What Fanned Frets Are REALLY For!

missmisstreater

WezV said:

Some people do drop C on a les Paul and really can make it work... for me it’s like playing on rubber bands

my first was a les paulish thing with 25-26” scales (5th fret perp) and that worked so much better

Man I'm learning so much. This is really interesting to me, because I mentioned a similar scale length earlier, but had assumed noone would touch that. I'd not even considered a perp other than at the 12th

Do you have a picture of that? 

Jonathanthomas83

missmisstreater said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

missmisstreater said:

WezV said:

i still love and build normal 6 strings.  

7 strings push the compromise of a fixed scale length as far as it will go.  For me they highlight the compromise inherent in the parallel fretted guitar.  That compromise is still there on a 6 string.

I honestly don't know how companies like Gibson or PRS can make 7 strings with a  straight face. I had a Vigier 7 (25.6") and there was nothing I could do with the low string. It was either too slack to hit hard, or the gauge was so heavy (66) that I ran into string inharmonicity problems and it sounded like shit.

So you get guys with 28" 7s... B sound great... but they feel like shit to solo on.

I respect that some people can make it work, but the idea of an 8 without a fan? That would never work for me.

Thankfully I'm all about the tele, and I acknowledge that it's shit before I pick it up, so nothing gets in the way.

Haven't you got an 8 string parallel fret Mayones?

I do - but currently, the low string is unusable to my ears. The B is great, maybe even perfect, but the high strings feel like a different instrument.

Evertune have sent me a bridge and I'm having that put in to show how their system eliminates the thing that drives me crazy about string tension.

Fanning would have helped address this, but I picked this up for like £1000, so I wasn't going to complain.

Fair one! Look forward to the Evertune video. :-)

missmisstreater

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Fair one! Look forward to the Evertune video. :-)

Don't expect to see it here :P hahah

octatonic

missmisstreater said:

Jonathanthomas83 said:

Fair one! Look forward to the Evertune video. :-)

Don't expect to see it here :P hahah

I have no objection to you posting videos.
It is the drop and run thing that I made a joke about, because it was pretty much all you had done on this site until now.

missmisstreater

No, it absolutely wasn't. 80 frets and I'd bet that less than 20 of them were drop and runs. And even then, if people don't want to talk, I can't make them. Never have I posted something, someone said something, and left them hanging. 

Anyway, I'm not arguing over it or derailing the thread further. You had your fun and made your point. The world is a better place.

octatonic

missmisstreater said:

No, it absolutely wasn't. 80 frets and I'd bet that less than 20 of them were drop and runs. And even then, if people don't want to talk, I can't make them. Never have I posted something, someone said something, and left them hanging. 

Anyway, I'm not arguing over it or derailing the thread further. You had your fun and made your point. The world is a better place.

Sigh.
Man who misses point continues to miss the point.
<Click here for amazing ....>

WezV

missmisstreater said:

WezV said:

Some people do drop C on a les Paul and really can make it work... for me it’s like playing on rubber bands

my first was a les paulish thing with 25-26” scales (5th fret perp) and that worked so much better

Man I'm learning so much. This is really interesting to me, because I mentioned a similar scale length earlier, but had assumed noone would touch that. I'd not even considered a perp other than at the 12th

Do you have a picture of that? 

not many complete pictures  - a few from the last few stages of the build, none of it finished.  It was a test with scrap materials




here is the 26.5-28" baritone  i made shortly after

stickyfiddle

missmisstreater said:

No, it absolutely wasn't. 80 frets and I'd bet that less than 20 of them were drop and runs. And even then, if people don't want to talk, I can't make them. Never have I posted something, someone said something, and left them hanging. 

Anyway, I'm not arguing over it or derailing the thread further. You had your fun and made your point. The world is a better place.

I think the point here is that if you just drop a video with almost no other text, people assume you're just trying to hike your youtube page's google rankings and view counts (irrespective of whether that's true).

If you'd said "Has anyone got a fanned fret guitar? Here are my experiences... [some description of your experiences]. I even made a video to demonstrate my point about how fanned fret guitars sound compared with a regular guitar, but would be keen to hear others' experiences", that's directly encouraging people to engage with the content right here, and you'll likely end up with a really interesting thread, as @WezV has been trying to help achieve.  (As a bonus, that would probably also get you more video clicks as well, which I assume you do care about on some level) 

57Deluxe

I thought they were for learners who were too lazy to make BARRE chords properly...

chromatuna

I immediately thought of a Spinal Tap esque scene where an incredibly fast guitarist has his or her fretting hand cooled by a flunky with a fan.... 

DLM

@chromatuna Steve Vai has been all about having his frets (OK, his hair) fanned for years. It's quite the meme amongst his fans (of the other persuasion):

http://frontman.cz/sites/default/files/vai.jpg

Handsome_Chris

The correct answer: Fanned frets are designed to enable more internet rows.

missmisstreater

Handsome_Chris said:

The correct answer: Fanned frets are designed to enable more internet rows.

fuc**n' tell me about it haha

prlgmnr

missmisstreater said:

WezV said:

i still love and build normal 6 strings.  

7 strings push the compromise of a fixed scale length as far as it will go.  For me they highlight the compromise inherent in the parallel fretted guitar.  That compromise is still there on a 6 string.

 I had a Vigier 7 (25.6") and there was nothing I could do with the low string. It was either too slack to hit hard, or the gauge was so heavy (66) that I ran into string inharmonicity problems and it sounded like shit.

