Bone nut on archtop guitar neck ?

[electricfactory]

Or does a bone nut make your guitar sound too bright ?

[petermelton]

I'm not sure how much it impacts the tone of an amplified archtop, but it definitely helps tuning stability. I pay the luthier I go to to make a new bone nut for every guitar I buy.

[neatomic]

i'd think bone the nut of choice...maybe brass or aluminum would be too bright..but bone is classic..and wears well

synthetics vary..everything from cheap plastic to tusc type graphites

bone is king

cheers

[Cunamara]

My carvetop came with a bone nut and has a new one to widen the string spacing. Tone would only be affected with open strings' once you've fretted a note, the nut is out of the equation. If you really want an even tone all the way to the open strings one should use a zero fret.

My GB10 has a bone/brass nut. Sounds fine.

My Tele has a Corian not; sounds fine.


I think it's too easy to worry about minutiae; of course, that *is* a big part of the fun!

[neatomic]

this is a misnomer..the nut does affect even the fretted notes...sound travels in both directions from the fretted note..towards the bridge and towards the tuning pegs...even the way you wind strings around the tuning posts affects resonance

try playing a nut with a slot that has worn too low...sitaring/buzz effect will be heard even on fretted notes


cheers

[kenbennett]

Bone is my favorite. The argument against it is that it is inconsistent, even within different areas of the same nut. The synthetic stuff, while there are many to choose from, are much more consistent. Graphtech is good stuff. Corian is OK, but a little too soft. I normally use it to upgrade a cheap guitar's plastic nut.

[coolvinny]

As long as the nut is the right size/height and cut correctly, I don't think the material makes any difference for jazz since we are fretting virtually all of our notes.

[neatomic]

everything makes a difference!

(ask any good chef!) haha

cheers

[Cunamara]

this is a misnomer..the nut does affect even the fretted notes...sound travels in both directions from the fretted note..towards the bridge and towards the tuning pegs...even the way you wind strings around the tuning posts affects resonance

Not with your finger damping the string behind the fret.

[Herbie]

Not with your finger damping the string behind the fret.

I am afraid the the finger behind the fret does not stop the vibrations moving everywhere, in the nut too. If it stopped and made the material of nut useless why does not the bridge do the same? But everything behind the bridge makes difference, even the angle of the strings going to the tailpiece.

I once tried top wrapping in my LP. Doubted that it would affect anything. But it made my .010 strings feel and sound like .008's. I was shocked and changed them back at once!

And in the nut end even the weight of the tuners make (huge) difference. I think that the finger behind the fret just makes the note change, not much else.

[neatomic]

also why great genius george van eps invented the string damper..that many classic jazzers used inc jim hall, herb ellis, barney kessel and even scotty moore



cheers

[abelljo]

Do you think the nut material affects tone on guitars with a zero fret? I like Tusq, because it is easier to work with and keeps great tuning. I like bone as well as long as I don't have to be the one shaping and slotting it

[neatomic]

zero fret bypasses effect of nut..unless nut has serious problems ie binds or rattles strings etc

however zero fret will have different tonal properties & feel than nut slotted guitar..the prime example being old gretsch guitars

cheers

[Para]

I fit unbleached bone nuts to all my guitars.

[oldane]

also why great genius george van eps invented the string damper..that many classic jazzers used inc jim hall, herb ellis, barney kessel and even scotty moore



cheers

I think it was more to dampen sympathetic vibrations from the length of string between nut and fretted note. Those sympathetic vibrations are not always "in tune" with the notes played. It will also eliminate the risk of having open strings unintendedly sound by accident. It can dampen the buzz coming from the same length of string if the neck has too little relief and/or the nut is slotted too deep. Some believed the string damper could diminish the risk of feedback when playing amplified.

I agree that in theory "everything" matters, but some things matters so little that it's not detectable in practice. I also believe that many people think they can hear things which are not really there (not hallucinations but small perceieved differences in tone). Our (regrettably former) forum member PTChris wrote many a sobering post on this subject.

The most wierd example was the guy who a couple of years ago on his web site postulated that the color of the plastic insulation of his harness wires meant an audible difference to the amplified sound. That opinion was not supported on this forum though - here he was rediculed.

[blackcat]

The most wierd example was the guy who a couple of years ago on his web site postulated that the color of the plastic insulation of his harness wires meant an audible difference to the amplified sound. That opinion was not supported on this forum though - here he was rediculed.[/QUOTE]

Ditto for Eric Johnson who I seemed to remember claiming differences brought about by fitting alkaline as opposed to mercury batteries in his guitar lead. Right on Eric.

[vinlander]

I guess bone is what is on my Tal since the original one from factory was cut badly and has been replaced by the previous owner.
To be honest, I can't really tell if that changes its tone compared to the Corian one as it was already swapped; but I like the idea of a bone nut over plastic.
I guess the same logic goes for orange Sprague drops vs cheaper ceramic disks.
Rational even if supported by science, will always loose against psychoacoustic; if you want to hear something it is gonna be there.

[Bezoeker]

Rational even if supported by science, will always loose against psychoacoustic; if you want to hear something it is gonna be there.

Alicia Vikander just called from the living room and said we should go skiing today. I KNOW I heard this.

