# True Temperament Collaborating With Cor-Tek



## HeHasTheJazzHands (Jan 10, 2020)

Ulf Zandhers, CEO True Temperament: "I´m proud to announce that our collaboration with Cor-Tek – one of the world's largest and best quality guitar manufacturers – will now be visualized at the Winter NAMM Show, January 16-19. Namely factory made guitars equipped with the True Temperament 2nd generation stainless steel frets, for perfect intonation all over the fretboard.

I wonder if this means more companies will try to adopt the system.

https://www.truetemperament.com/news/true-temperament-pressrelease-winter-namm-2020/


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## spudmunkey (Jan 10, 2020)

Do you hear that? That unsettling sound? That's the sound of 20,000 guitar luthiers/repair shops around the country shrieking in horror.


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## Winspear (Jan 10, 2020)

And @ixlramp and myself, shrieking at more generalised misleading technical statements


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## Musiscience (Jan 10, 2020)

Who is Cor-Tek manufacturing for?

Edit: nevermind, it's Cort parent company. This might mean a lot of upcoming imports with SS TT. I like this idea, but probably not the price (I am one of those who mind paying 3K USD for an Indo import.


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## spudmunkey (Jan 10, 2020)

Winspear said:


> Edit: nevermind, it's Cort parent company. This might mean a lot of upcoming imports with SS TT. I like this idea, but probably not the price (I am one of those who mind paying 3K USD for an Indo import.



I didn't actually know that there was a stainless version. 

Also...jeez, I had no idea the TT slots were so wide!!!!


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## Zhysick (Jan 10, 2020)

Those TT frets are massive!!!!


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## spudmunkey (Jan 10, 2020)

Zhysick said:


> Those TT frets are massive!!!!


And in that photo, you can see a very slight gap on the top edges of, what I presume to be, the 3rd and 5th frets.


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## cip 123 (Jan 10, 2020)

Guess this explains the new strandbergs then


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## narad (Jan 10, 2020)

cip 123 said:


> Guess this explains the new strandbergs then



It makes sense. When I originally ordered my first M2M strandberg I had to go custom because that was the only way. By the time I received the guitar, I could have gotten those specs in the Swedish production runs. Then I placed an order for my second M2M because I wanted neckthru and TT frets. I guess after like 5 years of waiting, these will come out, TT frets will become easily available, and then my guitar will be completed. Customs, man...


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## Winspear (Jan 10, 2020)

Zhysick said:


> Those TT frets are massive!!!!


Yup, they are moulded and that would be a real pain with conventional fretwire styling


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## spudmunkey (Jan 10, 2020)

I knew they were molded, but always assumed they were still narrow fret tangs/slots.


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## diagrammatiks (Jan 10, 2020)

narad said:


> It makes sense. When I originally ordered my first M2M strandberg I had to go custom because that was the only way. By the time I received the guitar, I could have gotten those specs in the Swedish production runs. Then I placed an order for my second M2M because I wanted neckthru and TT frets. I guess after like 5 years of waiting, these will come out, TT frets will become easily available, and then my guitar will be completed. Customs, man...



the custom shop is like...maybe we should have a factory figure out how to do this first. it seems hard.


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## DudeManBrother (Jan 10, 2020)

Do people really struggle with intonation so much that this is necessary? Do you have to order a set based on the specific tuning you plan to use for the guitar? Does it lose its effectiveness the moment you change tunings? Do they even offer alt tuning options?


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## ramses (Jan 10, 2020)

cip 123 said:


> Guess this explains the new strandbergs then





narad said:


> It makes sense.



My thoughts too.

I'm wondering how difficult it is to adapt the "TT process" to a production line, and what would the learning curve be.

A production 8-string with TT would definitely push me to get a new strandberg. However, I'm worried that it would not be wise to be among the first customers.


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## jephjacques (Jan 10, 2020)

I had a TT guitar for a while and didn't really notice a difference, and I have fairly decent pitch. Maybe verrry slightly when playing chords up past the 12th fret, but I don't think they're worth the trouble.


