Earvana Drop in nut for warmoth neck (whats your thoughts?)

[Cagey]

A tuner is instrumentation.

 

[swarfrat]

Thats a slide <and probably alcohol + whatever else>, so you can't blame the nut. But man talk about fingernails on a blackboard.

 

[Cagey]

Thats a slide <and probably alcohol + whatever else>, so you can't blame the nut. But man talk about fingernails on a blackboard.

Yeah, that one makes you wonder.

 

[Alfang]

Are you guys all just jumping on the same bandwagon to sound like you know what your talking about? or have you actually done some research?

The earvana nut is not intended to help open chords sound better at all, but rather to help your mid and upper chords 7-12th fret sound better.

when you intonate a normal guitar you are setting it up for open chords, and the further up the neck you go the worse that damn b string sounds, the earvana was created to fix all that, And in my opinion it does exactly that.

I have one on one of my guitars and the difference is noticable to me, and my hearing is shot.  I won't build another guitar without one.

To those of you that say its hype, or can't hear the difference, well good for you I guess. It only helps when chording, a solo player would never hear the advantage. It's all about keeping strings in harmony together

 

[jay4321]

Are you guys all just jumping on the same bandwagon to sound like you know what your talking about? or have you actually done some research?

The earvana nut is not intended to help open chords sound better at all, but rather to help your mid and upper chords 7-12th fret sound better.

I'm surprised to hear you say that, the intonation improvements for me have been vastly more on fretted notes closest to the nut. The Earvana site itself seems say the same, also see the strobe tuner test they posted with notes being sharp on a standard guitar. http://www.earvana.com/technology.htm

More than that I'd say that the intonation on the rest of the guitar wasn't a dramatic difference, though I don't recall having a horrible problem with this before trying Earvana, provided the guitar was set up properly.

 

[Funky Phil]

Perhaps you would find this a help...http://www.guitarsetup.co.uk/nuts-about-intonation.php

(I am NOT trying to sell anything by the way...I just think that the information in this (quite long....sorry) page would be of some use to those new to the concept of intonation.)

 

[jay4321]

This should remove any doubt. This was a luthier's measurement of the amount of compensation that the Earvana gives to a Fender-scale guitar, and you can see that it's far more drastic toward the nut (and on the very high frets). There's very little compensation going on around fret 12 at all.

http://collinsluthiery.com/images/EarvanaFender.jpg

 

[Cagey]

The earvana nut is not intended to help open chords sound better at all, but rather to help your mid and upper chords 7-12th fret sound better.

I'm surprised to hear you say that, the intonation improvements for me have been vastly more on fretted notes closest to the nut. The Earvana site itself seems say the same, also see the strobe tuner test they posted with notes being sharp on a standard guitar. http://www.earvana.com/technology.htm

More than that I'd say that the intonation on the rest of the guitar wasn't a dramatic difference, though I don't recall having a horrible problem with this before trying Earvana, provided the guitar was set up properly.

That's been my experience as well. I only really hear the difference on chords played closer to the nut, particularly those that include open strings. It's especially noticeable if you deliberately produce a lot of harmonic distortion.

 

[jay4321]

Funky Phil, on your site you say this about Earvanas,

"IMO, the offsets are incorrect, being considerably exaggerated"

Which seems to agree with what DC and others have said of it, as if it's "over-compensating" a bit.

I've been trying to find better measurements to do a 12-string at some point, and have a 2-piece bone one made. I take it during your experiments you filed back the G and B strings a little bit? How much do you think it's off by?

 

[kboman]

This should remove any doubt. This was a luthier's measurement of the amount of compensation that the Earvana gives to a Fender-scale guitar, and you can see that it's far more drastic toward the nut (and on the very high frets). There's very little compensation going on around fret 12 at all.

http://collinsluthiery.com/images/EarvanaFender.jpg

Yeah, that G string. The damn thing is my nemesis :sad1:

 

[Funky Phil]

This should remove any doubt. This was a luthier's measurement of the amount of compensation that the Earvana gives to a Fender-scale guitar, and you can see that it's far more drastic toward the nut (and on the very high frets). There's very little compensation going on around fret 12 at all.

http://collinsluthiery.com/images/EarvanaFender.jpg

That's pretty much what I would have expected...most strings are over compensated.
Notice that the over compensation results in the lower fret being flat, and the upper frets sharp.

With my Funky Nut, I was going for as close to no flat or sharp notes...i.e. as close to the tuning of an electronic keyboard.
The results still depend on how hard the notes are fretted...I went for best intonation with a good, light-ish fretting technique.
(I have also made Funky Nuts with a bit more compensation for those who play with a bit more "passion"!)

 

[Funky Phil]

Funky Phil, on your site you say this about Earvanas,

"IMO, the offsets are incorrect, being considerably exaggerated"

Which seems to agree with what DC and others have said of it, as if it's "over-compensating" a bit.

I've been trying to find better measurements to do a 12-string at some point, and have a 2-piece bone one made. I take it during your experiments you filed back the G and B strings a little bit? How much do you think it's off by?

My approach is to calculate the correct uncompensated nut to 1st fret distance for the guitar.
Stew Mac have a calculator on their site...
This prevents problems with the original nut position (amazingly common, especially on non-Fender style nuts e.g Gibson, most acoustice, etc)

Go for a maximum offset of about 0.025" or so...more if you are a little heavy handed! (say about 0.035")

The Earvana G string is offest by about 3 times this!

You want the least compensation on the top E strings, a bit more on the B strings.
The octave pairs are the tricky bit...less compensation on the octave strings, more on the bass strings....most on the low E.

