Most guitars are manufactured to give the highest yield (least rejections) from their quality control. Inherently this means the action (string height), and nut string slot depth are set too high, the intonation may be set close but not to an optimal position. Higher end, more expensive guitars are made to a higher quality standard with generally lower action and better nut string depth, but still not optimal, and you pay a much higher price for that attention to detail.

The result is, without a proper after market setup, a guitar will be quite hard to play (due to high action), and play out of tune due to various reasons. Many players think “ that is just how guitars are” and get used to playing it that way, not knowing it can be setup to play much easier, but also play    in tune  over the whole fingerboard with much more resonant tone.  How is this possible ? With a good setup and a Custom Compensated Nut.

When you fret a chord you are pressing the strings down to the frets, and stretching each string slightly to a sharper pitch. Because each string is a different diameter and therefore a different mass, they each stretch   at a different rate,   and therefore go out of tune with each other, as well as out of tune with any open tuned string you are playing at the time. . The higher the strings, the worse the tuning problem. This IS the key factor that causes most all guitars to have tuning issues to some degree or another. Many players mistakenly think that if a

guitar is well intonated at the 12th fret then there is nothing more you can do to make the tuning better. Not true.  While proper intonation at the 12th fret is important, it is only one factor in a well setup guitar.

Other factors determining tunability and playing ease, are nut slot depth, how level the frets are relative to one another, string height (action), string gauge, fret height vs string gauge . A good setup including a custom compensated nut will address all of these issues.

What is a compensated nut ?? A compensated nut is similar to intonation at the bridge. The strings are made longer at the bridge in various amounts to “compensate” for the sharpness occurring when fretting a string at the 12th fret. Making the string longer, lowers the pitch at the 12th fret so that when fretted, the pitch at the 12th fret is the same as it is at that strings “open” tuning pitch, just an octave higher.

Compensating a nut does the same thing at the nut, but for different reasons. It “balances” the ratio between the scale length and the fretted length of each string, so that all of the sharpness differences between the strings near the nut and over the whole fret board are as non-existent as tolerances will allow and therefore in nearly perfect tune. A bit difficult in concept to understand but amazingly it works!

If you would like a more detailed description see Dennis Hook or call 916-354-1086