The Last Bass Outpost
Gear Discussion Forums => Bill's Shop: Projects, Mods & Repairs => Topic started by: copacetic on July 14, 2016, 12:24:40 PM
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Any thoughts on the Zer0 Glide Nuts for electric bass guitars? (My) Hofners have the zero nut and sound pretty even across the board. Rick Turner likes the idea. He did one on one of my Starfires 40 years ago , but I forget now. The bass was Alembicised....so I got rid of it. The zero fret was the least of my dislikes back then.
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Is it a nut with a zero fret built in? Sounds like quite a smart design. I think zero frets get a bad rep because they were used on budget instruments at one point in time. Definitely a nice way of getting open strings to sound the same as fretted ones.
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http://www.zeroglide.com/
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Seriously, nobody's busted with the lubed up testicles jokes yet? Y'all are off yer game yo.
Also, I feel as if these have come up before. In theory I'm a fan, but I ain't gonna pay fix something that ain't broke.
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More expensive to buy one and have it properly installed than to have a skilled tech install a properly cut and setup bone nut.
I'm not against zero frets in general, but if you have a problem with your existing setup, such as worn out nut slots that have become too low, IMHO it's better to just have it replaced with a new nut.
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More expensive to buy one and have it properly installed than to have a skilled tech install a properly cut and setup bone nut.
I'm not against zero frets in general, but if you have a problem with your existing setup, such as worn out nut slots that have become too low, IMHO it's better to just have it replaced with a new nut.
Yeah, and that intonation chart is misleading. A properly cut nut with the correct slot depths and leveled frets won't be sharp on frets 1-5.
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Yeah, and that intonation chart is misleading. A properly cut nut with the correct slot depths and leveled frets won't be sharp on frets 1-5.
Wow, that is definitely misleading.
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Totally agree with that about properly cut and correct slot depth. There might be some attributes to the zero fret on some instruments depending on their construction and perhaps headstock, bridge, harp etc. Bruce Johnson incorporates them in all his basses but maybe because he mostly likes to make fretless. The luthiers here might have a better insight on the plus/minus or just preferences on their overall designs.
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The biggest advantage is you don't have to modify or replace your nut as you change string gauges.
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Totally agree with that about properly cut and correct slot depth. There might be some attributes to the zero fret on some instruments depending on their construction and perhaps headstock, bridge, harp etc. Bruce Johnson incorporates them in all his basses but maybe because he mostly likes to make fretless. The luthiers here might have a better insight on the plus/minus or just preferences on their overall designs.
I'm sure a lot of it depends on builder preferences. There's no right or wrong. I wouldn't let a zero fret keep me from buying a bass, the one I once owned with a zero fret worked fine (and it wasn't cheap).
But as a replacement for a standard nut, IMHO it's a solution to a problem that can be better solved by properly fixing or replacing the regular nut.
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It's a "one-size-fits-all" solution, and their options are very limited for bass, like no flat bottom "F" nut, no P/J differential, etc.
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The intonation graph may well be true, but I don't see how replacing the nut with a zero fret somehow cures the issue. I thought the Buzz Feitin nut, and the even crazier just intonation fretting some makers experiment with, would cure the intonation, purely by changing the string length between the nut and each fret for each string.
Will intonation of the first frets also not change with string gauge?
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The intonation graph may well be true, but I don't see how replacing the nut with a zero fret somehow cures the issue. I thought the Buzz Feitin nut, and the even crazier just intonation fretting some makers experiment with, would cure the intonation, purely by changing the string length between the nut and each fret for each string.
Will intonation of the first frets also not change with string gauge?
Too high a nut (or zero fret, for that matter) causes the first few frets to be out of intonation.
Think about it or do some research, it's fairly common knowledge. Dan Erlewine, among others, explains it well.
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I have Dan Erlewine's book, and I've read about the issue elsewhere as well. I've also cut a lot of stock nut slots lower to correct the issues that arise from nut slots being generally too high from the factory, namely the first few frets being sharp and tricky to fret.
There is a bit more at play than simply attributing all intonation issues with badly cut nuts. Pythagorean mathematics used to locate frets does not take into consideration the 'stretch' induced by pivoting the string over the fret then pushing it down to the surface of the fretboard. This is actually stated in Dan Erlewine's book, in the section where he provides a description of the Buzz Feiten system, and the thought process behind it.
Straight frets and conventional nuts are a bit like equal temperament; a compromise that to most folks is acceptable.
