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good system, bad intonation instructions in my opinion! (Reply to this comment)
by mariosyjp
I have a Washburn guitar that has this system and it does work. However it shouldn't have to be so bothersome to tune or fix intonation as described by the patent holders or by those who sell special tuners for the system. Every instrument and every playing style is unique. After messing with the instructions to no avail I suggest that you tune open strings normally and then check the intonation across the whole fretboard using a standard electronic tuner and make every string sound as good as you can in every fret by adjusting the bridge while keeping open strings to standard tuning. I'm no expert in setting up guitars, I'm just a player and this is my personal opinion.
Regards
Marios
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Aug 07 '09
3:32 am PDT
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Proprietary, but not a secret (Reply to this comment)
by passenger108
It's true that Buzz Feiten Design, Inc. is trying to make money licensing their endoresement to Peterson and Korg tuners and by certifying installers. But anybody who wants to can set up the intonation on a BFT-equipped electric guitar: it just takes a lot of patience, a very accurate tuner, and the knowledge of how to do it.
They haven't done a very good job of making this knowledge available, but they haven't kept it secret either. You can find it in the discussion forums on their site. (I blame Washburn for not insisting that this information be made available to thier customers.)
The tuner you use must be accurate to 1 cent, which pretty much means it has to be a true strobe tuner. It must also either read out in cents or (better) allow you to pre-load an alternate temperament for the six notes.
To succeed, you have to know how to tune accurately:
* select the neck pickup
* if you have a tone control, roll off the treble
* hold the guitar in playing position while measuring pitch
* strum the open string at the 12th fret with the side of your thumb
(The following assumes you have an Tune-o-matic style bridge with individually movable saddles.)
1. Mark the current position of the saddles with a pencil in case you decide to put it back the way it was.
2.Install a new set of strings and stretch them. Then perform (or have someone perform) any setup that needs doing on the guitar as you normally would: neck relief, nut height, bridge height, etc. Intonation is the last thing you adjust.
3. Measure the pickup height, then retract pickups away from the string so the magnets don't clamp the string and shorten the sustain.
4. Tune each open string to standard tuning.
5. For each string, one at a time: (1) tune the open string sharp by the number of cents given in the table below; (2) Then fret it at the 12th fret and measure the pitch. It should be sharp or flat by the second column in the table. If it's not, adjust the saddle up to sharpen, down to flatten. Then repeat Step 5 (first tune open string, then fret at the 12th fret and measure the pitch)
until both values match the table.
6. Raise the pickups and you are good to go.
Table: Intonation Adjustment Settings for
Steel String Electric Guitar
Equipped with Buzz Feiten Tuning
(cents sharp or flat - from equal temperament)
String.....Open...12th fret
e.................0.......0
B.............. 1.......0
G.............. 2...... 1
D.............. 2...... 1
A.............. 2.......0
E.............. 2.......0
The bottom line is that the effect of the Buzz Feiten tuning system is subtle. Most people won't notice the difference. But if the intonation is not adjusted correctly, the guitar will sound horrible--with BFT or without it. Since BFT does make intonation much more difficult to adjust, it's probably going to result in more guitars being played without properly adjusted intonation. Like every good thing, BFT needs some love to thrive.
So, if you're the sort of player who views tuning as a necessary evil and does it as seldom as possible, forget about BFT--save your money. On the other hand, if you really care about sweet sounding rhythm guitar, and especially if you notice the beats in chords freted near the neck, then BFT may be right for you.
Also ask yourself how frequently you tinker with your guitar in ways that might affect the intonation: changing string gauges for example. If you do this a lot, then BFT will be a constant headache.
If your guitar does have BFT, remember to mention it before leaving it off at the music shop for a setup adjustment. There are still technicians to
whom BFT is terra incognita. But I wouldn't go out of my way to find some guy who's paid Buzz Feiten Design a bunch of money so he can call himself BFT-certified.
And trust your own ears: if you try a bunch of different chords and it sounds good, it is good. An instrument is properly adjusted when the person who plays it (and his band mates) like the way it sounds.
It was gutsy of Washburn to put BFT on their entire line of American-made guitars. It adds a lot of time to set up time during production, and increases the odds that the factory setup may not be playable. So far, they seem to be doing a pretty good job, judging by the few brand new Washburns I've tried (my expectations are low when it comes to factory tuning--*any* factory). They were definitely above average in out-of-the-box playability.
