Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello dear fellows... I am attempting to build a fanfret guitar, and the issue of compensation has been bothering me... Does compensation on a fanfret follow the same rules as on a regular scaled guitar? My guitar is going to have a fixed saddle, so this is an issue I would like to figure out ahead of time... Thanks for your input...

Eugene

Maybe you're just a perfectionist... but nut compensation on a fanned fret guitar seems a little like overkill to me. I am very interested in other opinions though, and nut compensation has been consuming my focus for a good few weeks now.

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Captainate

How can compensation be overkill? If you take the time, the money and the patience to build a guitar, by hand, and moreover, fanfretted, why would you build it off-tuned..!?

Eugene, if you want my opinion, there's no overkill. If you make a perfect (or almost) compensation on your guitar, it's a little touch that will make a huge difference. I guess you can find the stats somewhere, or from some body. And if not... there are ways to calculate it.

Francis

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Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Calculate the compensation for the 6th at your longer scale and the 1st for your shorter scale. Draw a line between the two and you should be fine.

Dave

What are the scale you are using? My only multiscale guitar used the 24.9 and 25.4 scales. I usually use the same compensation for both with no trouble. The trouble with multiscale saddles is just that they take a lot of fussing to get right, at least for me as my little locator stick won't work. Just do the fussing and you'll be ok.

By the by, I believe the OP is talking about saddle compensation and not nut compensation although, nut compensation is certainly worth looking into. My nut is compensated half a fret saw kerf or .010" which I believe to be just about right.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

Thanks for your replies guys... by fixed saddle I meant my guitar will have an acoustic style bridge (for a bar piezo)... my scale lengths are 24.5 and 25.5, and Dave Livermore's advice seems very logical... as far as nut compensation goes it also seems like a very logical thing to do because by compensating at the bridge you are making the open string flatter, therefore shortening the string length by moving the nut closer would be the logical solution, but John, .010"!? thats a slip of a sanding block, can it really make a difference... that just doesn't seem like much, or maybe I'm just too naive about this whole intonation thing... I guess I better be careful with my fretting...