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Straight frets and conventional nuts are a bit like equal temperament; a compromise that to most folks is acceptable.
Yep.
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I know a guy that got very deep into just intonation. He was wrenching frets out of guitars and trying to get a jeweler friend to add new ones in the 'correct' places, with a single fret per string in the 'correct' place. I lost interest in that, though I did defret a bass for him and inlay it with the correct markings (as per his drawn-on dots at least). In my ignorant opinion, perfectly in tune thirds and fifths made his instruments sound like synths when run through distortion. Part of the charm is all those fuddled mathematically wrong harmonic overtones.
I admire it from an innovation point of view, but at the end of the day none of my instruments have these mods carried out.
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I know a guy that got very deep into just intonation. He was wrenching frets out of guitars and trying to get a jeweler friend to add new ones in the 'correct' places, with a single fret per string in the 'correct' place. I lost interest in that, though I did defret a bass for him and inlay it with the correct markings (as per his drawn-on dots at least). In my ignorant opinion, perfectly in tune thirds and fifths made his instruments sound like synths when run through distortion. Part of the charm is all those fuddled mathematically wrong harmonic overtones.
I admire it from an innovation point of view, but at the end of the day none of my instruments have these mods carried out.
I guess you're talking about what it's know now as "True Temperament" fretting. There's this company http://www.truetemperament.com/ that has patented the system, I guess.
Watching the demonstration video, it kinda sounds like a synth when the guy plays chords.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8EjCTb88oA
Edit: I've just watched the whole video. I think it's worth watching, even if just for laughs. The guy basically says that "normal" guitar sounds like crap...
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After saying that a guitar with straight frets is "impossible to tune" and has "extremely bad intonation," he gives us 3+ minutes of shitty tone. :rolleyes:
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What an annoying video. Some people just spend too much time worrying about this, like it is something to fill up the emty space where their talent should have been. Althoug math and logics will say straight frets and normal nuts is a compromise, good instruments in the hands of good players (they don't even have to be that good) have always sounded good to me.
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After listening to that cats video I offer apologies all around for even bringing the notion of zero fret. No excuses for finding ourselves there. I actually found the topic from Stew Mac, but I'll take the blame.
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It is ironic that the guy talks about intonation and tuning, but uses the whammy bar to embellish the clean chords and then insists on bending random harmonics over and over again. What music calls for that, and surely intonation is a moot point if you are adjusting the pitch constantly with the whammy bar?
I've tried listening to the music of Harry Partch, an early and noteworthy proponent of Just Intonation music. It sounded like a bunch of people kicking scrap metal around whilst an old man rambled on, tonelessly, about train hopping.
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It is ironic that the guy talks about intonation and tuning, but uses the whammy bar to embellish the clean chords and then insists on bending random harmonics over and over again. What music calls for that, and surely intonation is a moot point if you are adjusting the pitch constantly with the whammy bar?
I've tried listening to the music of Harry Partch, an early and noteworthy proponent of Just Intonation music. It sounded like a bunch of people kicking scrap metal around whilst an old man rambled on, tonelessly, about train hopping.
With Pan Flutes?
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no nut will ever correct for my sloppy playing so Im at a loss here :o I guess I prefer my music with the imperfections so I keep listening to recordings of Jack Bruce playing with a crappy "bar bridge" and aspire to achieve mediocrity.
That said there is no excuse for Gibson screwing up the placement of the bridge on the original Thunderbird and the Badbird bridge still has my full endorsement.
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With Pan Flutes?
Not that I heard, but I wouldn't rule it out. Harry Partch had a harmonium created with the keys tuned to microtones. Something like one octave spread across four octaves of keys.
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Less Talent=More Tech
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it would be perfect if I could just get that to flash on and off...damn.
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agreed...
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no nut will ever correct for my sloppy playing so Im at a loss here :o I guess I prefer my music with the imperfections so I keep listening to recordings of Jack Bruce playing with a crappy "bar bridge" and aspire to achieve mediocrity.
That said there is no excuse for Gibson screwing up the placement of the bridge on the original Thunderbird and the Badbird bridge still has my full endorsement.
Yes, Jack seems to have done all right for himself. Likewise many more who used (and still use) Gibson bar bridges and uncompensated wraparound bridges on Juniors, Specials and Melody Makers. Then there's Gibson's continued use of the Rule of 18 for fret placement instead of the more accurate divisor of 17.817. And yet somehow we manage to make good, listenable music, unlike the anal retentive git in the video.