One final thought: I wish Washburn would ship a spec sheet with each guitar listing what it's equipped with and how they set it up at the factory. And I think they should enclose the appropriate BFT settings table, above, just as a new car manucturer tells you what oil and coolent and tire pressure to use. These guitars go all over the world, and it's probably hard to find a Buzz Feiten certified technician in say, Namibia. The few bucks that Buzz Feiten Design makes by playing the "proprietary info" game will ruin their reputation with musicians and hurt adoption of their product in the end. (I mean, would you buy a guitar from Microsoft?)
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Nov 01 '08
5:23 am PDT
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Buzz Feiten Tuning System (Reply to this comment)
by cuzndupree
I have worked as a professional for over 30yrs. When I started playing with other instruments like strings, horns, and keyboards I noticed I had a tuning problem. I could check my notes with my tuner and see that it says I was in tune but my ears told me otherwise. After having my guitar modified and using the off sets for intonation and tuning I no longer have a tuning problem. Although on a live gig using a standard tuner I just reference every string to E and it gets me in the ballpark that is acceptable. One less thing to deal with on a gig. Makes playing music a much more enjoyable experience, and I'm sure the other musicians appreciated it. As far as the proprietary thing goes the guy deserves something for his efforts to identify, research and develop a system that solved the tuning problem for guitar players. Besides, the info can be found with a little work on your part if you don't want to pay for it. Should we expect the work of others to be handed to us for free with little or no effort on our part? No one is forcing you to make the change, so if you like your chords to sound a little sour because it gives your music character than go for it, I just hope I don't have to play with you. I know there has been some great recordings done with slightly out tune guitars, and I know you can't change it, but if you, I bet those guitar players would have wished it was done with a guitar that was in tune.
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Aug 09 '07
3:07 pm PDT
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Re: Buzz feiten Tuning System.. (Reply to this comment)
by jmsevy
I have carefully considered the Buzz Feiten "system", including questioning a couple of people who install it and have found nothing but doubletalk for information. No one has actually answered any questions regarding how shortening the first fret interval is supposed to improve anything.
On my bass guitar I can set up the neck and saddles to tune precisely (close enough) on all frets. If the first fret interval was shortened to any significant degree it would become un-tunable.
I'll stick my head in the flame and say (in complete defiance of accomplished luthiers) it does not work.
If a guitar is improperly made it needs to be repaired, not have a couple hundred bucks of "secret" gimick added to it.
If anyone actually KNOWS something about the "system" and is actually willing to state what it is that makes it an improvement instead of just saying that it is an improvement, I for one would be delighted to hear about it.
As to the fanned fret comment earlyer in the discussion, it's been done. See www.novaxguitars.com for the info.
By the by, Novak actualy says what makes the fanned fret concept sound better.
Thanks for any reply.
Joe Sevy
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Nov 13 '03
3:02 pm PST
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Stretch tuning - piano strings vs guitars strings (Reply to this comment)
by matseriksson
I agree with you completely T-von. The main thing is, when people talking about tuning or intonating guitars strings, is that it should be done on the initial attack, as the note goes sharp for a very brief moment. However, on a piano it sure doesn't. Period! A piano string is hit from above the string, not across, leaving the string vibrating in a complete different motion than a guitar string plucked with a pick or finger. A piano string has also different scale for different pitch, as opposed to a guitar string.
But anyway, people always point to this intonation system derived from piano tuning all of the time, not taking into consideration that there are a lot of differences in the strings between a piano and guitar. Mostly in string scale length. Look inside a piano and take note of
when the strings are starting to be unwound, i e plain. Compare the scale length. Why is there a limit for wound and unwound strings? Because of the pitch and scale string length has to match, otherwise they could all be as long and have the same gauge, and all wound, or not!
Now, on a guitar, it is always the dreaded g-string tuned to g that makes things go out of tune. On a plain G-string, fretting on the first fret always leaves a sharp G#. But I have yet to hear this on a standard intonated guitar with a wound g-string. None of mine does at least.
I think another part of the problem is that the low e-string on a guitar is actually too short to vibrate fully without going sharp on an initial attack.
Another thing that has been completely neglected is the angle of the string BEHIND the nut. And the bridge as well. People just concentrates what happens between the two points nut & bridge. You don't believe me? Try attach a string retainer just behind the g-string get a sharp angle on the string, tune it to pitch, and then press first fret, and see how much it goes sharp COMPARED to when the angle behind the nut is flattened out as much as possible. Some people complain about the guitar strings increased "rubberbandiness" when clamped by locking tremolo systems, and thus, it infects intonation and string vibrating.
Now let's go back to the comparison to piano strings.