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## ramses (Jan 10, 2020)

DudeManBrother said:


> Do people really struggle with intonation so much that this is necessary?



It is definitely a nice thing to have if you play along with a violinist, for instance. Also, some chords in some keys just don't sound right unless you slightly detune your guitar.


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## Winspear (Jan 10, 2020)

ramses said:


> I'm wondering how difficult it is to adapt the "TT process" to a production line, and what would the learning curve be.



I'd actually imagine that once the initial CNC programming (should not be much work at all!) is done, it would actually be far easier. No need to cut frets to length, trim the tang for blind slots if applicable, probably easier to fit, potentially less dressing work etc? I imagine most of the cost simply comes from the cost of buying the frets themselves which are of course significantly more expensive than simple wire


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## trem licking (Jan 10, 2020)

Its a good thing they are stainless steel, ill say that. Making TT nickel frets is a waste of time and money. Not really necessary in my opinion... Have yall ever checked the tuning at each fret on different strings? If you have good technique, theres marginal fluctuation on the notes... Like a cent or 2 here or there. Guitar will never be a perfect instrument and thats a good thing, that's what gives it it's charm. Innovation is cool and all but this is quite marginal. Can't wait for the wave of fanny fret squiggle wiggle guitars to follow


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## spudmunkey (Jan 10, 2020)

trem licking said:


> Its a good thing they are stainless steel, ill say that. Making TT nickel frets is a waste of time and money.



Were they even nickel? Weren't they some sort of bronze?


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## c7spheres (Jan 10, 2020)

DudeManBrother said:


> Do people really struggle with intonation so much that this is necessary? Do you have to order a set based on the specific tuning you plan to use for the guitar? Does it lose its effectiveness the moment you change tunings? Do they even offer alt tuning options?


- I don't think the tuning you use affects it. It's more of just an offset rather than an exact science. It's like a sweetened tuning built into the guitar and for each fret.

- It would be cool if Ibanez started doing this so I could have an 8 string Stoneman with TT frets just like Fredrik Thordendal's

- I'll bet this would make it a lot easier for luthiers to fit them into slots. Prbably less fret end work and finishing processes. It's a ready to go fret and apparently they don't have to go to the ends of the board now based on the above picts : )


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## trem licking (Jan 10, 2020)

spudmunkey said:


> Were they even nickel? Weren't they some sort of bronze?


im pretty sure when they first came out, they were nickel... but i could be wrong. but how shitty would that be to have your perfectly placed frets get slightly imperfect from wear? haha


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## Winspear (Jan 10, 2020)

Whatever they were they were notorious for fast wear, especially given the price. The stainless are significantly more expensive but apparently last exponentially longer


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## sakeido (Jan 10, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> - I don't think the tuning you use affects it. It's more of just an offset rather than an exact science. It's like a sweetened tuning built into the guitar and for each fret.



back in the day they did offer different sets of True Temperament frets depending on your intending tuning, but it looks like they settled on a common design and only offer that now

this guy talks about different designs depending on your intended use of the guitar and offers two designs. One for "normal" playing, one for "jazz." He actually has the True Temperament copyright on the bottom and page dates back to 2006 so maybe it's just a very old page from the same company. From what I remember, they ballooned up to something like five designs at one point, but I can't find any backup for that

edit: oh here we go
https://web.archive.org/web/2012013...ent.com/site/gfx/documents/Prices_Options.pdf

they had four designs when this was published. "Normal," one specific for low tunings, "Die Wohltemperirte Gitarre" and 12-Tone Equal Temperament. iirc that last one sounded the most extreme, almost synth-like at times, and also was the craziest looking and probably weirdest to play.

good post here on the forum about TT https://www.sevenstring.org/threads...tail-using-an-archive-of-the-old-site.337329/


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## c7spheres (Jan 10, 2020)

sakeido said:


> back in the day they did offer different sets of True Temperament frets depending on your intending tuning, but it looks like they settled on a common design and only offer that now
> 
> this guy talks about different designs depending on your intended use of the guitar and offers two designs. One for "normal" playing, one for "jazz." He actually has the True Temperament copyright on the bottom and page dates back to 2006 so maybe it's just a very old page from the same company. From what I remember, they ballooned up to something like five designs at one point, but I can't find any backup for that
> 
> ...


