Nut materials

[Jacew]

Re: Nut materials

GuitarDoc: I don't believe nut material can change the tone of fretted strings either. It's pretty obvious. However, your attack here is completely unnecessary and unasked for. There's nothing inherently wrong with the comparisons Clint has made, and they seem "as expected". I really appreciate your expertise, and have found it useful at a times, but posting here just for the sake of argument like that, without providing anything useful, is not going to do good for your credibility.

 

[RorySquier]

Re: Nut materials

This thread is driving me nutz!

;>)/

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Nut materials

I don't post unless I'm positive what I've said is true. But if someone else says something which is closer to the right idea or proves my post false all together, I'll either edit my post or delete it. I have a brass nut in one strat and a plastic nut in another. It's ridiculously obvious that the nut affects closed notes as well if you even bother to listen instead of pre fabricate an answer. I don't mind debating, that was the purpose of this thread, to discuss opinions and principles. But when you start insinuating that I'm a moron that you as my superior have to explain to me how to feed myself it gets kind of annoying especially since I'm right in the first place.

Your humility is admirable.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Nut materials

Arrg. Well your premise is incorrect that my opinion has to do with my lack of experience, intelligence, logic, or method. I started out with the same idea as you but then it was proven otherwise to me. Sometimes the difference wasn't only about subjective tone, sometimes if the nut was bad, the poor sound was just downright unusable. All the notes. Like when I had a hollow plastic nut shimmed on a business card on my LP special 2. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't completely ruining the tone of my closed note playing because "it shouldn't" but it does.

 

[GoldenVulture]

Re: Nut materials

I have a Humming Bird copy that I bought back in 79. It came with a nasty hollow plastic nut that split apart at the 1st string slot. I went and bought a couple of nut blanks made of Ivory [ It was still available back then ].
I cut the blank myself and fitted it.
The most noticeable thing was the improved tonal response overall, playing open or fretted notes/chords. The difference was vast. Nut material makes a big difference overall.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Nut materials

Arrg. Well your premise is incorrect that my opinion has to do with my lack of experience, intelligence, logic, or method. I started out with the same idea as you but then it was proven otherwise to me. Sometimes the difference wasn't only about subjective tone, sometimes if the nut was bad, the poor sound was just downright unusable. All the notes. Like when I had a hollow plastic nut shimmed on a business card on my LP special 2. I tried to convince myself that it wasn't completely ruining the tone of my closed note playing because "it shouldn't" but it does.

You make a claim based on your experience. Someone disagrees with your claim, based on their own experience. You tell them they're wrong and repeatedly go on about how you are right.

I put one of those lap steel conversion nuts on my Epiphone earlier. I put a capo on the third fret, and retuned. I played it. I took the capo and conversion nut off, so the strings were back on the Tusq nut, then capoed at the third fret and retuned again. Get ready to tell me I'm wrong, but it didn't sound any different either way. After that, I barred the strings with my finger at the third fret. Sounded the same as when I had it capoed.

If things in the non-vibrating portion of the string affect the tone, why doesn't a chunk of metal and rubber clamped tightly around the strings make any difference?

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Nut materials

I've changed a few nuts and I don't think the nut can affect the sound of un-fretted notes either but...

You know what I REALLY wish for? You know how we have all these stupid arguments about which wood sounds warmer/which pickups sound fuller/what material you should wipe your ass with before you play? There are ways to do an actual frequency analysis, and compare those items directly; yet no one ever backs anything up with such data. I don't have the capability, but a lot of people DO and not seeing them use it is frustrating, to be honest. Not only just for the sake of knowing, but to settle stupid arguments like these.

Aside from that, Zen guys... Zen. I think a lot of people here are convinced one way or another of their "correctness" and have a somewhat legitimate fear that young/impressionable guitarists are going to go chasing windmills/changing nuts, and probably ****ing up fretboards while they're at it. Don't let that fear rule you. Be comforted that there's not really anywhere on the internet where it's ever been stated that the nut can affect fretted note tone, except for twelve inches above the imaginary paper we're writing on now.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Nut materials

You know it's possible that in your cases the nut's effect was imperceptible, while in my case it was obvious. That still means the nut affects the whole sound. It doesn't mean I'm lying or off my rocker (or that you're wrong about your experiences). It means we have tested in different ways.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Nut materials

When testing is done, it should be such that the only variable is the one you are trying to test. Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think this is the case in any of the 'tests' you have presented here on this forum.

