Buzz Feiten Tuning System

I recently received some email and an informational packet from the
Buzz Feiten Design Company, a company founded by Buzz Feiten to
commercialize the patented Buzz Feiten Tuning System. Reviewers in
Guitar Player and Guitar Shop have been enthusiastic about the sound.

The BF Tuning system is a set of corrections to put 12-tet guitars
in better tune by moving the nut two millimeters nearer the bridge and
making small unspecified adjustments for each string. The point of
these corrections is primarily to compensate for the increase in string
tension due to stopping, particularly near the net, and secondarily
for the traditional fret placement according to the "Rule of 18."
I was somewhat surprised to learn that the "Rule of 18" is still
used as it virtually guarantees that the octave will be off by
about 12 cents (The frets are placed at successive distances of 17/18;
18/17 is about 99 cents.)

I've queried their rep David Marcus about applying it to non-12.
I would think the nut movement itself and a linear interpolation based
on the positions of the nearest 12-tet frets would work adequately, but
I don't know.

Buzz Feiten's email address is BuzzInTune@aol.com. Apparently a number
of guitar repair shops and manufacturers, mostly in So. California, have
been licensed to use this system.

Eduardo Sabat-Garibaldi published a set of complex and comprehensive
BASIC programs in his book "Principios de la Gama Dina'mica to fret
guitars to his 53-tone 1/9th skhisma system. I should think they
could be easily modified for any other tuning as well.

Mark Rankin also has a computer program to calculate fret positions,
but I don't know if it makes these types of corrections.

--John


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