Steve Nukather
Well-known member
My tuner is a Peterson Strobostomp 2. It has equal temperament, sweetened guitar, and Buzz Feiten presets. What is the recommended setting to use with a Music Man compensated nut?
- Thread starter Steve Nukather
- Start date
DrKev
Moderator
Equal temperament should work best.
Equal temperament is how the frets of guitars are laid out. It is a mathematical compromise dividing the octave scale is into 12 equal steps. In equal temperament the only truly perfect interval is the octave and everything else is a little off what the ear would ideally like to hear but we don't have to retune the instrument each time we change key. This is why C# and Db are the same note no matter what key we are in. All instruments with notes of fixed pitch (e.g. fretted instruments, pianos, keyboards, organs) use equal temperament for determining the pitches of notes.
Guitars of course are imperfect instruments, the strings go slightly sharp when we fret and each string has different characteristics and so goes out of tune a different amount, and the end result is a awful sounding instrument. This is why the guitar requires compensation at the bridge saddles, and compensated nuts add an extra improvement and helps to avoid issues with some chords and the open strings.
The Peterson sweetened tuning is an attempt to deal with some of those tuning issues on guitars with non-compensated nuts. Try it and see but it certainly does not work well for me!
The Buzz Feiten system requires nut compensation of it's own and specific offsets to string intonation. Unless you have a Buzz Feiten-equipped guitar, it probably won't work for you.
Equal temperament is how the frets of guitars are laid out. It is a mathematical compromise dividing the octave scale is into 12 equal steps. In equal temperament the only truly perfect interval is the octave and everything else is a little off what the ear would ideally like to hear but we don't have to retune the instrument each time we change key. This is why C# and Db are the same note no matter what key we are in. All instruments with notes of fixed pitch (e.g. fretted instruments, pianos, keyboards, organs) use equal temperament for determining the pitches of notes.
Guitars of course are imperfect instruments, the strings go slightly sharp when we fret and each string has different characteristics and so goes out of tune a different amount, and the end result is a awful sounding instrument. This is why the guitar requires compensation at the bridge saddles, and compensated nuts add an extra improvement and helps to avoid issues with some chords and the open strings.
The Peterson sweetened tuning is an attempt to deal with some of those tuning issues on guitars with non-compensated nuts. Try it and see but it certainly does not work well for me!
The Buzz Feiten system requires nut compensation of it's own and specific offsets to string intonation. Unless you have a Buzz Feiten-equipped guitar, it probably won't work for you.
