Steve Vai Offset Frets? Options

[Sergeant_Ant]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QKvYqAe4-I

what do yall think of this?

[JVM]

Interesting. I want to see steve give a demo of it

[edit] What about bending a note? Wouldn't that just throw it out of whack?

This post has been edited by JVM: Aug 19 2007, 02:59 PM

[Sergeant_Ant]

i dunno, i think what hes saying is that the distance between frets isnt supposed to be straight to be at the right frequency or something

[swingline]

The frets were of set a great idea and very interesting. I'm wondering though if the string won't catch the side of one of the "Fret Pieces"?

[Hungus]

Yhea thats pretty interesting eh... bummer the acoustic bit was cut off though

[swingline]

Did the acoustic have it to or was he showcasing something else?

[Capn' Jef]

Honestly, why bother?

No one has complained for 40 years at this point. If you're so pitch-perfect that normal frets don't work for you, I guess you should go have a custom guitar built.

Personally, my cheap les paul sounds brilliant to me and the frets do not look like I stepped on the guitar.

[JOhn]

he was showing the guitars he brought along on tour and the was the only one with that fret thing.

[Hungus]

Im not sure swingline he just started to pull out one of his acoustics and saying he was going to show us it as it cut off but considering he said he was having these frets put on all of his guitars im guessing it had them too...

[Muris Varajic]

he was showing the guitars he brought along on tour and the was the only one with that fret thing.

These frets are great stuff,I've seen it before.
It's just that you need new fingerboard to set them on guitar...

[fkalich]

I expect that after he has all his guitars changed to the new frets, he will change most of them back to what they were before.

Piano tuners (who are good) tweak the adjustments away from exact frequencies to improve things for certain keys. The principle is similar here. Although here the adjustments are made to make certain chord patterns sweeter. However by adjusting the frets to make certain intervals more consonant, you are necessarily making other chord patterns more dissonant. It is a mathematical certainty. All in all, I expect it balances out to no gain, in fact, probably screws things up because now your brain has to deal with a fret layout that is not consistent. I don't have to see the guitar to know this, it is just mathematics, for everything the layout would have improved, he made something else worse. Now all in all, I am sure it has its good points, but don't believe this is revolutionary.

This post has been edited by fkalich: Aug 19 2007, 04:42 PM

[Saoirse O'Shea]

Here's the web site of the guy who makes those 'true tempered' fretted necks. The guy will probably be inundated with orders when people see the video of Vai recommending it. So if you really want it be quick .

Personally I'm in agreement with fkalich here. I've always tuned by harmonics and pitch fork and have so known for ages that a 'standard' guitar is not in perfect tuning all down the neck (try your harmonics at 19 and the corresponding note - not quite the same). However perfect consonance/temperament is not necessarily better musically. Blues players have always bent the blue note slightly out!

Cheers,
Tony

[shredmandan]

This is wild. I see the benifits of it but still dont see this taking off to a big mass produced thing anytime soon.Steve Vai endorsing it though would really help it take off.I dont like the fact that the frets have to be all curled and stuff.Very cool post though

[Andrew Cockburn]

Honestly, why bother?

That problem has bugged the crap out of me for 30 years, although it is more of an issue when you are playing chords than lead, getting a solution that works would be pretty amazing to me, although I can't see having my Jem refretted this way - I bet it would cost a mint!

No need for lead though - as you are always tensioning microbending and vibratoing the notes anyway.

This post has been edited by Andrew Cockburn: Aug 19 2007, 08:44 PM

[Pavel]

Guitarists have played guitar for ages and none of them ever bothered with micro-detunings. I see no need in this for anyone.

[The Uncreator]

I think thats pretty cool, a good idea as well, I dont think i will ever be needing it though, but hey its Steve Vai's signature guitar, it may not seem nessceary to you, but to him, ya never know.

Plus, its his signature guitar, so if i had a signature series id put stuff like that on it even if it helped in the slightest, just because i could

[Andrew Cockburn]

Interestingly for Metal this probably isn't so important - Power Chords rely on a 5th interval, and that is pretty well represented in the Even Tempered scale. These sweetened tempers help other intervals notably 3rds to sound better - not an issue for power chords at all. I would guess that Jazz chord players would probably get the most benefit out of this.

[The Uncreator]

Would help at all if you invert chords? when i play i like to invert chords for a "Darker" Sound alot.

[Andrew Cockburn]

Would help at all if you invert chords? when i play i like to invert chords for a "Darker" Sound alot.

Well inverted 4ths are 5ths, which are again fairly reasonable in the even temper scale, its those close and more unusual intervals that really cause problems, like 3rds, major and minor 7ths (against the root note these are small intervals)

[Hardtail]

I thought Steve Vai was like Jesus to a lot of GMC'ers. I wholly expected to open this thread up and find that at least a dozen people already had this on order.

But seriously, can you blame the guy... I have a strong feeling this is the byproduct of being a rich and bored musician.

Hardtail