A very interesting article on nut compensation.

[zeegler]

This is a must-read.

http://www.mimf.com/nutcomp/

It makes perfect sense, and is very well written and illustrated. I do believe I'm going to give it a try to see how much of a difference it makes. I hate it when chords sound out of tune at the first fret, or open position, when the guitar is otherwise in perfect tune.

[MountainDog]

Save yourself some time and buy an ervana nut. I have a Gibson Studio Lite Les Paul that never played well due to nut position. Bought the ervana nut for $25 from a dealer. Followed instructions, only took a few minutes, worked excellently, solved all the problems. There is no damage to the guitar, you can remove the earvana base and put the stock nut back in place if you wanted to.

https://vapor.liquidweb.com/~earvana/shop/images/earvana_retro_nut_les_paul_.jpg

http://www.earvana.com

[rjohnstone]

Be nice if they made one for Floyds.
Nice to see they make them for LSR type nuts. I could use one on my Strat.

[zeegler]

The Earvana is a good idea for sure, but it doesn't necessarily solve tuning problems on all guitars. Like the article says, different guitars will need more or less compensation. A majot part of the problem, is that 1st fret notes ring too sharp, due to excessive string stretch. Moving the nut towards the bridge fixes it. I don't think the Earvana does that.

I just read up on the Earvana, and I guess it does the same thing, but they are obviously not custom fitted for each guitar.

[MountainDog]

Yes, the Earvana does move the nut towards the bridge. The nut is 2 pieces, a platform that glues to the guitar like a normal nut, then a top piece that slides back and forth. You can see the three screws and the slots they are in. When I positioned the nut on my LP as per the instructions, both E strings were more forward (ie towards bridge) than the original nut.
Here's a pic of their fender version. If you look at the left side of the pic, you can see the 'base' portion of the nut fitting into the original nut slot. You can see the E strings are more forward than the slot.

https://vapor.liquidweb.com/~earvana/shop/images/earvana_retro_nut_strat_osc.jpg

You are absolutely correct, with the Earvana nut, it comes with offsets that they figured out, vs. doing it yourself one-by-one per string on the link you had, so the Steven Delft version is custom per guitar rather than a 'one-size-fits-all'. You could also remove material from the Earvana if needed. My main point was that the Earvana would also be less time consuming and easier to install, and although not as precise, will definitely be much better than stock nut.

By the way, the Buzz Feiten system is based on moving the nut closer to the bridge to address the being sharp due to string stretch that you mention. Reading his patent on that is pretty interesting.

[Subvamp]

The Earvana nut is just a less expensive attempt to give the guitar the Buzz Feiten treatment.

[mm2002]

The Earvana nut is just a less expensive attempt to give the guitar the Buzz Feiten treatment.

I would think the Earvana system would be a little more accurate because it compensates each string individually. The Feiten system moves all strings toward the bridge equally. I have a guitar with the Feiten treatment.....I suppose it makes a difference to sensitive ears, but I'm not sure I really notice anything.

[MountainDog]

The Feiten system has you do different intonation settings, so its a combo of the nut forward and saddle position, so it's pretty accurate also. I've got quite a few Feiten guitars. The bummer was getting the $200 Peterson strobostomp tuner so I could program the intonation offsets. The Korg DT-7 is pretty good (LEDs) for around $90 though.