Buzz Feiten Tuning System - Opinions?

[JonR]

Hey JonR --

I apologize if my response to your post came across as too snotty or offensive in any way -- I read a bunch of your posts on the Gear Forum and found them somewhat on the inflammatory and condescending side -- just being frank here -- and I suppose I rebounded more roughly than I should have.

My bad.

KJ

Apology accepted. For some reason, I do get unnecessarily irritated by systems like Feiten's, and lump it together (unfairly perhaps) with those guitars with compensated frets, which are plainly crazy - unless you want to only play in one key with only one chord shape...

I should say I've read the websites, and proper science is invoked. They sound honest and like they know what they're talking about. But it's still trivial stuff.

Guitar intonation is one of those things that can never be "fixed", because the problems are inherent in the physics of strings, in equal temperament, and in playing techniques. You can "fix" one aspect, but only by making another worse. (I mean a normal guitar set-up is the best fix you can make: a straight nut at the right height and in the right place, and a properly compensated bridge.)
And many people do seem to confuse inharmonicity issues with temperament issues (not the designers, necessarily, but the consumers).
But mainly, nobody really notices discrepancies of 1 or 2 cents. If such things really mattered, then we would not be able to tolerate equal temperament at all.
I admit I should maybe not comment if I can't hear the differences. But at best (IMO), such systems are a niche market for those with hyper-sensitive hearing. At worst, they're a waste of everyone's time and money. There are far more important things to worry about in music!

[jzucker]

These discussions almost always center around the emperor's new clothes along the same lines as monster cable and modeling discussions. I love it when the pinnacle of talking points dissolves to:

I can hear it even if you can't

This is almost always posted by someone who is struggling to play over basic chord changes but who somehow has the ear of a bomb detecting CIA dog.

[pingu]

I wish NiAg was still here ...........
Tyhat cat knows all about the science of tuning

It would be interesting and enlightening to get his take
on the Buzz thing

The site doesn't explane the physics of it at all

are you there NicK

[pingu]

Playing bop I probably notice *MORE* difference because in solo playing there
are often multiple 1/2 steps in a chord voicing and if the tuning is not exact,
it's pretty obvious.

Yeah right also playing double stops etc during a solo innit

[Kojo27]

Apology accepted.

Thank you, sir.

[Kojo27]

These discussions almost always center around the emperor's new clothes along the same lines as monster cable and modeling discussions. I love it when the pinnacle of talking points dissolves to:

I can hear it even if you can't.

"The emperor's new clothes" charge could be absolutely dispelled or proven true, if Buzz, or even some independent party, would hold a double-blind "hearing" test. Hand guitars to as many BF proponents as possible -- and hand each five or ten guitars, identical machine-made things, half with BF, the other half without. Don't use the shelf nut - build it in the way Washburn did it. See how often the "I can hear it" people actually hear it and identify the BF guitars. With enough participants, this would yield a valid conclusion - no?

Try to include Eddie, Scott Henderson, and especially this guy:

[JonR]

"The emperor's new clothes" charge could be absolutely dispelled or proven true, if Buzz, or even some independent party, would hold a double-blind "hearing" test. Hand guitars to as many BF proponents as possible -- and hand each five or ten guitars, identical machine-made things, half with BF, the other half without. Don't use the shelf nut - build it in the way Washburn did it. See how often the "I can hear it" people actually hear it and identify the BF guitars. With enough participants, this would yield a valid conclusion - no?

If properly designed and run - by an independent person, NOT Buzz Feiten! - this experiment would indeed be interesting.
Of course there would need to be no visual clues as to which guitars were which - or the subjects would need to be blindfolded.
I agree it would be best if the subjects were experienced professionals, but I don't think it should matter who they are. Some could be BF proponents, but again that's only important if we want to see those individiuals either vindicated or discredited. If BF works, any good player should be able to tell the difference.
Needless to say, the control guitars should all be properly set-up in the traditional way (relief, action and intonation as good as possible, with particular attention to the nut), so the competition is on a level playing-field.

Unfortunately, such an experiment could not be conducted with those compensated-fret guitars, because blindfolding won't help - you can feel the difference!

