Fretboards Which Is Correct??

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

I have replaced the fretboards on several of my guitars, so I have several examples here to compare. These are all Sho-Bud style boards for 24 in. scale.I am using one of the dustcatcher as a standard to compare to as I was told these were most accurate,but I am not sure?? I have alinged the boards at fret 12 to see how they compare.

Example #1 is dustcatcher/ original Jackson

Example #2 is dustcatcher/ Bobbie's new board

Example #3 is original Jackson / Bobbie's

Example #4 is dustcatcher/ Coop repro for Fingertip

Example #5 is dustcatcher/ Original board from fingertip

Most seem to very in the upper regester, how important is this or does it matter??

Paul Sutherland · From: Placerville, California

I see the variance you are talking about in some of the examples, but not all. I don't think there is enough variance to be a problem.

Particularly when you are playing in the upper registers, you are mostly playing by ear as your left hand is blocking the view of the fret under the bar. The frets just give you a rough target to shoot for, before you slide the bar into position. The actual bar placement has to be dictated by your ears, not your eyes. Of course, vibrato helps.

Having said all that, I prefer fretboards with narrow frets as they seem to be more legible in the upper registers. When the fret is as wide as the space between the frets I have problems identifying and locking onto the target.

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

Paul, The fret boards with the wide markers were from my original fingertip Sho-Bud, The repo was made to match the style of the original guitar. I have now changed to the white boards which I like better.

Richard Damron · From: Gallatin, Tennessee, USA (deceased)

Bob -

Yes, it does matter, if ya wanna play in tune.

One of the things confusing the issue is that there is a difference in the number of frets from one board to another in a couple of cases.

The most consistent comparison seems to be between the Dustcatcher and the Coop repro board from the fingertip. Ignoring all other things here's a couple of concrete numbers for you:

The fretboards mentioned have 26 frets. For a scale length of 24" the 12th fret should be at 12.00". For a more accurate positioning, the 26th fret must be at 18.655" or approximately 18 21/32nds. The fractional number is off by approximately 0.004" or 4 thousandths. This measurement must be taken FROM THE CENTER OF THE NUT.

I've noticed that a couple of fretboards have apparently been shortened at the nut end to account for the thickness of the nut. Be aware.

Hope this helps.

Richard

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

Richard, The white board that I am using for a replacement is only 24 fret.The 12th fret is placed at 12 in. from the center of the nut. The question is why the varriation in the original board and the 24 fret board on the upper frets??

Kevin Hatton · From: Buffalo, N.Y.

This is a perfect example of what I discovered a long ago. Variance in fret boards. The fret boards on orignal ZB's appear to have been sharply compensated for parallex. I really like them. They are not mathmaticly correct! I have seen this on other guitars like Sho-Bud also. One reason I found it uncomfortable to play other people's guitars. The intonation points were different.

basilh · From: United Kingdom

Franklin · Posted 2 Jan 2011 6:59 am

Richard Damron,

Has it right.......In all of your examples #5 is the only one that came close to being matched up to the fretboard below it without having to modify its starting point because of the actual beginning length of the fret board......I'm assuming the bottom fretboard is the original from the guitar make and brand......No matter if the twelfth frets line up, If the first fret is slightly off....game over.........

Basil,

I disagree with Bar pressure becoming more of an issue at the highest frets.....There is no more intonation change due to pressure than at the first frets because the strings become tighter the closer the bar is to either the changer or the keyhead end......It is at frets 10 through 14 where the bar has the most downward effect. Having said that, if the bar hand is mastered correctly with essentially NO downward pressure, it doesn't alter fret intonation anywhere on the guitar.......Why the frets are just a guide has to do with the varied tunings between instruments in the band, not fret accuracy due to bar pressure.

Playing high on the neck requires ears because visually the bars diameter blocks the view of the extremely close frets......The frets do matter......My PP fretboard was very accurate all the way up as is the Franklin, Zum, and several other modern day fretboards.........