- That's some good info. I'm getting a bit melodramatic on the explinations of key colours : ) I'm glad they're working out what seems to work best over time and continuing to refine things. It seems they're figuring out what works best overall. 
- I'd love to play a guitar with these someday to see the impact they have, but ultimately I don't think it's a huge deal to me, personally. I've found the way I like things for my tastes and the intonation is so near perfect it's a non issue. It's a great idea for sure but I can't see myself going through the hassels involved with getting these installed. Maybe with a new instrument possibly. I can cerainly see the advantages in some situations.
- I think the biggest appeal for these is for people that don't play with well balanced placement and pressure and also don't really know how to suss out a guitar's balanced/sweetened tunings and intonation offsets, which is a huge market I'd guess because doing that with a guitar really is a fine art and more than a techincal science. 
- The only thing that would be a concern is when they refine the formula again. I wonder if they would offer upgraded fret replacements with the new offests or anything.


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## Hollowway (Jan 10, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> - I don't think the tuning you use affects it. It's more of just an offset rather than an exact science. It's like a sweetened tuning built into the guitar and for each fret.


Actually, you have to be in standard tuning. You can tune down or up a little bit (like DGCFAD) but you can’t do, for instance, an open tuning, etc. The keys will all sound the same, but the tunings won’t. That’s why you need to make sure you’re comfortable in standard if you’re considering one.


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## c7spheres (Jan 10, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> Actually, you have to be in standard tuning. You can tune down or up a little bit (like DGCFAD) but you can’t do, for instance, an open tuning, etc. The keys will all sound the same, but the tunings won’t. That’s why you need to make sure you’re comfortable in standard if you’re considering one.


 Ah, Good to know. I guess there's more going on with it than meets the eye. Reading more on it, it appears they also don't recommend wound 3rd strings or 3rd strings thicker than 0.18 unless you have a TT neck designed for use with a wound 3rd, and other stuff too. So it appears it's best to go into this with knowing exactly what you want in advance. I don't think it's for me.


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## Hollowway (Jan 10, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> Ah, Good to know. I guess there's more going on with it than meets the eye. Reading more on it, it appears they also don't recommend wound 3rd strings or 3rd strings thicker than 0.18 unless you have a TT neck designed for use with a wound 3rd, and other stuff too. So it appears it's best to go into this with knowing exactly what you want in advance. I don't think it's for me.


Yeah, same for me. I almost always play with standard, and string gauges that would work, but it’s exceptionally difficult to hear a difference. And I don’t play jazz, so it’s not like a root and fifth are going to sound much better.


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## c7spheres (Jan 10, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> Yeah, same for me. I almost always play with standard, and string gauges that would work, but it’s exceptionally difficult to hear a difference. And I don’t play jazz, so it’s not like a root and fifth are going to sound much better.



Yeh, I have my own system of offsetting my guitars to get them as near perfect as possible for my playing pressure. I'm pretty happy with it. 
- I use to have a custom with the Buzz Feiten system on it which was near perfect, but it was strange and kinda lifeless. It's like all the potential energy was sucked out of the guitar somehow and everthing was just kinda flat regarding the punch the energy from chords and such had to it, but it was near perfect. I ended up putting it back to normal and went back and forth quite a few times over the years I owned it, seriously giving the Buzz system a chance and wanting to like it better, but it was to strange for me. The sound was there but not the feel. When I'd put it back to "normal" the guitar came back to life. Weird and psychological too I'd imagine.
- I like how this TT system works though because it seems it would still keep that potential "punch" energy and life of those chords there while still sweetening up the intonation, as it's a different way of doing things, but it's just to much to deal with for me since I already get what I want with my own little way of doing things. I see these things as useful but not necessary or even desireable un certain situations. 
- What the real advantage of this system would be is to allow better intonation while being a sloppier player or being able to get better intonation on those cocplex chords. I can see a bight future for it, maybe even a new standard and as desirable as fanned frets are nowadays.