[Kojo27]

If properly designed and run - by an independent person, NOT Buzz Feiten! - this experiment would indeed be interesting.
Of course there would need to be no visual clues as to which guitars were which - or the subjects would need to be blindfolded.
I agree it would be best if the subjects were experienced professionals, but I don't think it should matter who they are. Some could be BF proponents, but again that's only important if we want to see those individiuals either vindicated or discredited. If BF works, any good player should be able to tell the difference.
Needless to say, the control guitars should all be properly set-up in the traditional way (relief, action and intonation as good as possible, with particular attention to the nut), so the competition is on a level playing-field.

Unfortunately, such an experiment could not be conducted with those compensated-fret guitars, because blindfolding won't help - you can feel the difference!

All good points - yes. And of course, by "double-blind," I'm referring to how any valid test like this is carried out: neither the players NOR the people handing out the guitars would know which were which. And if all were identical -- say $500 Washburns, which wouldn't have any visible or tactile signs of the BF thing - it would be a valid test, seems to me.

But BF will never do it. Or maybe they've already done it or something like it and don't dare reveal the results! Ha.

All I know is that for me, my BF guitars sound sweeter, especially in "open string" styles - Chet picking, fiddle-tune playing, etc. And for fingerstyle where open bass strings are ringing or "droning" against fretted notes on the treble strings -- ah...nice.

They've really rolled out on this thing, so I think time will tell, maybe in our lifetimes. They certify several new techs and luthiers every day and post them on the website.

[fumblefingers]

human senses are not highly reliable in many scientific tests.

regardless, this test is easy. one could simply use a tuner to validate the intonation improvements before and after, not unlike what you do when you adjust your tune-o-matic saddle. after all, that's why tuning machines were developed - because they are more accurate and sensitive than the average person's ears.

[jzucker]

human senses are not highly reliable in many scientific tests.

regardless, this test is easy. one could simply use a tuner to validate the intonation improvements before and after, not unlike what you do when you adjust your tune-o-matic saddle. after all, that's why tuning machines were developed - because they are more accurate and sensitive than the average person's ears.

It's not the scientific degree of being in tune that's at principal. It's the "perception" of being in tune.

[fumblefingers]

i'm not sure what you mean Jack. when you say "it" do you mean "what counts"?

are you not a fan of guitars that have double-ended compensation?

BTW, have you ever heard someone play a Gregory Byers classical, or perhaps Paul Galbraith playing his Rubio-made 8-string, fanned-fret "Brahms guitar"? they both sound incredible.

[jzucker]

i'm not sure what you mean Jack. when you say "it" do you mean "what counts"?

are you not a fan of guitars that have double-ended compensation?

BTW, have you ever heard someone play a Gregory Byers classical, or perhaps Paul Galbraith playing his Rubio-made 8-string, fanned-fret "Brahms guitar"? they both sound incredible.

Yes, I mean what counts. I'm not for or against double-ended compensation. I just roll my eyes about all the glowing accolades about how much more clear the guitar sounds and how the inner voicings just come out like you've never heard, blah-blah-blah. In the mean time, I just listened (again) to Wes' "While we're young" and out of tune or not, it could hardly get better than that...

[timscarey]

hmmm.

I feel like this should be tested with an audience, not actual guitar players, especially not ones who are being paid by the company to endorse their tuning system.

My 2 cents..... it's bull. total crap, and if you have ANY effects on your sound at all, it would be completely useless. I mean, who plays their guitar without ever even slightly bending a string? nobody, yet another reason that this would make no difference at all.

It seems like a lot of hype over something that makes no difference in the intonation of the guitarist or of the music being played... I just don't see the point in real world situations.

I also don't see what this has to do with theory.

[Kojo27]

hmmm.

I feel like this should be tested with an audience, not actual guitar players, especially not ones who are being paid by the company to endorse their tuning system.

I doubt that an audience of randomly selected people could tell the difference between an almost perfectly tuned guitar and, say, one with three strings pulled slightly out of tune by a capo, just for example. Some might hear it, most wouldn't. I hope the player hears it, but don't you think something like this has to do with that "magical spell" that music can cast? The audience doesn't know precisely *why* everything sounds so great, or why they were moved -- and they don't have to. A guitar with sweeter intonation will add one more bit of goodness to the overall effect. One with that G-to-B-string ear-twister left as-is will sound almost as good, and though it might detract one bit of goodness, the big effect can still be enjoyable.