 

[JB_From_Hell]

Re: Nut materials

You know it's possible that in your cases the nut's effect was imperceptible, while in my case it was obvious. That still means the nut affects the whole sound. It doesn't mean I'm lying or off my rocker (or that you're wrong about your experiences). It means we have tested in different ways.

You know, it is possible to say we each heard what we heard without saying, "but I'm still right!"

Seriously though, I believe that you think it affects fretted notes, while I do not. I'm agreeing to disagree.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Nut materials

Ok JB.

What are you talking about Alex. My LP went from dead with the hollow plastic nut, to punchy but too middy with the micarta, to punchy but balanced with the plastic slab. I didn't change anything else.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Nut materials

Did you change the strings at the time you changed the nut???
Your biggest time noticing the tonal difference could well have been including other tonal elements.

But my point was mainly about the original post and how you described tonal differences you'd found but with a range of different guitars.......and perhaps even a range of original nut materials too.
But even more than that some of your other 'experiments' have also completely lacked isolation of 1 variable. It is impossible to ascribe tonal variances if the goalposts are moving.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Nut materials

Ok agreed. No, I would use the same strings.

 

[AlexR]

Re: Nut materials

Its very hard - on the other topic - to tell if nut material is affecting fretted notes.
When you depress the string you don't take the tension of the string.....you simply press against the 'elasticity'. The nut will still have the same amount of force applied downward (or fractionally more actually), and the tuners still take the tuning tension.

My thoughts are that there will be some/moderate influence from the tuners/nut regardless of the open vs fretted. But whereas the tuners are more of a constant tonal 'filter', the nut will be more/less depending.......
But of course testing this is nigh on impossible as there is no 'nut-less' guitar you can make to see the 'control'. Structural aspects like this can only be assessed on a 'theoretical physics-based' type basis, and as anecdotal evidence via testing of different nuts.

 

[JeffB]

Re: Nut materials

"Anything that touches the strings, is God"

Paul Reed Smith

"Especially your fingers"

JeffB

 

[GuitarDoc]

Re: Nut materials

... especially since I'm right in the first place.

Kinda proves my point!

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Nut materials

My thoughts are that there will be some/moderate influence from the tuners/nut regardless of the open vs fretted. But whereas the tuners are more of a constant tonal 'filter', the nut will be more/less depending.......

The mass of different tuners hanging on the headstock 'seems like' it would have a bigger impact than whatever effect their material alone would have on fretted strings.

The only way (that I can picture in my mind) for the nut/tuner material to affect that is if there was a certain amount of "give" in those materials that became evident when the string was plucked; sort of like how if you really hit the strings on a trem guitar you can get a big BOING/vibrato (I'll highlight that this can occur on a Fender Mustang trem, both because it's a helpful visual representation of the the trem being entirely behind the bridge, and because it's really easy to do on a Mustang.) Is that along the lines of what you're saying could occur with the nut/tuners?

But of course testing this is nigh on impossible as there is no 'nut-less' guitar you can make to see the 'control'. Structural aspects like this can only be assessed on a 'theoretical physics-based' type basis, and as anecdotal evidence via testing of different nuts.

Because you're knowledgeable: It seems like this could be tested for, doesn't it? There would have to be a very careful setup of the experiment, but could a spectrum graph not be produced to analyze each nut type? I've seen people do similar things with speakers, there's even a guy on Youtube who modded some pedals and put a sine wave through them, then compared the graph plots.

I obviously haven't thought much about doing this myself, but I now wonder if there's any app for my MacBook that would work with a guitar connected to my interface...

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Nut materials

https://youtu.be/sTnxpVJ852k

Brass nut eq test

The bass example is very revealing. He's playing mostly closed notes but you can both hear a difference and see the difference on the frequency analyzer.

 

[Silence Kid]

Re: Nut materials

https://youtu.be/sTnxpVJ852k

Brass nut eq test

The bass example is very revealing. He's playing mostly closed notes but you can both hear a difference and see the difference on the frequency analyzer.

I need to listen to it in full/more thoroughly; I skipped around a bit for now because I don't have twenty minutes. But it seems like he only plays full open chords or open notes (when you say "closed notes" do you mean fretted? If so it was quick and I skipped past it or something.) If there aren't isolated fretted notes it doesn't give much insight as to whether there's a true difference... On top of that I think the issue is still unsettled until the variable of different picking is removed.

 

[Clint 55]

Re: Nut materials

It's the last example at the end of the video played on a bass. It's a bassline in A minor pentatonic. So either most or half of the notes are fretted.