On a regular stand up piano, The lowest bass strings are stretched or flattened only because their scale length is actually too short to vibrate properly at such low pitch regardless of gauge. On a grand piano though, where the bass strings have much longer scale length, this isn't needed as much.
The only string on a guitar that has a fairly reasonable scale to pitch length is the D-string (4th). The worst, a plain G (3rd) string is way too low pitched for it's scale length, hence its flexibility and has the most bending range of all strings when playing. A wound one, is slightly better. But then you have to throw out all of your bending. If you can grow biceps in your fingers, and be able to bend a wound g-string, then very little happens with the tone anyway.
My idea, is that someone should really utilize all this full out, i e making a fanned fretboard with different string scale for top and bottom strings, together with a adjustable nut like the Earvana or better, together with some intonation compensation system like Buzz Feiten or others (why not yours T-von?). But it is all this patent/proprietary thing that gets in the way, and leaves all such things unnecessary expensive by all parts.
But until this happens, I will NOT agree on anything that says that we finally have reached at a "better compromise" in guitar intonation. And I will most certainly not paying anything for anyone to set up any kind of intonation that I am already capable of doing myself the best. If anyone wants perfect intonation, there's ONLY fretless to go, really, and 8-10 years of re-learning all of your playing.
On an ending note, I do think that all this actually has to do with people pressing to hard on their strings, both with their fretting fingers and picking hand. I would even go out on a limb here stating that some people cannot actually play. They whack the strings out of tune with the pick on initial attack, they fret so hard, because they do have to have that power grip when bending strings. They attack the chords with different angles of their fingers all of the time. Compare with lateral (classical) vibrato. How much do you need to wiggle on your fingers side to side,not up and down, on the bottom strings in order to hear even the slightest pitch change? I tell you: the tiniest bit! So in the end: All these things matters too.
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Mar 09 '03
6:05 am PST
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Buzz Feiten Intonation System (Reply to this comment)
by t-von
I've read all the conjecture and have done lot of research on guitar intonation. Guitar intonation has been, still is and will always be as elusive as the Holy Grail. I've created my own system of offsets that have worked for me and scores of others as is evidenced by the numerous comments and e-mails I get daily.
No system is perfect. Not Feiten's, not mine, not yours, not anyone's. The guitar, by its very nature, is an imperfect instrument. No method can compensate for all the different playing styles, techniques and fretting pressure of all players. It's a compromise. All we can ever hope to achieve is 'better intonation'. The attack of a string is always sharper than the resting note.
The attack should always be used for intonation. But wait, what about soft finger style playing, should we tune to the attack with this playing style. Get my point? Most proprietary systems such as Feiten's cannot cover 'all' the bases. What if the guitarist wants to raise their string to fret height or change string gauges? What then? Take it back to a tech. I don't think so. Most of this is smoke and mirrors, IMO.
If you do not agree with me, then, that's your privilege. The imperfection of the guitar are what gives it it's uniqueness and personality. All any system can ever hope to achieve is 'better' intonation. There isn't and never will there be a 'perfect' guitar tuning system.
http://www.monteallums.com/Stretch_Tuning_DW.html
Monte Allums
http://www.monteallums.com
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Mar 07 '03
7:52 pm PST
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note: from a music shop point of view - only (Reply to this comment)
by matseriksson
I think that no one can set up any kind of intonation, let it be Buzz Feiten or regular, for anyone else, really. It's something that should be learned, practiced and honed in by the player him/herself, just as tuning a guitar. No matter how skilled you are as a luthier, and how picky you are. Buzz Feitens system is even more pickier. This is not something I got out of the blue. It's all through experience, and through the hard way.
While a "feitenized" guitar may add some value in a way, in another way it can detract value just as well. It narrows down the number of potential customers due to the limiting of string sets that can be used. The guitar becomes a little too specialized. It's up to you to decide which advantages overrules which drawbacks. Just so you guys are aware of this. That's all. And thanks for those very kind words mr Advisor.
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Feb 16 '03
7:46 am PST
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Great first review! (Reply to this comment)
by bsproles
This is a very informative article...keep up the great work!
-Bryan
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Feb 15 '03
9:22 pm PST
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Buzz feiten Tuning System.. (Reply to this comment)
by lllopez
Bottom line here is the Buzz Feiten set up works.tuning and intonation, when performed correctly are flawless, provided the instrument measures us as well. Tom Anderson is a shining example of how the Feiten System adds, not detracts from the quality of the instrument.
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Feb 15 '03
7:29 pm PST
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