guitar refretting

Dante,

Hello fellow tuning list denizen.
I really enjoyed your guitar refretting page. I do have a few questions.

Did you have any problems with frets being a bit too high (or low) and
causing buzz?
How well to they stay on?
Is the wire you used the same height as if you used regular fret wire?
Do you maintain the CGCGCG tuning?
Which is 1/1? C or G?
What are the intervals found on each string?

That said, you might consider acquiring a frequency generator and
occilloscope so that you may test the frequency of each fret placement with
greater accuracy.

Darren Burgess
Gainesville, FL

Hi Mary,

> I like it too a lot. Are you using a alto or soprano recorder?

It's a tenor.

Lowest note of tenor recorder is middle c. So technically, it has
same pitch range as a baroque flute, though because it has
a strong first partial and weak 2nd, it has a tendency
to sound lower than it is, especially in a recorder
consort.

(Base of recorder consort, in terms of measured pitch
anyway, goes only one tone lower than the violin!)

However, here, playing with harpsichord, it somehow stands
in quite well for same pitch range as the flute.

Harpsichord has prominent third partial, one of the few
instruments that do (Japanese Koto is another). Whether
that has anything to do with the tenor working as a flute
or not I have no idea.

Robert

--- In crazy_music@y..., "Robert Walker" <robertwalker@n...> wrote:
> Hi Mary,
>
> > I like it too a lot. Are you using a alto or soprano recorder?
>
> It's a tenor.
>
> Lowest note of tenor recorder is middle c. So technically, it has
> same pitch range as a baroque flute, though because it has
> a strong first partial and weak 2nd, it has a tendency
> to sound lower than it is, especially in a recorder
> consort.

This confuses me. Since partials tend to "push each other apart" (see
Terhardt), wouldn't a timbre with a weak 2nd partial sound relatively
_higher_?

I thought this was great. Posted a message on RMCG regarding your page.

Wm. David Jennings

dante rosati wrote:

> From: dante rosati <dante@pop.interport.net>
>
> >From: "Darren Burgess" <dburgess@acceleration.net>
> >
> >Dante,
> >
> >Hello fellow tuning list denizen.
> >I really enjoyed your guitar refretting page. I do have a few questions.
> >
> >Did you have any problems with frets being a bit too high (or low) and
> >causing buzz?
>
> I got a slight buzz on one fret so far. I raised the bridge a little. I
> also filed down the fret a bit.
>
> >How well to they stay on?
>
> The one I was filing popped off but I simply glued it on a little better.
> That was the only one so far. I've been using 5 minute epoxy. I suppose you
> could use the 30 minute stuff which is stronger, but I haven't neeeded to
> yet. I kinda want to leave it only semi-permanent at this point in case I
> decide to change the scale or the tuning.
>
> >Is the wire you used the same height as if you used regular fret wire?
>
> Its about the same but of course is circular so it seems a tad higher.
> Filing them a bit flat would make them more like a normal fret.
>
> >Do you maintain the CGCGCG tuning?
>
> So far, yes. I'm a little worried about lack of variety in fingering
> possibilities due to there being only two positions of the scale, but with
> three strings done there seems to be plenty of possible fingerings that
> sound interesting. In a way, I wanted to get as far away as possible from
> standard tuning so that I would have a completely fresh start. And as I
> mentioned, the resonance with this tuning is great.
>
> >Which is 1/1? C or G?
>
> C is 1/1, so , starting from the sixth (lowest) string, it is 1/1, 3/2,
> 2/1, 3/1, 4/1, 6/1
>
> >What are the intervals found on each string?
>
> The 1/1, 2/1, and 4/1 strings have the straight scale. The 3/2, 3/1, and
> 6/1 start at 3/2 so the 1/1 on those strings are in the middle of the
> string, somewhat like on a sitar's playing string.
>
> >
> >That said, you might consider acquiring a frequency generator and
> >occilloscope so that you may test the frequency of each fret placement with
> >greater accuracy.
>
> I would except my mac will not pick up sound off a microphone, so I cant
> use the various frquency counters, oscilloscopes, etc available on the web.
> Thank god for JIcalc, which I think is all I need (along with my ear) for
> accuracy. The tunings so far seem very exact.
>
> dante
> p.s Carl, you didn't miss a picture cause it werent there. Wish I had a
> digital camera or a scanner in addition to a computer with a working sound
> in device!
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, or to change your subscription
> to digest, go to the ONElist web site, at http://www.onelist.com and
> select the User Center link from the menu bar on the left.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@onelist.com - subscribe to the tuning list.
> tuning-unsubscribe@onelist.com - unsubscribe from the tuning list.
> tuning-digest@onelist.com - switch your subscription to digest mode.
> tuning-normal@onelist.com - switch your subscription to normal mode.

guitar refretting:
A couple of things to keep in mind when refretting guitars... If possible,
get some kind of stick that you can pretend is a guitar neck. Mark with
pencil the fret locations for the tuning system you wish to investigate.
Move your fingers around and see how it seems to work for you. You don't
want to end up with a fretboard that's too crowded, with frets so close
together that you can't hit specific ones clearly. It is also interesting
to hear from different guitarists on the list what kind of spacings they
can work with. I find that my 22ET strat is quite tight, especially up
past the octave fret, and it is very difficult to play chords. Other
people are apparently very comfortable with 31, 34, and even 53! As I have
mentioned before, the distance between the strings seems to be an important
factor too, since it can limit the space to fit your fingertips when
fingering chords.

