without re-tuning.

One cool way to demonstrate truly in tune vs what our tuners tell us is to try this:

kick on some distortion and play your open G and B strings together. Tune the B string slightly up and down until you hear the prettiest and most stable sounding harmony that really comes into focus. This is the natural major 3rd about 14 cents flat of what the tuner will show you. Then check your tuner to see where you wound up. Then tune up so the tuner says you're there, and that harmony between the strings sounds far more messy and out of tune. But this is what we live with in western music.

Brad

It's interesting ... there are some artists endorsing it, Steve Vai, Henry Kaiser, Dweezil Zappa ...

Here's a Youtube video of Vai talking about his guitars, this neck among them.

Gary Brawer just told me he's installed these frets on a couple of necks for Henry Kaiser and a couple of other players ... he said it looks really weird but it works as advertised.

It's the old saying. You spend 1/2 your time tuning up and the other 1/2 playing out of tune.

Sooo Truuuue.
Sooooo Truuuuue!

...What Steve via said about A and D chords never being in tune (starting around 1min mark).

I want to try one of these guitars with either the wavy frets or the compensated bridge/nut.

The wavy frets are more interesting to me; my Suhr Strat has a Buzz Feitin nut on it, it makes it a PITA to tune and I don't hear a huge amount of difference.

Maybe I'll have Scott Walker put 'em on my next guitar.

Very interesting concept!

I could see a lot of variables in play, however... it seems they designed it for string sizes from .9s to .11s as long as you run an unwound G... which is nice. I'd be slightly concerned about how the high action of a Jerry-setup guitar would work with this system... I suppose it would still work better than straight frets but perhaps still not be quite ideal.

Also different types of strings might make a big difference in how the frets should be bent to compensate... I don't know if nickel vs. stainless steel is a big deal in the 6-string world but it's a pretty large distinction on basses, not to mention taper-wound strings and different core shapes.

Different bridges could also make a big difference... particularly floating vs. fixed. I would think the pressing down of a string would change drastically with the bridge floating - at least once you were into the kinds of minute adjustments that they're calculating.

Still, this looks like a potentially huge step forward. Exactly the kind of thing Owsley and the Dead might have come up with back in the day. Very cool!

SarnoMusicSolutions wrote:What people call perfectly "in tune" usually means perfectly in tune to the equal tempered scale that we use in the west. But that equal tempered scale is actually out of tune by nature. Very out of tune, but we're used to it. That guitar shown with the twisty frets could theoretically be truly in tune, but only for certain chords and keys. You couldn't play that guitar normally and go thru lots of various chords and also change keys and expect to be more in tune. That's why Bach helped give us our equal temperament that we see on fretted instruments and keyboards. For example, in nature, based on laws of physics and harmonic ratios, the major 3rd on a piano will always, always be truly out of tune. There is no naturally occurring major third there. The natural one we tend to gravitate to is about 14 cents flat of there. On guitar, you find a better sounding major third by hitting the minor third and slightly bending up about 85% of the way to the next fret. This is why a full chord with a major third in it will sound kind of dense or clashy on a guitar. You can notice Weir and many guitarists often avoids voicings with a strong major 3rd in the middle, or at least they won't let them ring too long and strong. The one note that IS nearly perfectly in tune is the 5th. This is why the power chord made up of a 1 - 5 - 1 sounds so strong, even with the harmonic complexity from added distortion. Van Halen knew about this and would intentionally tune his B string down a bit so that chords shaped like an open A would have an in-tune major 3rd. But then in other positions it's compromised.

We all compromise in the west with our tuning. The Indians have it down and do play worlds more in tune than us. But they can't modulate and play all the chords we can, and we can even do it in the same song without re-tuning.

One cool way to demonstrate truly in tune vs what our tuners tell us is to try this:

kick on some distortion and play your open G and B strings together. Tune the B string slightly up and down until you hear the prettiest and most stable sounding harmony that really comes into focus. This is the natural major 3rd about 14 cents flat of what the tuner will show you. Then check your tuner to see where you wound up. Then tune up so the tuner says you're there, and that harmony between the strings sounds far more messy and out of tune. But this is what we live with in western music.

Brad

Excellent post there Brad. I always wondered about this. Now I know in describing how far I bend the flat 3rd, just shy of the 3rd, why I do it that way - because it sounds/is right!