Paul

Don Brown, Sr. · From: New Jersey

Bazilh,

I agree totally. Could be why many play out of tune in the high register.

Years back, I'd replaced my 24 1/4" scale fret boards with the Sho-Bud dust catchers. And never had any problems.

Ball park will get you there, but the ears are the final deciding factor in playing any fretless instrument in tune.....

Happy 2011 everyone..............

Erv Niehaus · From: Litchfield, MN, USA

I find a bigger problem in the upper frets is the tendancy to slant the bar unintentially. As your bar hand moves to the right, up the fret board, you hand swings to the right and consequencly, so does the bar. This results in disharmony.

Franklin · Posted 2 Jan 2011 7:26 am

basilh · From: United Kingdom

Paul of course you are correct about bar pressure not being much of a factor, and then only being influential betwixt the 10 and 14th frets, that's why I listed it AFTER the reference to parallax.
Bar pressure to you and other professional players has obviously been mastered, BUT the lesser mortals could have problems in that area.

The Parallax issue has the greatest influence on intonation (once one starts climbing the steps to "Hughey Land") and is the most difficult to compensate for. That and the relative pitch created by the band around you.

Richard Damron · From: Gallatin, Tennessee, USA (deceased)

Basil -

Of course, you're absolutely correct concerning parallax and bar pressure. Parallax, in particular. Were I to amend my post it would only be to emphasize the fact that fret markers are useful only for getting "into the ballpark". I attempted to give Bob a concrete number for alignment purposes only since there seemed to be an inordinate number of discrepancies in fret spacing between the examples shown.

Bob -

Taking a cue from Paul Franklin, here are a couple of other numbers for your perusal.

For a 24" scale length:
1st fret @ 1.347" or approximately 1 11/32nds. The fractional number is off by 0.003".
12th fret @ 12.00"
24th fret @ 18.00"

There have been some excellent posts here. Read 'em and heed 'em.

Respectfully,

Richard

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Just taking into account the sounding length of a string, there is only one set of measurements for where the frets should be, and the formula was calculated by Pythagoras many centuries ago. If anyone would like to email me at afbrookes@aol.com I will email him an Excel spreadsheet which calculates the correct positions. You just type in the sounding length in centimetres or inches and it instantly calculates all the positions.

That having been said, luthiers compensate their fretboards for the pull-down on the strings. As you can imagine, when you pull a string down onto the fret you are tightening it, so if the fret is in exactly the right position your string will be sharp. The amount of sharpness will depend on the height of the strings above the fingerboard, which means that a different amount of compensation is required in the higher registers, because by the geometry of the instrument the pull down is greater the higher you move up the fingerboard, and, also, the position is more crucial as the frets get closer together. For this reason, on a high-level nylon-strung guitar, if you lower the action you can put the strings out of tune.

This also has an affect on the steel guitar, as Basil alluded to. The weight of the bar depresses the string, so whether the note is in tune depends on the position of the bar, plus the weight of the bar, plus how heavy you press down. In fact, one technique of introducing variation in pitch is to vibrate the string up-and-down, as opposed, or in addition to, back-and-forth.

Some steel guitar fingerboards allow for this compensation, but most don't, for the simple reason that it's impossible on a non-fretted instrument such as a steel guitar to know how much pressure the player will use.

I always build my fingerboards from scratch, and I only allow compensaton on the acoustic instruments that I build; citterns, dulcimers, etc.; I never compensate on a lap steel.

Another thing to notice about the photographs is that at least one of them has a gap left between the nut and the first fret, to allow the nut to lie on the wood rather than the fingerboard. This has to be taken into consideration.