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## Hollowway (Jan 10, 2020)

Yeah, I think the real use for this is playing complex chords with a lot of distortion. It’s something most of us avoid currently because the notes beat, and it ends up sounding like mush. You can get around it when recording building chords one note at a time multitracked, and correcting for the little pitch errors. But, for live this would work well. 
I think I just talked myself back into wanting one.


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## ixlramp (Jan 11, 2020)

Ha ... Winspear beat me to it.

That press release is again misleading. Assuming the TT system that will be used for Cor-Tek guitars is 'Thidell formula 1' (a fairly safe assumption, it is the common TT system seen on Strandbergs etc.), these guitars will actually be deliberately slightly out of tune with our standard 12 Tone Equal Temperament (12TET) that most instruments use.
TT Thidell formula 1 is a historical tonal system called a 'Well Temperment', and is 12TET with each pitch offset by up to 4 cents, to make chords in the more commonly used keys more harmonious (closer to Just Intonation).

Their claims of 'perfect intonation' and 'tunes correctly' do not mean perfectly intonated to or tuned to 12TET, however they are perpetuating that misunderstanding.
Years ago their website was full of detail, but then it got extremely dumbed-down and uninformative as they became mainstream.
Most people misunderstand what TT is, including many of the endorsing guitarists.
They have made no effort to correct the misunderstandings and are riding the ignorant and extreme hype.

"Probably the greatest improvement in guitar making in 100 years." but actually not remotely =)

For an attempt at a clear explanation see my thread https://www.sevenstring.org/threads...-summary-of-true-temperament-fretting.337522/


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## ixlramp (Jan 11, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> What the real advantage of this system would be is to allow better intonation while being a sloppier player


It does not improve intonation for sloppy players.


Hollowway said:


> I think the real use for this is playing complex chords with a lot of distortion.


TT only makes fairly conventional chords a little more harmonious in half of the 12 keys, at the expense of making chords in the other keys less harmonious. So there is little benefit for unusual harmony and no benefit for unconventional use of keys. More a thing for conventional music in white-note keys. So no idea why Fredrik Thordendal has one =)
The improvement in chord harmony is only small too, chords are still quite far from being Just Intonation (perfect harmony).


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## c7spheres (Jan 11, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> It does not improve intonation for sloppy players.
> 
> TT only makes fairly conventional chords a little more harmonious in half of the 12 keys, at the expense of making chords in the other keys less harmonious. So there is little benefit for unusual harmony and no benefit for unconventional use of keys. More a thing for conventional music in white-note keys. So no idea why Fredrik Thordendal has one =)
> The improvement in chord harmony is only small too, chords are still quite far from being Just Intonation (perfect harmony).



- My thinking was for sloppy players that don't pay much mind to their finger position between the frets that this would put their finger closer to the fret making it a bit better placed resulting in a bit better intonation, but I guess if they adjust to the same amount of slop it would just be as far off anyways. 

- Reading up more on it, that sucks it only helps certain keys more than others. It makes me lose all interest in it other than trying it out if I happen to come across it honestly.


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## Lorcan Ward (Jan 11, 2020)

DudeManBrother said:


> Do people really struggle with intonation so much that this is necessary?



In a mix it’s not something you would pick up on. When tabbing bands like Slipknot, Children of Bodom, nightwish, August Burns red I’ll come across points their guitar went out of tune while tracking or they simply didn’t bother to even intonate when changing tuning(morrigan by Children Of Bodom is an example, the upper frets are all sharp). 



ramses said:


> It is definitely a nice thing to have if you play along with a violinist, for instance. Also, some chords in some keys just don't sound right unless you slightly detune your guitar.