An audience, with unpracticed ears, trying to discern between pitches and make decisions about pitch relationships, when they don't even know what they're listening for? Not a good test, imo.

My 2 cents..... it's bull. total crap, and [...] I mean, who plays their guitar without ever even slightly bending a string? nobody, yet another reason that this would make no difference at all.

How in God's name does "slightly bending" a string prove that Buzz Feiten is "yet another reason [BF] would make no difference at all"?????

It seems like a lot of hype over something that makes no difference in the intonation of the guitarist or of the music being played... I just don't see the point in real world situations.

One "point in a real world situation," might be a guitar player who happens to have a keen sense of pitch, sitting down in the comfort of his living room to play his new $10,000 McPherson guitar, which he worked his ass off to buy, finally, and enjoying it a whole, big, JYE-normous lot more, because the McPherson came with Buzz Feiten as a standard feature. And that G-to-B third finally sounds good -- while his C chords and D chords and E chords sound fine, as well. That's real world.

Ask Scott Henderson why he uses it. Scott's in the real world. Eddie Van Halen is in the real world, and Steve Vai and Liona Boyd.

I also don't see what this has to do with theory.

Maybe I should have opened the thread in "Everything Else" -- but I started it in the "Theory" category because I thought the topic might evolve (or dissolve) into subjects like string theory and tempering formulas, that sort of thing. Too late to move it now - sorry.

makes no difference in the intonation of the guitarist or of the music being played

Actually, it does make a difference. If you can't hear it, then good for you, I guess. "The fact that you can't hear it doesn't mean others can't."

[timscarey]

So,

Your first response was exactly my point, the audience can't tell the difference, if they could, that might be a different story.

As for the string bending. The point I'm making is that even if you are perfectly in tune, if you bend one string, even a slight amount, say you squeeze a bit hard, none of that matters.

And by real world I meant playing with other people, who must tune by ear, or who are at the mercy of the piano in the room. In those situations..... useless.

I will conceide that in a solo guitar performance, or in the case of a guy in his living room, by himself, this might make a very slight difference. But again, I bet eddie van halen gets a check from these people.

[Kojo27]

So,

Your first response was exactly my point, the audience can't tell the difference, if they could, that might be a different story.

As for the string bending. The point I'm making is that even if you are perfectly in tune, if you bend one string, even a slight amount, say you squeeze a bit hard, none of that matters.

And by real world I meant playing with other people, who must tune by ear, or who are at the mercy of the piano in the room. In those situations..... useless.

I will conceide that in a solo guitar performance, or in the case of a guy in his living room, by himself, this might make a very slight difference. But again, I bet eddie van halen gets a check from these people.

Tim,

It appears you misunderstood my first point. I mean that an audience might not know *why* the music was somehow better, but every little thing counts. "God is in the details" - said a famous German architect. The little good things add up to the big great thing. So even if a few strings aren't intoning properly, it won't RUIN the show, maybe, but it will detract. A little.

I still don't understand what you're saying about the string bend... maybe I have a mental block. (I have lots of those - ha.) Do you mean that the note, or "pitch," a listener hears, from a bent, picked string, will have nothing to do with BF? If so, I agree! Nor will BF help you play slide. It's a new system of tempering the tuning and the string lengths, thus producing a guitar that is better tempered when fretted -- just as pianos are tempered. If there weren't serious flaws in the "normal" way a guitar is set up, why would companies go to the expense of building those guitars with crooked frets? They are trying to correct a tempering problem that guitarists have put up with for so long they've accepted it! We should NOT accept an inferior tuning/tempering system, just because "Wes used it and did okay." This is insane, imo.

But again, I bet eddie van halen gets a check from these people.

Wow - Eddie is a multi, multi-millionaire. He's super guitar technician - remember that column he wrote for Guitar Player Magazine? Unless he's just a money-grubbing PIG, I can't see him endorsing a tempering system (and little if anything else!) for a few more bucks.