Don't say that, I've got one on order.

I don't mind a B on a regular 6 string (60 ish gauge) so I figured I'd be alright. Plus I had a Solar 7 string and was pleasantly surprised that it sounded fine with a 54 gauge low B (admittedly that had an evertune bridge so that may have helped - ultimately I found the evertune rattled a bit which I didn't like so I moved it on).

Don't find that 8 string low F# or F can be managed reasonably on anything less than 29 inches though. I had the Ibanez Meshuggah sig 8 string for a bit but decided in the end that the cost of making the low string sound amazing was that the high strings sounded shite and you could barely bend the high E without it snapping, at which point, why bother with 8 strings?

It's been about a year since I got rid of it and I've spent basically that entire time unable to decide whether I want a 29-30" 6 string baritone for playing in F/F# or whether I want a custom fan fret 8. I'm really close to settling on trying an Ibanez SRC6.

missmisstreater

prlgmnr said:

Don't find that 8 string low F# or F can be managed reasonably on anything less than 29 inches though. I had the Ibanez Meshuggah sig 8 string for a bit but decided in the end that the cost of making the low string sound amazing was that the high strings sounded shite and you could barely bend the high E without it snapping, at which point, why bother with 8 strings?

BOOM! Fanned frets! haha

You'll be fine with the Vigier, it's all about the player right? I hit hard because I play unplugged most of the time, so it wasn't working for me.

Handsome_Chris

octatonic said:

missmisstreater said:

octatonic said:

Do fan frets help to get a non-contributing forum member's youtube views up?

excuse me? Non contributing? I've literally got a playlist on my channel of videos that were made specifically FOR fretboard forum users answering their questions.

Those videos are also used as a way to bring my audience over to a forum that I've been on for years. I link to this forum, and encourage my audience to come and join it. So don't talk to me about "non-contributing", of the two of us, I'm trying to help this forum grow, and you're sat here trying to alienate members you perceive as less worth than yourself? 

You don't know what you are talking about, Levi.

This isn't forum top trumps but I've contributed here for years, and Music Radar before that.
I go to the meet ups and I actually engage with the membership, rather than just dropping a video and then fucking off as per usual.
I've got literally thousands of hours clocked up here helping people.

I've also done a bunch of videos for people here- as in for the membership themselves.
I don't talk down to them or engage in worthlessly controversial topics for the sake of Youtube views.
You aren't trying to grow the forum at all- you're being entirely dishonest about that.

You haven't really been on this forum- your 'contributions' are all based around you posting a video, again for youtube views.

I am going to have to start nosing my way through these. @octatonic , is there anything your GP7 stuff that'll apply to GP6?

Clarky

WezV said:

Sporky said:

Isn't it pretty obvious that they're so that you can have higher tension on the lower strings without ridiculously heavy gauges?

yes.  yes it is.

....

There are some ergonomic benefits for certain styles in certain positions, but it totally depends on the positioning of the fan and difference in scale lengths.       

Intonation does get more consistent when the string is an appropriate thickness for the scale length and tuning, but thats only based on the ability to intonate with the 12th fret method, nothing to do with actual intonation of every position which is as compromised as any other mathematically calculated fretting system.

.Individual bridges can also help tuning stability.     

That is not misinformation.   I have been building the fanned frets for about 13 years - almost all of them have been standard 6 strings

given that I know sod all about fan frets...
is there a standard for them.. as in, the length of the 1st string through to the length of the 6th [so all fan frat guitars are the same], or are there differences?

being a lefty spaz, I rarely get to play anything exotic..
but this year at the guitar show Stranberg had a couple of lefty fan frets so I finally was able to try one out..
I struggled with it a little at first.. it messed with my eyes [to be expected I guess]
but as soon as I stopped looking at the neck and played by 'touch' I didn't put a note wrong..
I thought it actually felt rather nice..

guitarfishbay

Yeah I found the same @Clarky ;

If you don’t look at the strings but look at the side dots, like you’d do when playing stood up, your hand seems to already know how to play a fan fret quite quickly. At least below the 12th fret. Well that’s what I found myself. It gets a bit trickier higher up the fretboard when the gaps are smaller 

Clarky

WezV said:
fanned frets is a technique that can be used in an ergonomic way and can improve intonation... but only if it’s done right.  

Extreme fans can be very unergonomic and cause the hand to twist in uncomfortable ways.  Better fans can help keep the wrist straight in all playing positions... that’s ergonomics!

choosing the scale length difference, and centre of the fan is crucial in that ergonomic discussion.  As a builder of fanned fret guitars it has always been at the forefront of my mind.  

wow... this is really pretty interesting...
it never occurred to me that you'd choose the centre of the fan and the scale differences..
seriously I had no idea...
and answers my previous question...

Clarky

guitarfishbay said:

Yeah I found the same @Clarky ;

If you don’t look at the strings but look at the side dots, like you’d do when playing stood up, your hand seems to already know how to play a fan fret quite quickly. At least below the 12th fret. Well that’s what I found myself. It gets a bit trickier higher up the fretboard when the gaps are smaller 

totally know what you mean...
also, bending took a little getting used to..
especially the 3rd string because sometimes I'll bend it upwards, others downwards, and the fan made a difference to how that felt...
I reckon though it's something I'd be able to get used to without much time and effort