BZ

[jzucker]

the nut only effects your tone on open strings. And I have bone nuts on every guitar

[jazz.fred]

My Peerless Monarch 16 has a bone nut. I think my Heritage H575 Custom also may have a bone nut, but can't be absolutely certain because the nut material isn't documented in the sketchy Heritage specs. Can any of you forum members offer any additional insight?

When my guitar tech makes a new nut for a customer, he uses bone exclusively.

[lammie200]

I am not sure of the material, but I have an Earvana nut on my strat and I used to have one on one of my acoustic steel stringers before I sold it. I might be imaging things but the intonation is way better on the strat up and down the neck than it was with a straight cut bone nut. I hope that someday my Hagstrom carved top HJ800 will arrive. It should come with a Tusq nut. I am interested to hear it. I have a Martin acoustic with a bone nut and saddle. I just changed the bridge pins to Tusq. Subtle (good) difference in sustain. I also have a Tanglewood parlor with a Nubone nut and saddle. Same effect when I changed the bridge pins to Tusq. If you drop Tusq on a hard surface you get a nice clear sustaining sound. I got more of a "thud" sound when I dropped a blank bone nut on the same surface. I know that this is more info than what the OP asked for, but I hope that it helps.

BTW, if the OP wants less bright they might want to try straight graphite. I put one on a tele once and it really softened the tone. This might have been before Tusq was available and I believe that Tusq will be brighter than straight graphite.

[JazzNote]

there was an article in Guitar Player a couple of years ago:

All About Bone Nuts | GuitarPlayer

I never experimented with nuts. Don't even know what material the nuts on my favorite guitars are. If anyone knows, please tell me: 2003 L5 CES, 1998 LeGrand, 1972 L5 Ces (not sure but this might not be original though), 2014 Lee Ritenour L5

[339 in june]

Rational even if supported by science, will always loose against psychoacoustic;

So true !

Nevertheless, I had a good laugh reading some of the posts herein !

Wonder if type of bone is of importance on "the tone". Catbone, wishbone, human bone ?

[Cunamara]

I am afraid the the finger behind the fret does not stop the vibrations moving everywhere, in the nut too. If it stopped and made the material of nut useless why does not the bridge do the same? But everything behind the bridge makes difference, even the angle of the strings going to the tailpiece.

I once tried top wrapping in my LP. Doubted that it would affect anything. But it made my .010 strings feel and sound like .008's. I was shocked and changed them back at once!

And in the nut end even the weight of the tuners make (huge) difference. I think that the finger behind the fret just makes the note change, not much else.

The string vibrations don't get past your fretting finger to the length of string between the finger and the nut; and there are no string vibrations getting from the length of the string between your finger and the nut back to the speaking length of the string and from there to the pickup or body. The finger absorbs those vibrations through something called hysteresis.

Now, you can do EVH style tapping and hear the string ringing between the fret above your finger and the nut, because the energy of tapping the string activates the string in both directions. I've heard that on my guitars in that situation, but not when playing "normally" by fretting and picking or plucking the string. The tapping situation is not vibrations coming from between the bridge and the fret somehow passing through your finger and activating the string. Now, maybe in your normal playing style you are hitting the strings with your fretting hand hard enough and fast enough to activate the string between the fret and the nut, but that's where that energy is coming from, not from the picked length of the string. If that happens, you'll hear it directly from the string but not through the guitar body or amplifier (unless you've got open strings ringing sympathetically, which good technique stops anyway- unless you like that sound).

If you fret or stop the string with something hard that doesn't absorb vibrations? Different story. Ever play slide guitar? You have to damp the strings behind the slide or they ring out. The same thing can happen with bridges- with a hard thin release point for the string, some energy is transmitted past that point and can cause the length of string between the saddle and the tailpiece to ring out. This is caused by the stiffness of the string causing rocking on the release point. I discovered this when I switched from a rosewood saddle to an ebony saddle which had a sharper edged saddle; the strings behind the saddle rang out of tune. Putting a Sadowsky compensated saddle on it stopped the ringing because the contact across the top of the saddle was much wider. There is little to no hysteresis there because of the hardness of the materials used.

[Para]

I don't even understand it lol.

Hysteresis is the time-based dependence of a system's output on present and past inputs. The dependence arises because the history affects the value of an internal state. To predict its future outputs, either its internal state or its history must be known.^[1] If a given input alternately increases and decreases, a typical mark of hysteresis is that the output forms a loop as in the figure.

Such loops may occur purely because of a dynamic lag between input and output. This effect disappears as the input changes more slowly. This effect meets the description of hysteresis given above, but is often referred to as rate-dependent hysteresis to distinguish it from hysteresis with a more durable memory effect.
Hysteresis occurs in ferromagnetic materials and ferroelectric materials, as well as in the deformation of some materials (such as rubber bands and shape-memory alloys) in response to a varying force. In natural systems hysteresis is often associated with irreversible thermodynamic change. Many artificial systems are designed to have hysteresis: for example, in thermostats and Schmitt triggers, the principle of hysteresis is applied to avoid unwanted frequent switching. Hysteresis has been identified in many other fields, including economics and biology.