As someone who plays both JI and ET guitars, I can definitely say that ET
is simply much easier to work with, although JI can in some ways be more
fun. Think carefully about what kinds of intervals and chords you want to
be able use and how you want to be able to transpose/modulate them. Listen
to music in different ET and JI systems (Blackwood, Darreg, McLaren,
Haverstick, Catler, Schneider, etc.) Listen for specific interesting
melodic/harmonic aspects of the tuning system, and try not to associate the
tuning system specifically with the pieces of music. (I love 22ET as a
system, but really don't care for some of the music I have heard in it,
such as Blackwood's piece.)

kp

Kris Peck wrote,

>(I love 22ET as a
>system, but really don't care for some of the music I have heard in it,
>such as Blackwood's piece.)

Yes that is certainly one of Blackwood's ugliest pieces. I wish I could
communicate my ideas to him; the decatonic scales in 22-tET fit well within
his theoretical mindset, which includes decatonic scales in 15-tET, and I'm
sure he could use them to wonderful compositional effect.

Hi everyone,

I'm looking into refretting a guitar, and would love some input from
people who have some experience with this. Right now I'm leaning
towards golden meantone, with 19 frets per octave (possibly 21, to get
an approximate 8/7 and 7/4). I also looked into various JI
possibilities, Lucy Tuning, and some other meantones, but the GMT seems
to appeal to me the most. With 19 frets I could play in 12 keys,
although probably not with a piano player, as well as get a bunch of
reasonable 7-limit JI intervals.

I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there who has made a golden
meantone guitar, or if anyone has any comments, positive or negative,
about doing this. Basically what I'm going off of now is some
spreadsheets I made and some guitar-detuning sessions to hear what
different chords would sound like. I'm not a synth guy, really.

Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this, any serious drawbacks
of golden meantone?Any suggestions of other tunings I should look into
instead? I am, after all, relatively new to this (other than the years
of bending and detuning strings slightly) and am probably unaware of
some really interesting possibilities. I'm basically looking for
something that will give me nicer intonation and more tonal
possibilities than 12tet.

Thanks in advance,
unStruck.

--
Please don't use http://fastmail.fm
(I like feeling special.)

in case you haven't seen my Tuning Dictionary
page about golden meantone:
http://ww.ixpres.com/interval/dict/golden.htm

-monz
"all roads lead to n^0"

----- Original Message -----
From: "unstruck sound" <unstruck@warpmail.net>
To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 10:28 AM
Subject: [tuning] guitar refretting

> Hi everyone,
>
> I'm looking into refretting a guitar, and would love some input from
> people who have some experience with this. Right now I'm leaning
> towards golden meantone, with 19 frets per octave (possibly 21, to get
> an approximate 8/7 and 7/4). I also looked into various JI
> possibilities, Lucy Tuning, and some other meantones, but the GMT seems
> to appeal to me the most. With 19 frets I could play in 12 keys,
> although probably not with a piano player, as well as get a bunch of
> reasonable 7-limit JI intervals.
>
> I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there who has made a golden
> meantone guitar, or if anyone has any comments, positive or negative,
> about doing this. Basically what I'm going off of now is some
> spreadsheets I made and some guitar-detuning sessions to hear what
> different chords would sound like. I'm not a synth guy, really.
>
> Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this, any serious drawbacks
> of golden meantone?Any suggestions of other tunings I should look into
> instead? I am, after all, relatively new to this (other than the years
> of bending and detuning strings slightly) and am probably unaware of
> some really interesting possibilities. I'm basically looking for
> something that will give me nicer intonation and more tonal
> possibilities than 12tet.
>
> Thanks in advance,
> unStruck.

unstruck sound wrote:

> Hi everyone,

Nice name, Unstruck Sound, but that's the name of my orchestra,
ensemble, website, other email
address, etc. etc. Hmmm...

Best Wishes

On Thu, 05 Sep 2002 21:04:22 +0100, "Alison Monteith"
<alison.monteith3@which.net> said:
>
>
> unstruck sound wrote:
>
> > Hi everyone,
>
> Nice name, Unstruck Sound, but that's the name of my orchestra,
> ensemble, website, other email
> address, etc. etc. Hmmm...
>

hmmm... so more than one of us identifies themselves with the mystical
fount of music, the Anahata Nada. that's interesting. you'll be
relieved to know, judging by your tone, that I and my projects tend to
go by just 'unstruck'. to avoid confusion i have taken the 'sound' out
of my email name. i hope this pleases you.

peace.