I hope this helps.

 

[B3Guy]

hey Funky Phil . . . I noticed in your Funky Nut thread that you wanted to make them more widely available to those overseas, but didn't want people w/o experience mucking up installation and then complaining about it. Why not sell them to a luthier with a good rep over here under condition that they install any Funky Nut purchased from them (not let the customer self-install)? You get to sell Funky Nut, I get to buy it, and it is still installed by a pro (not you, but someone of your choosing). Just make sure you get it copyrighted before sending them off, or others might start making their own, calling them "Junky Butts" or something.

 

[bagman67]

Yeah, that G string. The damn thing is my nemesis :sad1:

That's what she said.

Sorry, I just don't have anything to add to this conversation, which I have been watching avidly for some reason.  I reckon I'll get an LSR nut when I finally spring for my W neck (come on, year end BONUS!) and swap the "cutting the nut correctly" problem for the "it's not gonna intonate like an Earvana/Buzz Feiten/whatever else you got" problem (that only began to exist when Earvana et al. started selling imperfect but at least not completely bogus solutions).

Rant mode *OFF*

Peace

Bagman

 

[Cagey]

I reckon I'll get an LSR nut when I finally spring for my W neck (come on, year end BONUS!) and swap the "cutting the nut correctly" problem for the "it's not gonna intonate like an Earvana/Buzz Feiten/whatever else you got" problem (that only began to exist when Earvana et al. started selling imperfect but at least not completely bogus solutions).

The LSRs really are the best thing all the way around. They don't wear, they're cut perfectly, they fit a variety of string gauges correctly without modification, you can adjust the string height at the first fret if you need to, you don't need string trees and they never hang up your strings. What's not to love?

Well...

• They only come in satin finish SS, so if you'd rather black or gold you're gonna go begging
• They're not cheap - by the time Warmoth cuts the slot ($40) and sells you the nut ($44), you're down $84 and you still have to install it. But, that's not hard once the slot's cut and it's not like you're buying them all the time. Once per neck ought to do it, so you can amortize that cost over the expected life of the instrument.
• Finally, they only come 1 11/16" wide, so you gotta love that neck width.

 

[Ace Flibble]

The LSR is the clear winner for anyone with a traditional vibrato bridge but for hardtails its quite pointless. I've noticed Earvana nuts to be the opposite. I put one in a Fender Strat and it didn't get on with that at all, but the ones which came already installed on my ESP and my two LTDs (both tune-o-matic bridges) are magical - everything is intonated almost perfectly across the whole neck, only being at most one single cent out in a few areas. I fitted one to an Epiphone Firebird as well and that mostly works, seems a little off on the higher frets and the 1st fret G string is off, but otherwise it's still better than a regular nut. That said I am tempted to fit an LSR to my next Tele neck just so I don't have to faff about with string retainers or getting those damn Sperzels to fit.

What I'm interested in is Warmoth's compensated nut vs the Earvana drop-ins. The Earvanas are cheaper than getting Warmoth to cut and fit one for you and don't require that LSR nut slot, but they only come in a handful of sizes. Warmoth's compensated nuts are of course more expensive and if you need to replace it you're a little buggered, but they are cut specifically for your neck's radius and fret size, which is a big advantage. I'd be interested to see how the Warmoth compensated nut fares on an unusual size like a 1 5/8" width, 13" radius fretboard with 6115 fret wire. If Warmoth really can cut something to compensate for any fretboard then I think that is worth more than the money you'll save by having a regular nut slot cut and fitting a generic Earvana nut yourself.

 

[lilguitar]

A tuner is instrumentation.

That was my point Cagey...my intonation and tuning is perfect without the Earvana checked with a tuner.  Someone followed up to my original post saying that such minute differences expected from the Earvana could only be checked with instrumentation....ummm, I already stated I used a tuner, hence my sarcastic remark about it.  Perhaps someone misread my post...

After my experience I'm still not convinced...and there is still the issue with the higher action...the drop in raised my action 2mm.

 

[Cagey]

That was me that pointed out that you need instrumentation to see the difference the Earvana nut makes. The following chart from Earvana's site documents the correction their nut makes...

You'll notice that the largest difference is only 4 cents, with most of the corrections being smaller than that. The thing is, the human ear can typically only hear differences of 5 cents or larger, and then only in young children with "fresh" ears. [reference] The range for adults is much larger. So, the chances of you hearing any difference when playing single notes are slim to none, and most (although not all) tuners simply aren't that accurate. They don't need to be.

However, it seems that when notes are combined into chords, there are resonances and dissonances resulting from "beat" frequencies that are much more obvious, and when the Earvana nut is employed the corrections it makes are audible. That's why you'll hear people say the Earvana nut doesn't seem to make much difference except when you're playing "cowboy" chords, or chords that include open strings. My own experience seems to bear that out. When I tune the guitar up that has an Earvana on it, the open chords seem to "shimmer" (for lack of a better word). They just sound... better.

Of course, it could just be the power of suggestion that spending $70 on a nut brings <grin>

 

[swarfrat]

Being able to distinguish a pitch difference between two tones sequentially and being able to hear the dissonance caused by out of tune notes [almost] harmonizing with each other is two entirely different things. Particularly when you throw in overtones of the whole mishmash generated by your amp/pedals.

 

[Rickgrxbass]

Of course, it could just be the power of suggestion that spending $70 on a nut brings <grin>

Well, I don't know about that, but I know my stainless steel frets give me better articulation :icon_thumright: