Is it worth the effort to replace the plastic nut with a bone nut on my Epi Dot?

[galibier_numero_un]

Thank you Michael.

Maybe I'm an animal loving nut, but to think of a majestic elephant, butchered exclusively for its tusks, so we can have better tone for our open strings...

Music is ultimately for the soul, and we are all poorer when we behave with arrogance and insensitivity.

I may be a meat eater, but I try to do it with the spiritual approach of the American Indians.

Cheers,
Thom @ Galibier

[Mark Hammer]

The most critical aspects of a nut are that it is cut and shaped precisely and appropriately, preserving intonation and optimizing string level.

After that, and perhaps well after that, comes nut material itself. Keep in mind that the nut has to serve a "buck stops here" function, in that it "contains" the vibrational energy of the string. The string has to behave as if all vibration is occurring between the nut and saddle. certainly higher density in the nut will help that, but so will slots that restrict lateral movement of the string (i.e., properly cut).

At the same time, the nut has to conserve vibrational energy by not absorbing or dissipating any of it. Imagine a bathtub with spongy front and back. Make a wave in that tub, and very little of it will bounce back, because it will get absorbed at the ends. So, a denser nut will help to minimize how much vibrational energy is dissipated at the nut.

HOWEVER.....

a) You could make a nut from the bones of Jesus, and if it wasn't cut right it would sound like crap.
b) No nut on earth, no matter how sublime, can compensate for what a poor bridge/saddle/tailpiece system might take away.
c) The relative precision of the nut essentially evaporates above the first fret, unless we're talking about a Feiten nut which is cut in anticipation of the frets.
d) The relative sustain contributed by the nut evaporates above the first fret because your finger now becomes the nut.

[Soapbarstrat]

The plastics used for many nuts are not that soft. The way they absorb string energy is nothing compared to the way a finger (fretting notes) absorbs string energy.
If you want open strings to have a very similar loudness/sustain as fretted notes do (which I am personally in favor of), then you'll probably find that any hard plastic does the job just fine. Actually, take Corian for example : You'll probably notice that the open strings still have a little more volume/sustain than the fretted notes. (Maybe that's why Warmoth sez Corian provides a "balanced sound" or something like that)

There is also more pressure on the nut from the strings than the pressure of the string against a fretted note, which also makes the open strings have more volume/sustain.

[acousticcontrolcorporation]

Epiphone Dot

I modify these $200.00 beauties!

Doug Forbes
www.acousticcontrolcorporation.com

[hasserl]

a) You could make a nut from the bones of Jesus, and if it wasn't cut right it would sound like crap.

Well you'd have to take the bone from him first, and I don't think that's going to happen.

[David Schwab]

Please, please don't get an ivory nut or an ivory anything, ever. Maybe I'm an animal loving nut, but to think of a majestic elephant, butchered exclusively for its tusks, so we can have better tone for our open strings... *shudder*

I agree. I don't use it, but fossilized ivory would be OK.

I hardly ever use bone anymore. I've been using Corian which works and sounds nice. Aluminum also makes a good nut. I also use zero frets on many of my instruments, and that solves many nut problems, such as action, tone and tuning, by reducing the function of the nut to a string retainer/spacer.

Another awful thing are rhinos being killed for their horn, which is just made from impacted hair. There's no real use for rhino horn, except in Chinese medicine, and there's no need to kill the animal to get the horns anyway.

Getting back to the Epi. My experience is if you replace all the hardware on those, you end up with a really nice guitar. The woodworking is very good, but the hardware is crap. I modded a Sheriton II for a customer that way. We replaced everything... tuners, bridge, electronics, and put in Duncan Alnico II's. It was like night and day.

[daz]

I'm gonna say something that tends to be seen as lunacy by some, but i absofruckinglutley promise that you will agree if your ears are fairly sensitive and you do what i say. Make a bone nut to replace a plastic one on a strat, then A/B them as fast as possible by loosening the neck so you can slide one out and the other one in. this way you can A/B them in literally 1 minute to avoid losing your memory of the nut you just played. For me i don't even have to do that because the difference is so huge to my ears. And heres why i find this so important...it DOES affect fretted strings ! And in a huge way. i first tried this several years ago when someone i respect greatly assured me it affects open strings. i thought he was probably loony tunes, but i made a bone nut and i absolutely noticed the change ON FRETTED STRINGS as well as open. the entire guitar became obviously more resonant.

Now, fast forward to just recently. I had shimmed my bone nut on my main strat and i didn't notice it right away but it lost something. But i only did it to make it usable till i made a new one. But neglecting what i had found several years before i decided i'd try a slipstone nut since these were supposed to me the slipperiest nut made. Anyways, it seemed to hurt the tone so i decided to go back to bone and i first threw the old one back with the shim and again heard the difference. Absolutly better resonance from the guitar overall. the a few days later i made a new one and was even more suprised to see that there was actually even more improvment between my old shimmed bone and this new one than between the old shimmed one and slipstone. or to clarify, the difference between a new well made bone nut and a slipstone nut was huge, and i mean different guitar huge. And as i said, the entire guitar regardless of fretted or open is just much more resonant and beautiful.

You can choose to not believe me if you wish. And in fact i'm sure to many it's not even noticeable because we don't all hear the same. i heard less of a difference when i first tried this several years ago (probably8 years) than i did this last time just because as time goes on your hearing improves as far as recognition of tone. But those of you that have been at it a lot of years and have great ears, please try what i said. You have no idea what you may be missing. I not only hear better tone, i feel it. the guitar just seems much more dynamic like a great tube amp compared to a modern compressed one. It's just far more dynamic and open than it was. i suppose the amount of improvement you hear will be directly proportionate to had bad the current nut is compared to bone. But please try it and keep an open mind. You may be extremely pleasantly surprised ! by the way, a thread at the gear page on this yielded a ton of people who also swear the fretted notes and overall resonance of the guitar is improved. I feel the biggest and most important part of it tho is the dynamics and open-ness the guitar now has. The kind of response that makes you not want to put it down.

[BackwardsBoB]

I don't think daz is crazy. I had a new nut made for a Carvin Holdsworth Fatboy because either the factory or someone with less talent cut the low E-string too deep on the original graphite nut, and it buzzed when played open.

I believe that the sustain and tone improved, and I could hear it even on fretted strings. I have no logical explanation.

Of course, whenever I get my rig sounding like angels and retire to bed, gremlins come in in the middle of the night and mess with it, and it's back to sounding so-so by morning, so the three weeks it took to change the nut could have something to do with it.

[daz]

Lets look at it like this...the headstock itself will change things dramatically just by how much weight is there. If anyone doesn't believe me try hanging a pair of pliers from it and watch as you play and see that the sustain is increased and the dynamics go out the window. I've done it, it aint subtle. So why would that matter? It's in back of the fretted string, right. See my point? We aren't physicists, so it's senseless to try and figure out WHY a bone nut affects the overall tone by using our uneducated (in physics that is) minds to figure it out.

[voodoochild]

I bought an Epiphone Dot Deluxe about four years ago and I'm quite happy with it overall. The only real problem that I had with this guitar was that the cheesy pickup selector switch started acting up within days of buying it. So I pressured the store that sold me the guitar to replace the switch with something better.

I've read numerous posts about people replacing the plastic nut with a bone nut, they claim that it made a big difference in the tone. What do you guys think? Is it worth the effort to replace the nut?

And I'm also wondering if the nut is totally out of the tonal equation when fretting notes on the neck? Does the nut only effect the tone when the strings are played open? Kind of a dumb question I suppose but I'm just curious.

For me its not so much a tonal issue as it is a tuning issue. No matter how well a plastic nut is cut, it will always cause tuning issues for the simple fact of it being too soft. The strings cut into it causing the slots to bind. Even after you widen the slots and lube them the problem quickly comes back with plastic. Replacing it with bone or anything as hard will dramatically improve your tuning stability given that the nut is cut properly. Tone is up to you to decide. I would say on a tonal point of view it makes a 10% difference if that which is significant enough for some players.

[daz]

I would say on a tonal point of view it makes a 10% difference if that which is significant enough for some players.

for me it's huge. 10% is way too low. But understand a couple things...one, not everyone hears the same. I hear things that are not subtle at all to me after almost 40 years of playing that i could never have even heard maybe as little as 10-15 years ago. certainly no 20. And two, i agree the tone doesn't change to a huge degree, and your assessment of 10% may be close. But it's the dynamics and feel that changed a lot. And for some, me included, thats more important than the tone itself. I almost exclusively hear people talking about tone when feel and dynamics are often what they should be talking about. The majority of things build/buy/try are to improve the feel and dynamics of my entire rig. And a bone nut really made the strat feel and react in a livelier manner that had me quite excited.

[Soapbarstrat]

so you can slide one out and the other one in. this way you can A/B them in literally 1 minute to avoid losing your memory of the nut you just played. .

If you can easily slide out a nut like that, it's not a properly fitted nut (to my standards).

I hope you guys are not putting PVC plastic nuts and Corian nuts in the same boat.

[mikej]

Sounds like there`s a lot of opinions on nut material and to me that`s a good thing, it leads to thinking and experimenting and usually leads to something better. I`ve tried bone and plastic nuts of all types and have to agree with David that it doesn`t have that much effect, at least to me it doesn`t. I did try something a while back that did have a noticable effect but I haven`t had time to further refine it. I took a piece of chrome vanadium tool steel and made an unslotted nut out of it and to make the strings match the radius of the fretboard stairstepped the nut. I then removed the fretboard wood on the tuner side of the nut and fashioned a slotted piece of aluminum to keep the strings in position. This way I could add or remove shims under the nut to get different playing heights. The tone increased dramatically.

[Mike Sulzer]

In fact just fretting a note takes the compensated nut of of the equation.

OK, someone brought up this old thread so I will put in my .02¢. The above statement is incorrect because a proper setup using a compensated nut involves changing the bridge position as well. That is, the compensated nut is part of the whole system, not an independent add on. Obviously the bridge position affects the tuning for all frets. The implications of this affect the accuracy of some of your other statements as well.

There is a very nice article discussing the theory and experiment on this subject for classical guitars. I think you know the one I mean; I referred you to it several years ago on MIMF.

[David Schwab]

OK, someone brought up this old thread so I will put in my .02¢. The above statement is incorrect because a proper setup using a compensated nut involves changing the bridge position as well. That is, the compensated nut is part of the whole system, not an independent add on. Obviously the bridge position affects the tuning for all frets. The implications of this affect the accuracy of some of your other statements as well.

There is a very nice article discussing the theory and experiment on this subject for classical guitars. I think you know the one I mean; I referred you to it several years ago on MIMF.

Right, but as soon as you fret a string, the nut compensation is gone, and all you have it the bridge compensation. So why not use just the bridge compensation? I can accept that the nut might help with open strings, but not notes on all the frets.

I remember that discussion at MIMF, and it didn't make sense to me then either. What I said at the time was, make a guitar with a compensated nut. Check the tuning. Now place a capo at the third fret and remove the nut. Alternately you can replace it with a non compensated nut.

So assuming the height of the strings did not change, they will still be in tune. Now test the intonation on the guitar.

So what is the nut doing to help the tuning for fretted notes? Not much as far as I can see.

When you fret notes you are hearing the vibrating portion of the string between the fret and the bridge. What's between the nut and the fret are now out of the picture. You have made the interval between the open string and first fret smaller. But you have not changed the intervals between all the other frets.

Even Buzz Feiten admitted to Rick Turner that using a zero fret makes the compensated nut moot.

However, I think the real cause for the first few frets being out of tune comes down to either a nut with slots that are cut too shallow, thus allowing the string to stretch too much when fretting, and also the stiffness of the string as it leaves the nut, which makes it behave more like a rod. This is why they stretch tune pianos. The harmonics are out of tune with the fundamentals.

I think having a zero fret, and leaving some room between the zero fret and the string retainer (nut) should solve all the problems by moving the stiff area of the string farther away from the first couple of frets. It's like putting a capo on the first fret.

I've been curious to try a compensated nut, but as I've never had a tuning problem with the lower frets, I haven't had a need to try it.

Mike Tobias uses zero frets, and also the Buzz Feiten Tuning System. I believe he moves the zero fret to the position the Buzz Feiten nut would be.

I've thought that moving the first few frets by different small increments to retune the stiff anchor point of the open strings would be an interesting thing. But once again, I haven't seen a need for it using either a well cut nut, or a zero fret. And every time you changed string gauges or brands you would have to retune the system. I think that's true of some compensated nuts as well.

The nuts that compensate for each string seem especially silly, as the frets are not compensated for each string. So that would imply that the nut's effect is on open notes, and since the first fret is not compensated, you lose the nut's effect as soon as you fret a note. If I'm missing something, let me know!

But it's like the difference in feel if you have a longer distance of string between the bridge and the tailpiece. The tension has not changed, but the strings feel looser. Maybe because the anchor point has been moved farther back?

But I have to agree with Rick Tuner on this one... I don't see how it's valid for the same reasons he didn't. It's certainly not a new idea though, as Microfrets had an adjustable nut back in the early 70's.