>
> Best Wishes
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com - join the tuning group.
> tuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com - unsubscribe from the tuning
> group.
> tuning-nomail@yahoogroups.com - put your email message delivery on
> hold for the tuning group.
> tuning-digest@yahoogroups.com - change your subscription to daily
> digest mode.
> tuning-normal@yahoogroups.com - change your subscription to
> individual emails.
> tuning-help@yahoogroups.com - receive general help information.
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

--
http://fastmail.fm - Get back to work

On Thu, 5 Sep 2002 11:30:08 -0700, "monz" <monz@attglobal.net> said:
> in case you haven't seen my Tuning Dictionary
> page about golden meantone:
> http://ww.ixpres.com/interval/dict/golden.htm
>
>

yes, i've been brousing through your wonderful website. I'm looking at
a few tunings, like golden meantone, 1/4 comma MT, blackjack, and
trying to determine which will be most suitable for me. thanks for
providing us all with such a wonderful resource. i was very pleased to
discover it, as well as this email list.

-unstruck.

>
> -monz
> "all roads lead to n^0"
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "unstruck sound" <unstruck@warpmail.net>
> To: <tuning@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 10:28 AM
> Subject: [tuning] guitar refretting
>
>
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I'm looking into refretting a guitar, and would love some input from
> > people who have some experience with this. Right now I'm leaning
> > towards golden meantone, with 19 frets per octave (possibly 21, to get
> > an approximate 8/7 and 7/4). I also looked into various JI
> > possibilities, Lucy Tuning, and some other meantones, but the GMT seems
> > to appeal to me the most. With 19 frets I could play in 12 keys,
> > although probably not with a piano player, as well as get a bunch of
> > reasonable 7-limit JI intervals.
> >
> > I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there who has made a golden
> > meantone guitar, or if anyone has any comments, positive or negative,
> > about doing this. Basically what I'm going off of now is some
> > spreadsheets I made and some guitar-detuning sessions to hear what
> > different chords would sound like. I'm not a synth guy, really.
> >
> > Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this, any serious drawbacks
> > of golden meantone?Any suggestions of other tunings I should look into
> > instead? I am, after all, relatively new to this (other than the years
> > of bending and detuning strings slightly) and am probably unaware of
> > some really interesting possibilities. I'm basically looking for
> > something that will give me nicer intonation and more tonal
> > possibilities than 12tet.
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> > unStruck.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor
>
> You do not need web access to participate. You may subscribe through
> email. Send an empty email to one of these addresses:
> tuning-subscribe@yahoogroups.com - join the tuning group.
> tuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com - unsubscribe from the tuning
> group.
> tuning-nomail@yahoogroups.com - put your email message delivery on
> hold for the tuning group.
> tuning-digest@yahoogroups.com - change your subscription to daily
> digest mode.
> tuning-normal@yahoogroups.com - change your subscription to
> individual emails.
> tuning-help@yahoogroups.com - receive general help information.
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
>

--
http://fastmail.fm - Click it, you'll feel better

--- In tuning@y..., "unstruck sound" <unstruck@w...> wrote:

> Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this, any serious drawbacks
> of golden meantone?

Obviously, it doesn't close into an equal temperament. In practice, I don't see why a golden meantone of 19 tones would have any special property, but it's an excellent meantone, near the Woolhouse.

--- In tuning@y..., "unstruck sound" <unstruck@w...> wrote:

> yes, i've been brousing through your wonderful website. I'm looking at
> a few tunings, like golden meantone, 1/4 comma MT, blackjack, and
> trying to determine which will be most suitable for me.

These are very different! What, exactly, are you looking for in a tuning?

In-Reply-To: <3D77B8C5.37FED99C@which.net>
> Nice name, Unstruck Sound, but that's the name of my orchestra,
> ensemble, website, other email
> address, etc. etc. Hmmm...

I found this one before when searching for your website:
<http://www.lawandauder.co.uk/xchromoz.htm>. From London, which may be
too close for comfort. You're probably safest with "Unsork".

Graham

In-Reply-To: <20020905172803.497972FD15@server4.fastmail.fm>
unstruck sound wrote:

> I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there who has made a golden
> meantone guitar, or if anyone has any comments, positive or negative,
> about doing this. Basically what I'm going off of now is some
> spreadsheets I made and some guitar-detuning sessions to hear what
> different chords would sound like. I'm not a synth guy, really.

I've got a meantone guitar, which is a compromise between golden and
quarter-comma. There's a write-up at
<http://x31eq.com/instrum.htm> and a still not linked picture
at <http://x31eq.com/pics/guitar.jpg>. Read John Starrett's
instructions carefully.

> Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this, any serious drawbacks
> of golden meantone?Any suggestions of other tunings I should look into
> instead? I am, after all, relatively new to this (other than the years
> of bending and detuning strings slightly) and am probably unaware of
> some really interesting possibilities. I'm basically looking for
> something that will give me nicer intonation and more tonal
> possibilities than 12tet.