Basil also makes mention of parallax, and that is an important factor. Basically that means keeping the bar at right angles to the fingerboard, parallel to the frets. This is not a normal way for the arm to bend. Your arms works like a windshield wiper, moving in an arc. Unless you compensate for this with your wrist your higher and lower strings will not be in harmony. This is probably the major reason for steel guitarists to play out-of-tune; they get the treble string in tune and the bass string is out, or vice-versa. One of the ways of compensating for this is a fanned fingerboard, and I'm working on a fanned fingerboard lap steel right now. I've built fanned fingerboards into acoustic instruments for years; the principle was discovered in mediæval times. It usually blows the mind of guitarists that a fretboard like that actually plays more in tune...

Bear in mind that this is an acoustic instrument, fingered from underneath; an instrument fingered from above, such as a dulcimer or a steel guitar, has to have the frets fanned the other way. (Imagine a mirror image, flipped vertically.)
This subject has been discussed several times before...
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=133178&highlight=fanned

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Here's the fanned fret image flipped as a mirror image, so you can imagine how it would look to a player with a tone bar. The nut and bridge also have to be fanned, of course, plus the pickup.

To see other discussions of parallax on the old forum, check out these..
http://steelguitarforum.com/Forum2/HTML/008992.html
http://steelguitarforum.com/Archives/Archive-000005/HTML/20041212-5-001397.html

Russell Powell · From: New York, USA

Great points from everyone!
One thing I have always thought about was that none of us holds our head in the exact same spot while we play up and down the neck and that has to effect our conception of bar location.
I am reading a bio of Mickey Mantle and the author is discussing his hitting abilities. The author points out that Mickey (or any hitter) couldn't really follow a 90 MPH baseball to help direct his swing. What the hitter is doing is using eye and muscle memory and reacting more to a pitch that he recognized from previous experience than the one that was occurring.
What does this have to do with steel guitar? I suspect that a large part of a players bar movement (good and bad) is repetition of earlier, hopefully in-tune attempts. Our ears help obviously but we are moving, and stopping based on these previous experiences. (note to self-practice more)
I have personally found that over analyzing where the bar was in relation to any fret didn't help my playing.
I've seen it mentioned on the Forum before- sit and play with your eyes closed or in the dark. Either to a track or just wing it. This is a great exercise.
I personally like looking at those atomic markers more than the frets. Brings me back to the day when we hid under our desks in grade school in case the big one was heading over. (yeah that'll work)

Tony Glassman · From: The Great Northwest

I don't think parallax is the problem when playing in the upper register. I think the 3 big problems are :

1] small frets demanding more precise bar placement
2] awkward wrist positioning
3] fretboard visual blocked by left hand

The last might be resolved by a modified version of the "Hankey Vertical Fretboard" (above the 15th fret))

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

First off I want to thank all of you for your input. At this time I want to reword my question a bit. I am trying to find out which board is most accurate, aside from any kind of player input bar position ect.I know that the bord is only a guide I am just trying to set up the guitar the best I can with the boards I have to work with. So the boards and the mounting position are the variables in question.
1. Is it safe to consider the dustcatcher to be the best standard??
2. Is the 1st fret position, or the 12th position the most important in mounting the board, as I cannot change the rest.
3. With the given examples which appears to be most accurate??, or is the board matched to the guitar??

White board setting on the guitar fret 12 at 12 in.

Original board alinged to white board at fret #1

Note that original board was cut back to show key head metal behind nut.

white board/dustcatcher alinged at fret #1

example showing the white board as the center reff. alinged at fret #1

example showing dust catcher as the center board alinged fret #1

So using this information what is the best option to set up the guitar?? Again there seems to be a bit of differance in the upper registers, how imporant is that??

Richard Damron · From: Gallatin, Tennessee, USA (deceased)

Bob -

For my money, the fretboard should be set up to be mathematically correct. Adjustments needing to be made as a result of parallax can only come with experience - the ears and eyes.

Having said that, I could not get beyond the first picture because of two things which bothered me. The first is that it doesn't appear as if your tape measure was located at the center of the roller bridge even though you located the fretboard so as to have the 12th fret at 12 inches. It would be much more informative if you used a long steel scale to get things closer to the mark and paying particular attention to where the beginning of the scale were located.