An article/blog thing from Music Radar talks about Eddie and implies that he endorses only stuff that HE sells. One quote: "There's long-been a rumour in the guitar industry about the money it costs for Eddie Van Halen to endorse a product. The rumoured sum is huge." http://www.musicradar.com/news/guita...usiness-191906

I just don't think Buzz Feiten, Inc. is that big a company yet. Besides, there's Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Leona Boyd, Scott Henderson, and a shit-load of top studio musicians - and they swear by BF.

Have you actually played, for a couple hours, let's say, a guitar set up with this tempering system? I mean long enough to really get into its sound?

[fumblefingers]

most guitar music that i listen to, like Jack points out, is played on conventional guitars (mine are too).

but,

my guitars with tune-o-matic bridges have better intonation then those that dont have them. (i have a highly accurate tuner from Korg and set the intonation myself). i have no doubt that a compensated nut would help even more.

here's one thing that i think almost all experienced guitar players CAN hear. play some four note triad voicings low on the neck, then start moving them up the neck. by the time you get to the 8th position things sound pretty darned "off key". drop the doubling of one voice by going back to a 3 note voicing and things sound better. (jazz allows us to avoid these voicings most of the time )

the compensated nut systems are said to assist greatly with the inharmonicity issues that are illustrated by this simple experiment.

[timscarey]

Okay,

I'll admit that really im just playing devils advocate over here, as I usually do on this forum.

what I'm saying is.... everyone bends strings all of the time, when I play 4 string triads up the neck, I squeeze the 1st and 2nd strings as I get higher to adjust the intonation. What i'm saying is, no body plays the guitar without bending strings as they go, it may be subtle, but it's part of the instrument.

The guitar is not truly a fixed intonation type of instrument like the piano is, you have to tune it regularly, and even bending a string a half millimeter with change the pitch of it.

That's what I'm saying.

[jzucker]

most guitar music that i listen to, like Jack points out, is played on conventional guitars (mine are too).

but,

my guitars with tune-o-matic bridges have better intonation then those that dont have them. (i have a highly accurate tuner from Korg and set the intonation myself). i have no doubt that a compensated nut would help even more.

here's one thing that i think almost all experienced guitar players CAN hear. play some four note triad voicings low on the neck, then start moving them up the neck. by the time you get to the 8th position things sound pretty darned "off key". drop the doubling of one voice by going back to a 3 note voicing and things sound better. (jazz allows us to avoid these voicings most of the time )

the compensated nut systems are said to assist greatly with the inharmonicity issues that are illustrated by this simple experiment.

But will they work for heavy guage strings with a wound G? I agree with Tim. I think it's just hype. Even if you improve the intonation, you're still dealing with an imperfect system. String bends as you fret it, strings are going to change temperature as you're playing and they will stretch, etc.

I've never heard wes and thought "boy, if only he was as in tune as Van Halen..."

[fumblefingers]

well, the way that John Buscarino explained it to me was......

"Segovia squeezed his strings for intonation too - that's why they call it a Romantic Instrument".

so (that was circa 1920) i guess the fumblefingers question might be:

if you don't have to friggin squeeze your strings like a Megan Fox tit, just to make them sound right... why do it!?!"

(remember, i own no doubly compensated instruments....


i'm a pragmatic engineer. just sayin'

[pingu]

Yeah but .........
where is there a proper explanation of how it works ?
maybe its a secret

I must admit I could never get a cowboy D chord
in tune properly till I discovered
big strings

ALL my tuning and intonation problems just went away
very

[Morpeli]

Earvana: Earvana - Compensated Tuning Systems for Guitars

$34.95 for a Fender or Gibson guitar.

It's not perfect, but it works and it doesn't cost the world!
Got it on both my guitars.

Or how about this:

True Temperament - Fretting systems

Looks great and weird all at the same time!
Costs a lot of money!

I'd get this if I could play better!!!

[Kojo27]

But will they work for heavy guage strings with a wound G? I agree with Tim. I think it's just hype. Even if you improve the intonation, you're still dealing with an imperfect system. String bends as you fret it, strings are going to change temperature as you're playing and they will stretch, etc.

Say what? Even if you CAN improve something -- make a better guitar -- it will still have imperfections, so why bother? Isn't that what you just said?