It’s a really good challenge for your ears and muscle memory to play along to violin tracks where you have to 1/8th and 1/4th bend notes to be in tune.


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## bostjan (Jan 11, 2020)

Let the tidal wave of vague misinformation begin!


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## Hollowway (Jan 11, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> TT only makes fairly conventional chords a little more harmonious in half of the 12 keys, at the expense of making chords in the other keys less harmonious. So there is little benefit for unusual harmony and no benefit for unconventional use of keys. More a thing for conventional music in white-note keys. So no idea why Fredrik Thordendal has one =)
> The improvement in chord harmony is only small too, chords are still quite far from being Just Intonation (perfect harmony).



I didn’t know that. I thought it was the same for all keys. That’s probably the biggest detraction. Had the keys been the same, at least you could say it was a slight improvement on a regular guitar.


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## narad (Jan 11, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> I didn’t know that. I thought it was the same for all keys. That’s probably the biggest detraction. Had the keys been the same, at least you could say it was a slight improvement on a regular guitar.



Just listen to this A/B and see if you like it. Theory aside, just the sound of it convinced me (though I had my order in for them in like 2014...):


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## ixlramp (Jan 11, 2020)

Anyway, this depends on what True Temperament (TT) system Cor-Tek choose. If they have any sense they would choose the TT '12 Tone Equal Temperament' (12TET) system, which offsets frets in a subtle way so that intonation is closer to 12TET, the tonal system that all other instruments use. You would think this is what most guitar players actually want.
Then they can truthfully promote this as being improved intonation and more in tune.

However, i expect they will use the TT 'Thidell Formula 1' (TF1) system and do what TT is doing, deceive by omission and be complicit with the ignorant hype for commercial interest.

We will be able to tell because the 2 TT systems look significantly different:




The TT 12TET system (above) is far more subtle as it is only making very small corrections to get closer to 12TET, a well set up guitar is already very close.




The TT TF1 system (above) has larger fret offsets as it is also offsetting each tone of 12TET up or down by up to 4 cents to result in an alternative tonal system called a 'Well Temperament'.
Looking at the Strandbergs and the guitars of endorsing artists, most seem to be TT TF1.

The TT TF1 system makes more of an impression on guitarists when they try it because it improves the harmony of chords, and i suspect most guitarists then misunderstand this as meaning the guitar is more closely intonated to 12TET. This misunderstanding is then reinforced by the deception and ignorant hype.

The actual situation is:
If chords have improved harmony, the guitar will be deviating from 12TET.
If the guitar is closely intonated to 12TET, chords cannot have improved harmony.
This is because 12TET inherently results in intervals and chords with imperfect harmony.

This is related to the misunderstanding where a guitarist will notice that the harmony of chords is bad, and then incorrectly conclude that the intonation of the guitar is bad. In fact, even if the guitar is very closely intonated to 12TET the chords will still have bad harmony.
This misunderstanding works in favour of TT, as a guitarist may then experience the improved harmony of chords of the TT TF1 system and conclude that the guitar is more closely intonated to 12TET.

If Cor-Tek choose the TT 12TET system the guitars will lose the 'wow factor' of chords with improved harmony, and just sound like a well set up guitar, this does not have as much commercial potential.

A TT system does improve intonation, but TT often fail to inform that it is more closely intonated to 'the intended tonal system' and what that intended tonal system is.
For the TT TF1 system, the intended tonal system is actually a tonal system known as a 'Well Temperament', which is a deviation from 12TET.
This means they can truthfully state "perfect intonation all over the fretboard", "tunes correctly over the whole register" (even though these are exaggerated and sloppy statements) but they are actually deceiving by what they are not stating.

I have just looked at the TT FAQ. They only offer the TT TF1 system now, but i expect Cor-Tek could use the TT 12TET system if they wanted to. However i think it is unlikely.
The FAQ seems worse now, it is actually deceiving in places, i will cover this in another post.