Since doing the refretting, I've become more interested in 11-limit
harmony. So I play the guitar as if it were 31-equal. It would have
worked better if it really were a subset 31-equal. If you aren't sure
what you want I suggest you choose a tuning more 31-ish. If you don't end
up using the higher prime approximations, there's no loss. But if they do
interest you they will sound a lot cleaner in 31. The small spacings
don't get too small, although some chords become unplayable.

There are non-meantones that will work as well, but not with traditional
music. I think a 19-note meantone is a good fretting if you don't want to
leave diatonic music. If that's the way you're thinking, go for it! But
there's another school who are very happy with their 22-equal guitars, and
there are plenty of other possibilities. My current fad is for 29-equal
fretting and open strings tuned to neutral thirds. I don't know if I'll
ever get a real guitar to do that, but it'd probably work.

The best options are movable frets or interchangeable fretboards, but I'm
not up on the practicalities of those.

Graham

On 9/5/02 1:28 PM, "unstruck sound" <unstruck@warpmail.net> wrote:

> I'm just wondering if there's anyone out there who has made a golden
> meantone guitar, or if anyone has any comments, positive or negative,
> about doing this.

Yes I have a dedicated golden acoustic. In a rare instance of wanting not
so many notes, I stopped at 15. (Seven fourths, seven fifths, and the
octave.)

I also once had an electric golden. Up to a golden section of the fretboard
I had fretted in 50 notes an octave, the next golden section up to 31 etc...
had an interesting effect, wherever you looked on the fretboard seemed to be
the same size frets.

Golden's great, I used to sketch a lot of pop songs with it. Maybe it keeps
the part of the brain that's obsessed with symmetry occupied, I don't know.

What I would suggest, though, after making a lot of dedicated temperament
guitars or interchangeable fretboards at whim... do just that. If you want
to do it, do it. If you think you want to do it, don't ask anyone if you
should or shouldn't. If you think to do it, do it.

It's a little romance of muscle memory and artificial intelligence. If you
play microtonal guitar, after awhile, your hands know what they want to have
in them to play.

Marc

--

Cyberenaissance, Vol. 6 CD now available
featuring 32tET and 49tET guitar
http://www.orphonsoul.com

I'm responding to a few posts in this email, to avoid bogging down the
list...

[Genewardsmith]
> ...like golden meantone, 1/4 comma MT, blackjack, and
> trying to determine which will be most suitable for me.

These are very different! What, exactly, are you looking for in a
tuning?
[End quote]

I'm looking primarily for two things:
- 5- and 7-limit harmony better than 12tet. (higher than 7 would be a
bonus but is not a primary consideration at this time).
- playability on the guitar. (i had sort of ruled out 31-tet for this
reason).

I've been looking at such a variety simply because this is all quite
new to me. I'm used to thinking in terms of JI, but I'm not very
familiar with all the properties of various et's, mt's, etc.

[Genewardsmith]
> Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this, any serious drawbacks
> of golden meantone?

Obviously, it doesn't close into an equal temperament. In practice, I
don't see why a golden meantone of 19 tones would have any special
property, but it's an excellent meantone, near the Woolhouse.
[end quote]

Ok, a newbie question: in practice, if I don't intend on modulating
through all the keys in one piece, is the non-circular nature of a
meantone a huge issue? If my music tends towards being diatonic, is it
still going to be a serious drawback? I don't see why, but I could
definitely be missing something.

With 19 tones, the whole thing is symmetrical, and "contains" a 12-tone
phi-scale, which "contains" a 7-tone phi-scale which contains a
phi-pentatonic, each is embedded one inside the other. The next level
of symmetry appears to be 31 tones. If I continue adding frets after
19, they start to get really close together, which I'd like to avoid.
See
<http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/horagram04.htm>
for the special property of 5, 7, 12, 19, 31 tone gmt's.

[Graham]
Since doing the refretting, I've become more interested in 11-limit
harmony. So I play the guitar as if it were 31-equal. It would have
worked better if it really were a subset 31-equal. If you aren't sure
what you want I suggest you choose a tuning more 31-ish. If you don't
end
up using the higher prime approximations, there's no loss. But if they
do
interest you they will sound a lot cleaner in 31. The small spacings
don't get too small, although some chords become unplayable.
[end quote]

If I were doing a bass or a baritone guitar I would be more apt to try
31eq. But I will definitely look at some subsets of this scale. Could
you suggest some tunings that are "more 31-ish"?

[Graham]
There are non-meantones that will work as well, but not with
traditional
music. I think a 19-note meantone is a good fretting if you don't want
to
leave diatonic music.
[end quote]

That's basically what I have in mind, for starters at least. I'm
basically thinking of a "gateway drug" for microtonal music. I'd like
to be able to play traditional music (blues, jazz, carnatic, reggae,
etc.) with more pleasant intonation than 12tet, as well as introduce
7-limit harmony into my sonic pallet. I want a reasonably playable
7-limit guitar. I don't hear 11-limit inwardly yet. I can hear the
consonance of those intervals if I play them, but I don't tend to hear
them in my head and heart like I do 5- and 7-limit intervals.

