Sorry, long day at work, that came off a little crotchety.
But, there’s a lot of… idunno… folklore? Snake oil? Received wisdom? in guitar that there really isn’t much basis for, and there isn’t really a logical basis for an ever-so-slightly-harder fretwire to have a pronounced tonal difference, to the degree that you can’t play SRV on stainless, only nickel steel.
The TGP crew believes in a LOT of stuff that’s objectively false, and if their argument is that only “cvertain people are sensitive” to the difference in tone between stainless and nickel steel, that’s setting off the bullshit-o-meter in a big way.
Have you ever played the same guitar, like, exact same guitar, not merely same model, with nickel steel, and then. with stainless?
It’s OK Drew, I’m quite not well either, but man long hours on this new job, killing me, no guitar for a week either since the power went out with all crazy floods we had so had to move for a week to the city.
I know there’s lot of stuff that gets caught up in grey areas, like many polarizing things. I don’t have the energy to try to convince anybody about my experiences at this point and nor am I really interested in that sort of thing anymore. No offence man, all cool.
Shit man, sorry to hear - where are you again? I’ve seen some pretty scary footage out of Germany and India, but I’m SURE that’s not the extent of it. Fingers crossed for you.
Hi Drew, thanks man, we’re at higher ground, unfortunately others had extensive damage. The worst part was all this crazy weather gave me asthma after like 7/8 years, that was the bear, moving to the city with it, diving everybody and trying to find the right doc that wouldn’t over react to asthma, these days lots of covid trigger happy docs to be had. Worst is over now thankfully. Missing my guitars though.
If you’re interested I’ve been using a Super Vee BladeRunner for a few years and they improved the arm as well. It still screws in though so you can’t do the Steve Vai windmill thing.
Interesting, this could be it. I’ve been following the thread all the while thinking a slight angle shouldn’t be an issue.There is always an angle – it’s just in a different direction. As a thought experiment, imagine the angle was lateral only, no down pull at all. Tuners all offset to one side. Now there’s still the same break angle, but it’s in a different direction. You could, at least in theory, fit a tall nut and rather than filing slots, drill a hole for each string with the right size bit and angle to match the position of the tuners.
That should, at least mostly, just work.
But cutting/drilling the slots accurately would be very difficult. Which makes me think the issue is mostly that 1) the lateral angle isn’t always taken into account properly when filing the slots and 2) it’s much easier to cut accurately when there is no lateral angle.
Which relates to your point about strings rubbing on/up the sides. Maybe if we had perfectly round drilled holes in the nut rather than slots the angle wouldn’t be an issue. But as it is, even best case only the bottom of the nut slot will be round. Thus straight pull probably helps to keep the string in contact with that round surface.
Related question – why don’t builders like PRS position their tuner holes for straight pull?
Floyd’s give a different feel and I prefer the sound of the vintage/non tremolo guitars I have tried. Vintage trems don’t “flutter” like a Floyd/Ibanez, so I think there will always be some personal preference rather than one being considered better than the other. Feel free to correct me but I seem to remember EVH saying he didn’t like how the guitar sounded as much with a Floyd, but used it for tuning stability.
In some cases, I’ve had to plug and redrill tuners to correct the problem because there wasn’t enough correction available at the nut. On most guitars, the nut can be modified to correct the issue, but it really is a case by case basis thing.
It does make one question as to why tuners are not arranged in such a way as to offer straight pull when the vintage style trems are used.
@aooeeu - I never meant to say the Fender 6 screw was better than any other tremolo. I was simply determined to make mine work and I thought I would share the results.
I’ve played the Super Vee and the Vega Trem, and both require a properly cut nut to function.
@VonHerndon Sure, and I didn’t mean to imply that you did My point was just that tremolo choice might include sound, feel, string spacing, ease of setup and looks as well as tuning stability – leading to different tremolo preferences for each of us.
And something I forgot to mention/ask, is whether 3+3 or reverse headstocks perform better than the traditional Strat design? A reverse headstock might help counter the fact that the bass strings bend further than the treble strings. It might also reduce the higher tension feel of the bass strings a bit. I’ve no idea if it’s a significant difference though.
Wow. I don’t have any tuning issues and I’m not trying to be a jerk-but I have personally experienced no ill effects on tone from using stainless steel frets. Everybody always claims that stainless steel is “too bright” and nickel is “warm”. I’ve noticed no difference.
Can’t say anything about tone, but I’ve been having to level and crown my session guitars every 3-4 months of playing daily with traditional nickel-silver frets.
The Jescar Gold Evo Fretwire is totally impervious to string wear. They are my “go to” frets now.
Some more nut adventures on one of my one-off custom builds - a 24.50" scale, twin humbucker Tele-style, set neck made from maple/mahogany/maple construction, that I built back in 2017 as a Mother’s Day Gift for my 80 year old, former pro recording artist and musician Mom.
This one (serial # 0016 of 27 built) is fitted with my hand-made, stainless steel saddles and a hand-fabbed brass nut.
I despise locking tuners and string trees, but they are frequently requested, and I have plenty on hand, so I used them.
Rockabilly guitar wizard Marty Stuart has serial number 0012 in his collection.
Hope you enjoy these photos. The nut slots on this hardtail are cut the same way I cut them on my tremolo equipped Stratocasters.
It is Mom’s decision to present this guitar to one of her favorite players, Joe B, so I’m setting it up .011" x .052" based on how Mike Hickey sets up his 24.75" scale guitars.
What’s a good starter set of gear to change and cut your own nuts? My lentz has the D string fretting out open, fine if fretted. Also my YJM with it’s brass nut doen’t stay in tune as well as it once did, I don’t must the trem as much or play as much either come to think of it, I should lube if more often to start with I guess.
On your YJM, as with most brass nut guitars, the wounds strings tend to produce a ‘corrugated’ effect in the nut slot floor over time. What I do is tape off the nut and apply valve grinding compound paste to the slots. You can work the old strings (still installed) back and forth by pushing down behind the nut, then finish up with an old string and pass it through the nut until the cutting action has stopped.
Be sure to clean the slots well after this process. I use a food-grade synthetic lubricant called ‘Super Lube’ on brass nuts. It available just about everywhere. It’s a silver tube with what looks like a rainbow flag on the label.
I did a few thing to my YJM, last week in fact, just been so busy with work…
Checked the nut, put my D string in the G slot on the nut, and found it was stick to slide it, so I added some lube and cleaned it with a slight pressure, not enough to cut but maybe using the windings as a file, though not sure if nickel or brass is harder, it fixed the G string from catching. Did this for for the rest as well, though just a clean mostly.
At the bridge the Screw under the high was was tight, kept the bridge plate from being totally flat, readjusted the whole bridge seating so that it’s flush with out opposite warble, restrung it and now it stays in tune like it used to very well. The Gstring slides over the nut and returns too.
Also changed the 3 way to a 5 way CRL, was surprised with the cheaper 3 way that came with the guitar.
Guitar is playing beautifully now, really missed 2/4 position. The other thing is I rewired it up and also disconnected the neck pickup from the tone knob, the bridge tone knob has a dent and no load, need one for the middle tone knob if I’m to use the tone knob, but it’s very low priority. The no tone pot/cap on the neck pickup makes a huge difference on the SD Furies.
Sorry, long day at work, that came off a little crotchety.
My point was just that tremolo choice might include sound, feel, string spacing, ease of setup and looks as well as tuning stability – leading to different tremolo preferences for each of us.