Jack -- the people at BF acknowledge that a guitar is an imperfect machine, just as many other musical instruments are. They're simply saying, "We now have a way of making a guitar that's somewhat better than the ones we had before." How much better? That's subjective. For James Taylor, it might be a godsend. For Wes Montgomery, it might not have made a whole lot of difference. Then again, Wes might have loved it. Scott Henderson does. With the "shelf nut," they've allegedly taken a big step forward. And with the acoustics, with the custom-made bone saddles AND the shelf nuts, the BF guitars are now doubly-compensated: barre chords? No problem. And yes -- the guitars work with heavy or light or medium gauge strings, high action, low action, none of that matters. But with the acoustics, once they make your saddle, you don't want to make any drastic changes, unless you're ready to have a new saddle made. String gauge, action, and other player-determined specs are built into the precision-made saddle. This is why Feitenizing an acoustic STARTS at $350.

(BTW, did your Surhs have the overhanging shelf nut? My Washburns didn't.)

I didn't know it, but the "salesman" I was speaking with on the phone yesterday evening was the President & CEO of Buzz Feiten Tuning System, Inc.! Allen Wald is his name, and I had no sooner sent an email to BF than my phone rang. Really - a minute might have passed. I spoke with him, having no idea he was the main guy.

I then wrote a post in the "Everything Else" category, before I re-read an email he'd sent me, before I had scrolled to the very bottom and had seen his signature and title. My post is still true, but I get the feeling now that his enthusiasm comes from a more genuine belief in BFTS than in merely talking me into letting them tackle a dreadnought I have, which sounds heavenly, but plays out of tune along the B and low E strings.

Bottom line for me, now, is: I can't really judge, because I haven't seen/heard what the current BF guitars can do. The Washburn acoustics had the Feitenized nuts, but not the saddles. The electrics had compensated nuts and saddles - and sounded sweet as sugar candy - to me. But still, I haven't seen what the shelf nut can do.

[JonR]

With the "shelf nut," they've allegedly taken a big step forward.

Allegedly...

I can't honestly make a qualified criticism of the rest, but it's plain common sense that the shelf nut is a nonsense idea.
The ideal nut is simply a zero fret - at least in height and distance from the 1st fret (it would need a notching system behind it). Compensating a nut in any way is pointless and would actually put the guitar out of tune - or rather, more out of tune than any normal guitar normally is.

This device is marketed at fools who see a compensated bridge and think - hey - why not a compensated nut too? (Ie equating the nut with the bridge instead of with a fret)

After all (in case you need that question answering), if the nut needs to be compensated, then - to a progressively lesser extent - the frets need compensating too.
IOW, I can see that the idea of fanned frets might make sense, where the distance between frets on the bass strings needs to be a little more than on the treble strings. Only might, mind you; and probably not to the crazy degree I've seen on fanned-fret guitars. (A compensated bridge only needs to be a few degrees out of straight. So the frets need to be correspondingly less than that. In fact, so much less that most good luthiers don't consider it worth doing at all. Perhaps they underestimate the market for credulous customers...)

Let me be clear: I know the phenomenon whereby the low E and A strings - on some guitars - need to be tuned a little flat in order for fretted notes to be in tune. The answer to this might seem to be to move the nut back a little for those strings. But really the problem is endemic all the way up those strings - diminishing towards the bridge of course. (We just don't notice the discrepancy as it decreases.) If the nut should go a little further back; then so should the first fret (under those strings), just not as far; and then, a little less, the 2nd fret; etc. And yet without any zigzag stagger to the frets, because the effect is also gradual across the strings too.
And in any case, the usual cause of this problem is a nut that is too high - not too close to the 1st fret. Simply lowering it to the height of a fret corrects the most common intonation problems on low frets.

IOW, the only way a compensated nut makes any sense (assuming the frets are left alone) is if it is also set too high; which is of course crazy. There's no rational reason why the distances between nut and first fret should differ from string to string, when the distances between nut and 2nd fret don't. What applies between nut and first fret ought also to apply between frets 1 and 2 (and between all frets in fact). There is no essential difference between the nut and a fret. (Except of course for the need to hold the strings in slots to position them correctly.)

[Kojo27]

Jon, what does IOW mean?

KJ