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## ixlramp (Jan 11, 2020)

narad said:


> Theory aside, just the sound of it convinced me


I should also mention that a possible attraction for some of the TT TF1 system is the 'key colour' created by this 'Well Temperament' tonal system. Every key (of the same scale) now has a slightly different character. Also, chords on differing root notes have slightly differing characters, some are closer to perfect harmony, some further away.

Well Temperament was the historical tonal system used for European classical music before 12 Tone Equal Temperament, and was used from the 1600s to the 1800s. J.S.Bach's 'Well Tempered Clavier' refers to it.
The key colour descriptions here are rather dramatic https://www.wmich.edu/mus-theo/courses/keys.html


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## bostjan (Jan 11, 2020)

TT stopped offering their 12edo system a little while ago, though. I have no problem with unequal temperament, but I'd love to see some transparency from TT about their system.

If a Cort unequal temperament guitar hits the market for cheap, it'd be super tempting for me, but I'd be more interested in something funkier.


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## ixlramp (Jan 11, 2020)

narad said:


> Just listen to this A/B and see if you like it.


Only because he is probably playing in the commonly used keys FCGDAEB =)

Actually, there is no A/B comparison in this video. The section with the yellow guitar is a demonstration of what he just explained at 1:50: He has retuned the strings (by up to +/-18 cents) such that the E major chord is in Just Intonation (perfect harmony), and then plays a C major chord with those retuned stirngs. The result obviously sounds bad. The yellow guitar is not a guitar tuned and intonated to 12TET.

He did a reasonable job of the video however ...
His use of 'in tune' is misleading, that confuses 'in tune with 12TET' with the perfect harmony of Just Intonation.
He claims the chords are 'in tune', as in 'Just Intonation', when they are not. We calculated the improvements of each interval that TT TF1 results in and the intervals are only altered halfway towards Just Intonation at the most. So chords are 'more in tune'.
He never mentioned that chords have worse harmony in one half of all possible keys, or that the guitar deviates from 12TET such that most notes are slightly out of tune with all other instruments.

Most TT videos are either like this or worse, so the misunderstanding continues. I do not blame him though, this is technical stuff. Winspear, bostjan and i are all technically minded people who have studied microtonal and historical tonal systems.


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## c7spheres (Jan 11, 2020)

When I look under the FAQ's it says that all keys work perfectly together which contradicts the thing I read yesterday. NOw I'm interested again in it. They also say that the TF1 adjusts every string to fret contact point so that the freq plays exactly at each fret, and they claim perfect intonation too. Apparently this TF1 is their end all be all height of their accomplishments with this so they stopped using the other methods. I get he misleading/ not transparent parts of how they choose words but basically it seems if you read everything they talk about under the preface of realting to their well tempered TF1 technology then it is "technically" all true. The last claim on their FAQ's says that it works just fine with "ordinary" instruments and causes no dissonance whatsoever. I don't buy that because if it didn't then what dissonance is it eliminating in relation to "ordinary"? It can't be different and the same. I think they mean that it sounds good together still, but that seems debateable.


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## ramses (Jan 11, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> ... it improves the harmony of chords ...
> 
> ... If the guitar is closely intonated to 12TET, chords cannot have improved harmony ...
> 
> ...



You are actually doing a great job at selling me the TF1 system.


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## bostjan (Jan 12, 2020)

ramses said:


> You are actually doing a great job at selling me the TF1 system.


There is no perfect tuning that has a countable number of notes and is in tune for every key. It's always a balance of compromises. TF1 sounds better in some keys and worse in others. My problem with it is that the corrections are too toned down to make it worth all of the trouble. I'd prefer a Werkmeister or Young formula that makes bolder corrections.

But if you want nicer thirds, check out 19edo. The fifths (and fourths) are barely noticeably off from just and the thirds and sixths are way better than standard. Seconds and sevenths are a little more out, but still totally useable. If you want to play consonant intervals, it's the perfect tuning to expand your horizons.


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## ramses (Jan 12, 2020)

bostjan said:


> My problem with it is that the corrections are too toned down to make it worth all of the trouble.



