Garrison guitars

It's nice to hear the kind of quotes as I read on the buzzfeiten.com site... I've been telling people for years that I tune between each capo move for a reason, and they should too...

Nice to know I'm right...

At least the folks at Fret Wave explain how their system works, despite their crappy website.

Sincereley

Bruce L.

I spent a while looking around the site to find out what the system actually did, but as you say, no mention.

Does anybody here know?

Ed

You may be right. To describe it as an 'invention' a 'tremendous innovation' and to trade mark it seems to suggest a 'thing'

Ed

I would recommend paying close attention to the contributions from Norton 1

Murray

Imagine a 8 foot length of 2"x4" suspended at both ends. How much force would be required to deflect it at the centre by 2 inches ? Now think, how much force would be required to deflect it by 2 inches at a point say, 12 inches in from the end?

Apply the same thinking to guitar strings, and it all becomes obvious.

Murray

At the end of the day, it is one of these things that has to be decided by mass acclamation. How many players have had the customizatoion done and expressed dissatisfaction with the results?

Damn few, if any, would be my guess.

Murray

Murray

There's a lot to be said against it too, of course, but that's how it goes with everything.

On balance, for social purposes, limiting the chord shapes I use seems to work best for me. (And if it means people assume I can't play the other chords, so what, and I know better.)

Murray

Mudcat's list of luminaries grows daily ....

Murray

Not a large if one hasn't the sound for it or the subtle differences aren't a handicap. Most people are so used to retuning if they capo, and putting up with a bit of "off" in the notes at the higher frets, that they don't think about it much. It does make a difference in how the instrument sounds though.

An instrument "resonates" with itself (there are ample discussions on this forum on that subject) and the more in tune it is with itself the better it will sound. It's aliveness is what I am referring to. Intonating the instrument does make a difference in how it sounds and how it tunes. It does eliminate the chore of retuning each time you move around or accepting less than what the instrument is capable of at the higher frets.

There are a few drawbacks. Once intonated you can not change the diameter of the strings. You might get away with .001 on the larger strings but not the high E end of things for sure. If you decide to change strings from light to medium you will have to have the instrument intonated, Feitenized, again for that set of strings. At $250 a pop for intonating get the strings right the first time! Or win the lotto :-) And I cannot respond to different tunings. I don't play in anything but E tuning so am at a loss there.

I had my Mossman done and am extremely pleased with it. Ol' Mose always sounded good but after I had it redone - WOW! On my Gurian I have opted to not do it. The Gurian sounds just the way I want it to and I rarely capo with it - when I do I do a bit of retuning - and I am not sure I am going to leave light gauge strings on it. It was built for mediums and I may go to them eventually. Maybe in a year or two -

String height is the same as before. Nothing changes in the basic setup of the instrument. To get the instrument intonated does require moving the bridge an 1/8" or so with special attention paid to the "B" string. It isn't a simple shift - but a process of filing, stringing and testing, and filing some more. I had a web page on this but lost it when my puter crashed a couple of weeks ago. It's labor intensive and whoever does it needs to be competent in knowing your guitar and how it sets up.

I've just touched on this but others above have pointed you towards other threads on this subject that contain a lot of good info. If you would like to know more I will mark this thread to follow and try to answer with my experiences with this tuning. Or send me a PM and I'll answer specific questions about it for you. I did a lot of research before I had the work done. Remember - it's nothing new - Feiten just put a name to it and made a tuner for it. And there are lots of opinions on whether it is good or not. I just happen to be quite pleased with it.

Steve

We get used to them, and the others sound wrong; but then foreign languages can sound like gibberish, till you've learnt to listen to them, even when you can't speak them, and then they start to make sense, even when you can't understand them. Music's the same.

If thats how he wants his guitar to sound that's up to him. He's the one that's playing it.

Standar guitar tuning is a compromise at best.

You can tune the open strings perfectly but the intonation will vary from key to key.

I think I've heard standard tuning described as 'tempered' which probably means making the best of a bad job.

String height from the bridge, and the force you use to hit or fret the string will also make a big difference.

The 'Guitar Book' by Tom Wheeler explained this in great detail and is well worth a read if you can get hold of it.

While we're at it, Indian musicians use a 100 cent scale per octave instead of our miserable eight note job.(Phew!)

Ry Cooder's advice on slide playing was to "move up and down the neck until you can stand it."

Apologies to any real musicians or fruit bats.....