The second thing which really bothered me is the fact that the 24th fret is far removed from the design value of 18.0". Is this, also, a parallax problem since the scale is elevated above the fretboard?

Once again - and I'm very adamant in this - set the scale up to be on the money - mathematically correct - and then make your necessary bar adjustments accordingly.

Respectfully,

Richard

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Take the distance from the bridge ro the nut a halve it. That's where the 12th fret should be. The 24th fret should be half way between the 12th fret and the bridge. So, on a 24" scale the 12th fret should be 12" from the nut and 12" from the bridge

Conversely, if you have a fingerboard and want to know what scale it fits, measure the distance from the nut to the 12th fret and double it.
If it's 12¼", for instance, then it fits a 24½" scale.

Bobby D. Jones · From: West Virginia, USA

Where did these frett boards come from originally. Back in the late 60's a friend of mine was telling of working in Nashville. One of Shot Jackson's practical jokes on some of the steel players was he had fret boards that were cut short on first space. He would sneak around even at the Grande Old Opre and put one on a steel guitar and when they kicked a song off or come in on a song, things would go crazy. He would be standing off stage bent over laughing. DID SOMEONE GET SHOT JACKSON'S JOKE BOARDS AND GET THEM OUT ON THE MARKET. This may be the rest of this story.

Bob Muller · From: Oregon, USA

One more try at posting a photo, it's hard to get the correct prospective with the camera. I will try another shot.It seem to me that all of the boards should match if placed side by side. All else being the same the 12th fret should be 12in from the center of the nut.The thing that I gets me is no 2 are the same.

Tape starts at the center of the nut.

fret 12 at 12in. black is original board.

Again the black board is original, and was cut back to show the metal on the key head,but is still 12 in from the nut to fret 12.

Ricky Davis · From: Bertram, Texas USA

Bob; the dustcatcher is the MOST correct fretboard Shobud ever made and is dimensionally correct for the 24" scale. Now any Shobud fretboard that you have that was made...is NOT correct if it does not line up perfectly with the dustcatcher. The John Coop and James Morehead fretboard/repro; are made after the exact dimensions of the dustcatcher; so they are correct. Tom Bradshaw also designs his shobud fretboards from the dimensions of the dustcatcher....Anything else; I would be suspect...especially if it does NOT line up with the dustcatcher; Don't put it on.
And yes; make your mark at exactly 12" from center/top of finger or rollers on the neck and center the 12th fret of a CORRECT fretboard...and you're good to go.(sorry to be so straight forward and blunt; but I went round and round about fretboards and the making of them and what is correct and believe me; I stand by my findings as it is sooooooooo freakin; difficult to play with a wrong fretboard dimension....too much compensation with bar hand up and down....).
Ricky
_________________
Ricky Davis
Email Ricky: sshawaiian2362@gmail.com

richard burton · From: Britain

It's easy enough to work out the exact fret positions mathematically, and then measure the boards to see which one is correct.

Divide the scale length by 1.05946309, and this will give the position of the first fret (measuring from the centre of the bridge)

Divide this number by 1.05946309 and you will get the position of the second fret (from the bridge)

Just keep dividing the answers by 1.05946309, and you will have the exact fret dimensions Very Happy

Richard Damron · From: Gallatin, Tennessee, USA (deceased)

Bob -

There's some excellent posts on this thread. However, and in the interest of satisfying your curiosity then I must repeat the simplest way of determining whether a fretboard is correct.

For a 24" scale length:
Fret 12 @ 12.00"
Fret 24 @ 18.00"

If the board does not meet those dimensions then it is bogus.

You can calculate fret spacings using the method as described by Richard Burton. Or, you can go to the link below, plug in a scale length and a fret number and the calculation will be done for you. The result will be the spacing from the NUT to the fret.

www.liutaiomottola.com/formulae/fret.htm

Respectfully,

Richard

Forum Index > Pedal Steel	Goto page 1, 2 Next	Next oldest topic :: Next newest topic