[Graham]
The best options are movable frets or interchangeable fretboards, but
I'm
not up on the practicalities of those.
[end quote]

That's what I originally thought I wanted. Moveable frets would be
ideal. Nadaka has a guitar with moveable frets; the fretboard is cut
into sections which are mounted on the neck along two parallel dovetail
slots, I think. That seemed a little bit too elaborate for me.

[Marc]
What I would suggest, though, after making a lot of dedicated
temperament
guitars or interchangeable fretboards at whim... do just that. If you
want
to do it, do it. If you think you want to do it, don't ask anyone if
you
should or shouldn't. If you think to do it, do it.
[end quote]

I hear ya... make the Ideal Real, Now. I'm curious about the
interchangeable fretboards. Magnetic? How does this affect sustain,
tone, etc?

Thanks, everyone, for your feedback.

-unstruck
--
The fastest email on the Internet!
http://fastmail.fm - Choose from over 50 domains or use your own

On 9/6/02 1:12 PM, "unstruck" <unstruck@warpmail.net> wrote:

> I hear ya... make the Ideal Real, Now. I'm curious about the
> interchangeable fretboards. Magnetic? How does this affect sustain,
> tone, etc?

No. I rout out pieces of plywood and bolt them on. Certain temperaments
create a much longer sustain with the reinforcement of the frets, some are
much shorter. 41 equal can go on for like 10 seconds and 45 equal fades
like a xylophone.

How they affect the tone is, if you tour the physics of the wave on the
string, as it passes over each fret, there's a certain excited area that
amplifies the wave at that point. Each fret acts like a minature wall
that's closer to the source of the string and causes a more rapid echo than
the cavities in between. What took me about 10 years to realize is this
puts a notch at each fret point, on the way to the nut and on the way back
to the bridge, and there, within the fingerprint of the timbre, is every
note on the guitar fretboard, slightly teased by this sort of "goosebump"
effect.

In other words, the entire temperament is imbedded in every note you play.
Which makes playing the temperament intuitive and almost native(-able) to
the guitar. So since the frets are in different places in different
temperaments, you wind up with different reinforcements of these goosebump
wanna-be formants. So different fretboards sound different on the SAME
GUITAR.

In an extreme measure, if you fretted a guitar completely at random, the
"tuning" you had created would also be imbedded in each note. Since every
note you play more or less "modulates" a loop in the previous note, anything
you play can sound logical.

The quirkier the temperament is harmonically, the more distinct a timbre
it'll have. One thing a few people have noted about my CD is that, more
than just whether 32 or 49 are interesting, just how completely DIFFERENT
they sound.

Marc

--
Cyberenaissance, Vol. 6 now available
32tET and 49tET guitar suites
http://www.orphonsoul.com

--- In tuning@y..., "unstruck" <unstruck@w...> wrote:

> I'm responding to a few posts in this email, to avoid bogging down the
> list...

Given the low volume of late, I wouldn't worry.

> Ok, a newbie question: in practice, if I don't intend on modulating
> through all the keys in one piece, is the non-circular nature of a
> meantone a huge issue? If my music tends towards being diatonic, is it
> still going to be a serious drawback? I don't see why, but I could
> definitely be missing something.

People have been using meantone quite happily with twelve notes to the octave, and it has far greater transpositional possibilities with 19. The wolf fifth, 33.8 cents flat for golden meantone, should also be a little more usable than in the 12-note version. In any case, if you are doing diatonic music you *need* to be in meantone of some kind. If you are interested in 7-limit harmony, golden does pretty well; it's fifth is only about 3/7 of a cent flatter than an optimal value, and ends up giving you a seventh which is 6 2/3 cents flat; it is also more or less bang-on as optimal for 5-limit. A slightly sharper, 31-et or 1/4 meantone value, is an alternative worth considering.

> If I were doing a bass or a baritone guitar I would be more apt to try
> 31eq. But I will definitely look at some subsets of this scale. Could
> you suggest some tunings that are "more 31-ish"?

Just use 19 of the 31-et fifths.

tuning-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Finance - Get real-time stock quotes
http://finance.yahoo.com

>From: "unstruck"

>I'm looking primarily for two things:>- 5- and 7-limit harmony better than
12tet. (higher than 7 would be a>bonus but is not a primary consideration at
this time).>- playability on the guitar. (i had sort of ruled out 31-tet for
this>reason).Why not use a partial scale, like 19 out of 31? You're not going to
get any better 5/4 thirds or 7/4 sevenths with less than 31. Unless you use
25-tone for its thirds or 21-tone for its seventh, but both have lousy fifths.

I'm always going on about 53-tone (great fifth, really good third, okay
seventh), but that's a LOT of frets on a guitar, so 17 or something out of 53 is
a better solution, unless you really need more....

>I've been looking at such a variety simply because this is all quite
>new to me. I'm used to thinking in terms of JI, but I'm not very
>familiar with all the properties of various et's, mt's, etc.

I just now learned what a meantone is.

~Danny~

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: Click Here
[http://g.msn.com/1HM1ENUS/c144??PS=47575]

graham@microtonal.co.uk wrote:

> In-Reply-To: <3D77B8C5.37FED99C@which.net>
> > Nice name, Unstruck Sound, but that's the name of my orchestra,
> > ensemble, website, other email
> > address, etc. etc. Hmmm...
>
> I found this one before when searching for your website:
> <http://www.lawandauder.co.uk/xchromoz.htm>. From London, which may be
> too close for comfort. You're probably safest with "Unsork".
>
> Graham
>

Aargh, they're everywhere. Fortunately my music has little in common with drum'n'bass. But I'm
thinking of integrating the Doepfer A-100 system soon. Good spy Graham.

Regards

unstruck sound wrote:

>
>
> hmmm... so more than one of us identifies themselves with the mystical
> fount of music, the Anahata Nada. that's interesting. you'll be
> relieved to know, judging by your tone, that I and my projects tend to
> go by just 'unstruck'. to avoid confusion i have taken the 'sound' out
> of my email name. i hope this pleases you.
>
> peace.

Sorry if you detected a "tone". In fact I'm just so happy to see that there are others who "tune
in". I was so surprised and struck by the coincidence. Good to have you on the list.

Shantih

Hervé R. Chouard in Freising, Germany builds the Fret Mobile
system. On my shopping list.
<http://www.chouard.de/>

BTW, "unsound", it's sort of polite in forums such as this to
use your actual name. But maybe that's just me.

Cheers,
- Joel

Hervé R. Chouard in Freising, Germany builds the Fret Mobile
system. On my shopping list.
<http://www.chouard.de/>

BTW, "unsound", it's sort of polite in forums such as this to
use your actual name. But maybe that's just me.

Cheers,
- Joel

On Fri, 06 Sep 2002 14:02:45 -0400, "Orphon Soul, Inc."
<tuning@orphonsoul.com> said:
>
> How they affect the tone is, if you tour the physics of the wave on the
> string, as it passes over each fret, there's a certain excited area
> that
> amplifies the wave at that point. Each fret acts like a minature wall
> that's closer to the source of the string and causes a more rapid echo
> than
> the cavities in between. What took me about 10 years to realize is
> this
> puts a notch at each fret point, on the way to the nut and on the way
> back
> to the bridge, and there, within the fingerprint of the timbre, is
> every
> note on the guitar fretboard, slightly teased by this sort of
> "goosebump"
> effect.

That's really interesting; I never thought that would have a noticeable
effect, although it makes sense, especially for fretted notes, where
the string would be closer to the fretboard.. You're basically saying
that for each fret, there is a corresponding frequency that is implied
in the timbre (harmonic fingerprint) of the string, right? Like if I
only had frets at the harmonic nodes (of the open string), the
harmonics would be emphasized slightly, and if my guitar is 12tet,
12tet is embedded in the timbre of every note I play. That's
fascinating. Try that using midi pitch-bend. ;)

When slotting a new fretboard, do you (or anyone else reading this)
compensate for string tension by moving the frets slightly closer to
the nut (which would be equivalent to moving the nut closer to the
first fret, as in a normal nut compensation)? If so, how much, and
would you compensate all the frets by an equal amount, or differently
across the whole neck (since string tension will be higher for notes
fretted near the nut than in higher positions)?

Alternatively, could anyone suggest how I might calculate this
compensation? One way would be to determine experimentally the cents
deviation at different locations on the neck in 12tet, and compensate
the new fret slots accordingly (but this won't work that well if the
old frets aren't bang-on). Is there a more mathematical way to do it? I
guess I'm thinking of either determining experimental values and
averaging them out, or just moving all the frets 1mm or so closer to
the nut. Any comments?

Thanks.
-jeremy.

--
http://fastmail.fm - One of many happy users:
http://www.fastmail.fm/docs/quotes.html

On 9/9/02 12:17 PM, "unstruck" <unstruck@warpmail.net> wrote:

> You're basically saying that for each fret, there is a corresponding frequency
> that is implied in the timbre (harmonic fingerprint) of the string, right?

That's sort of the way I was trying to understand it for the longest time
but it doesn't really have anything to do with additional frequencies. It's
not exactly formants either. Not sure what to call it.

It was easy to imagine after awhile that it was something along the lines of
pinching harmonics. If you fully pinch a harmonic, you hear that harmonic
as a fundamental. If you partially pinch it, you hear that harmonic
emphasized in the original timbre.

Try this: vary the distance of the finger pinching, you can hear different
degrees of influence. Now imagine what a fret being so close to the string
is doing to it. Then extend that to the number of frets ALL effecting the
sound at once. Sure you can pinch a second or third harmonic but try
pinching them both at once.

As far as the difference between the sound reinforcement of a cavity versus
a fret, drone like "ahhh" and hold your hand a foot away from your mouth.
Then hold it three inches away. It's louder. Amplitude varies with
distance, so the reverberation of the string is quicker nearest the fret.

I THOUGHT I heard higher frequencies in the timbre. Anyone can tell
listening, the more frets there are, the brighter the timbre, so you imagine
it's higher harmonics. I had a metal fret guitar in 34. At the point where
I really wanted to play 17, I just removed every other fret. At one point I
dismantled the guitar and inspected all the electronics because I thought
something happened. The tone was completely different.

But. Imagine GRAPHICALLY morphing a sawtooth wave into a triangle wave.
You could spend lots of time trying to figure out the formula for changing
all the harmonic components over the course of time when, the easiest
dimension to explain the operation in is, you graphically morphed it.

Similarly you can try to "explain" this whole phenomena in terms of the
interaction of harmonics. You can try to explain guitar distortion in terms
of harmonics. If you apply a 5% noise variable to a digital audio clip, you
can try to sample the output and try to reanalyze the harmonics of it etc,
when the operation was actually only throwing in a noise percentage.

Without getting all into triple integrals and real time equations, here's a
way to visualize it.

Ever take a length of rope laid out straight and flick it? You see the
little bump "move" across it? This happens when you pluck a guitar string.
That "bump" bounces back and forth between the nut and bridge until the
string flattens itself out again.

That's what happens horizontally. What happens vertically is the wind from
the air pressure hits the fretboard area and bounces back. At the
fretpoints, the pressure is greater, so as the "bump" moves back over the
string, compared to the payback from the fret cavities, it has more
interference at the fretpoint. So as the bump moves over, it picks up
"spikes".

Over the course of monitoring the signal, the distance between a paticular
spike and it's reflection, is the wavelength of the note you'd get if you
fretted the string at the fret that caused that spike. So in a freeze frame
world dragging itself forward, as you play a note, every wavelength has a
way of teasing that it's going to loop at every note along the way. So
whatever the next note you play is, there's that much of a trace in it in
the previous note.

> Like if I only had frets at the harmonic nodes (of the open string), the
> harmonics would be emphasized slightly, and if my guitar is 12tet, 12tet is
> embedded in the timbre of every note I play.

It's more complicated when it comes to a guitar fretted with convex metal
with flat wooden sections in between. The routing I do leaves a very small
ridge in the wood, with an elliptical concave section in between each pair
of frets. It's not perfectly elliptical, somewhere between that and
beveled.

The ONLY way to really explain this comprehensively involves something I
haven't really been able to do yet. You'd have to map the air pressure
around a string. I've wanted to for some time, to see if I could maybe
devise a fine way of routing that would create interesting effects; maybe
purely elliptical, maybe beveled, maybe sinusoidal.

As a goof, years ago, my first 32 board was cut in RAMPS, like a sawtooth
wave. At the fretpoint, the wood would drop down and ramp up to the next
note. It sounded totally different from the 32 board I have now with the
more or less standardized concave spaces.

For that matter, though, I much prefer playing the 12 tone fretboard I have
carved over any fretted 12 guitar.

Anyway. I don't yet know how to explain it. The 31 tone fretboard I have
on my Strat copy sounds a lot more, like the 31 tone metal fret Les Paul I
used to have, than it does any other fretboard I put on the Strat.

In any case, it's not like I'm putting forth some kind of jerkoff "theory"
that different boards "should" sound different on the same guitar, I'm
speaking from 10 years of having 2 second experiences of musically
illiterate people say they can hear the difference... and just trying to
find a physics based explanation as to why.

Marc

--
Cyberenaissance, Vol. 6 now available
microtonal guitar suites
32 and 49 equal notes per octave
http://www.orphonsoul.com

Unstruckji,

Being a musician, and having spent a year in India, I
knew exactly what your name meant the moment I saw it.
I don't have vanity license plates, but it may amuse
you to hear that I decided over 20 years ago that if I
ever were to get them, I'd like to get ones that read:
22 SRUTIS!

I'd be interested to know more about Nadaka [One who
works with Nada (Sound)?] and his guitar with moveable
frets. What part of the world does he live in? Who
designed and built his guitar? Do his moveable frets
stretch right across the fretboard like the moveable
frets on a sitar, or are they broken into slide-able
little independent 'fretlets' like, say, the ones on
the guitars made in Germany in the 1980's by the late
Herr Vogt?

Since 1985 I have been the world's only source for
interchangeable fretboards. I can tell you that the
sustain and the volume are both somewhat affected by
the sound-robbing nature of the magnetic rubber sheet
which holds the interchangeable fretboards on the
neck, but that it's not that big of a loss of
loudness. You can always use a normal electric
pickup, or a piezo pickup, or a contact mike, if you
want more volume. I can send you my introductory
literature if you'ld like. What I sell is a kit which
contains all the materials needed to adapt the neck of
the guitar and to make four interchangeable
fretboards. I don't do luthery work myself, but I can
steer kit buyers to luthiers who have experience
adapting guitars to interchangeable fretboards using
my kits. The kits sell for $300.

--Mark Rankin

--- unstruck <unstruck@warpmail.net> wrote:
> I'm responding to a few posts in this email, to
> avoid bogging down the
> list...
>
> [Genewardsmith]
> > ...like golden meantone, 1/4 comma MT, blackjack,
> and
> > trying to determine which will be most suitable
> for me.
>
> These are very different! What, exactly, are you
> looking for in a
> tuning?
> [End quote]
>
> I'm looking primarily for two things:
> - 5- and 7-limit harmony better than 12tet. (higher
> than 7 would be a
> bonus but is not a primary consideration at this
> time).
> - playability on the guitar. (i had sort of ruled
> out 31-tet for this
> reason).
>
> I've been looking at such a variety simply because
> this is all quite
> new to me. I'm used to thinking in terms of JI, but
> I'm not very
> familiar with all the properties of various et's,
> mt's, etc.
>
> [Genewardsmith]
> > Can anyone think of any reasons not to do this,
> any serious drawbacks
> > of golden meantone?
>
> Obviously, it doesn't close into an equal
> temperament. In practice, I
> don't see why a golden meantone of 19 tones would
> have any special
> property, but it's an excellent meantone, near the
> Woolhouse.
> [end quote]
>
> Ok, a newbie question: in practice, if I don't
> intend on modulating
> through all the keys in one piece, is the
> non-circular nature of a
> meantone a huge issue? If my music tends towards
> being diatonic, is it
> still going to be a serious drawback? I don't see
> why, but I could
> definitely be missing something.
>
> With 19 tones, the whole thing is symmetrical, and
> "contains" a 12-tone
> phi-scale, which "contains" a 7-tone phi-scale which
> contains a
> phi-pentatonic, each is embedded one inside the
> other. The next level
> of symmetry appears to be 31 tones. If I continue
> adding frets after
> 19, they start to get really close together, which
> I'd like to avoid.
> See
>
<http://www.elvenminstrel.com/music/tuning/horagrams/horagram04.htm>
> for the special property of 5, 7, 12, 19, 31 tone
> gmt's.
>
> [Graham]
> Since doing the refretting, I've become more
> interested in 11-limit
> harmony. So I play the guitar as if it were
> 31-equal. It would have
> worked better if it really were a subset 31-equal.
> If you aren't sure
> what you want I suggest you choose a tuning more
> 31-ish. If you don't
> end
> up using the higher prime approximations, there's no
> loss. But if they
> do
> interest you they will sound a lot cleaner in 31.
> The small spacings
> don't get too small, although some chords become
> unplayable.
> [end quote]
>
> If I were doing a bass or a baritone guitar I would
> be more apt to try
> 31eq. But I will definitely look at some subsets of
> this scale. Could
> you suggest some tunings that are "more 31-ish"?
>
> [Graham]
> There are non-meantones that will work as well, but
> not with
> traditional
> music. I think a 19-note meantone is a good
> fretting if you don't want
> to
> leave diatonic music.
> [end quote]
>
> That's basically what I have in mind, for starters
> at least. I'm
> basically thinking of a "gateway drug" for
> microtonal music. I'd like
> to be able to play traditional music (blues, jazz,
> carnatic, reggae,
> etc.) with more pleasant intonation than 12tet, as
> well as introduce
> 7-limit harmony into my sonic pallet. I want a
> reasonably playable
> 7-limit guitar. I don't hear 11-limit inwardly yet.
> I can hear the
> consonance of those intervals if I play them, but I
> don't tend to hear
> them in my head and heart like I do 5- and 7-limit
> intervals.
>
> [Graham]
> The best options are movable frets or
> interchangeable fretboards, but
> I'm
> not up on the practicalities of those.
> [end quote]
>
> That's what I originally thought I wanted. Moveable
> frets would be
> ideal. Nadaka has a guitar with moveable frets; the
> fretboard is cut
> into sections which are mounted on the neck along
> two parallel dovetail
> slots, I think. That seemed a little bit too
> elaborate for me.
>
> [Marc]
> What I would suggest, though, after making a lot of
> dedicated
> temperament
> guitars or interchangeable fretboards at whim... do
> just that. If you
> want
> to do it, do it. If you think you want to do it,
> don't ask anyone if
> you
> should or shouldn't. If you think to do it, do it.
> [end quote]
>
> I hear ya... make the Ideal Real, Now. I'm curious
> about the
> interchangeable fretboards. Magnetic? How does this
> affect sustain,
> tone, etc?
>
> Thanks, everyone, for your feedback.
>
> -unstruck
> --
> The fastest email on the Internet!
> http://fastmail.fm - Choose from over 50 domains or
> use your own
>

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! News - Today's headlines
http://news.yahoo.com