Why do you think they went that route? To reduce cost? Is it a good compromise for versatility of the resulting instrument?


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## Lemonbaby (Jan 12, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> The FAQ seems worse now, it is actually deceiving in places, i will cover this in another post.


The FAQ is actually close to useless and so superficial that you have no idea of WHAT exactly will improve WHY with TT frets and not to forget: what are the disadvantages?


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## ixlramp (Jan 12, 2020)

Now that we know that TT only offer the 'Thidell Formula 1' fretting system, we can state this amusing and ironic fact:

A guitar with TT fretting will have worse intonation, and be more out of tune, than most other guitars.

The word 'intonation' and the phrase 'in tune' both mean how closely each pitch along a string is to the pitches of the intended tonal system, these words have nothing to do with the harmony of an interval or a chord.

The modern and very dominant tonal system used is '12 Tone Equal Temperment' (12TET). Almost all guitars, bass guitars, keyboards and other instruments use this tonal system. Any ensemble of instruments containing a guitar almost certainly uses 12TET.
So the word 'intonation' and the phrase 'in tune', when used referring to the guitar market, certainly means 'intonated to' and 'in tune with' 12TET.

So TT are deceiving with their marketing.

On the 'How to tune' page of their website https://www.truetemperament.com/how-to-tune/ the deviation of TF1 from 12TET is made clear. This is a page with essential tuning information so they were not able to conceal the truth here:

"All tuning offsets starts from zero cent in the "equal" temperament.
Chromatic tuning offsets:
E= -2, F= 0, F#= -4, G= +4, G#= -4, A= 0, Bb= -4, B= -1, C= +2, C#=-4, D= +2, Eb= -4."

And in the current FAQ:

"What happens when True Temperament guitars are used with other guitars, bass, piano etc?

It works just fine together with “ordinary” instruments. The offsets from Equal Temper are not so severe that they create any dissonance whatsoever."

///////////

From the current TT FAQ page:

-----------

"Is there any key that works better than others using TT?

No, all keys work together perfectly fine all over the fretboard."

The 'no' here is clear deception. Chord and interval harmony is slightly improved in only half of the 12 keys, at the expense of slightly worse harmony in the other half. Which keys are improved depends on whether they are major or minor.

Their old site states this on the TF1 page:
https://web.archive.org/web/20111109073758/http://www.truetemperament.com/site/index.php?go=1&sgo=1

And with similar text in the 'Technical Details' pdf:
https://web.archive.org/web/2015081....com/site/gfx/documents/Technical_Details.pdf

"Formula 1 does not take F as most favoured major key, but keeps the third to A equal tempered. However the F - C fifth interval is Just. The tonal balance here favours the major keys of E, F#, G, A, B, C, D. Minor keys which are more consonant than in equal temperament are E, F#, G#, A, B, Eb."

-----------

"Do I need to use a particular string gauge?

No, not really. This is all about the intonation range at the bridge, for instance a Tune-o-matic bridge. A heavy string gauge combined with down tuning can end up out of intonation range."

Not true, the gauges you can use are limited and a wound 3rd is unusable.
Again contradicted by their old website, in the FAQ:

"Do I need to use a particular string gauge?

Our concert pitch electric guitar necks are optimised for standard plain 3rd roundwound string sets from 0.009" - 0.046" & 0.010" - 0.046", to 0,011" - 0,050". We have found that normal intonation at the octave is enough to handle this range of gauges.

Using a wound 3rd is not an option if you have a True Temperament neck designed for a plain 3rd string."

Note that TF1, the only system they offer now, is designed for a plain 3rd.


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## ixlramp (Jan 12, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> When I look under the FAQ's it says that all keys work perfectly together which contradicts the thing I read yesterday.


See my post above.
"all keys work together perfectly fine all over the fretboard." is really vague language, i think they mean: No keys have extremely or very unpleasantly worse harmony, which is true.
Because the offsets from 12TET are up to +/-4 cents, the maximum alteration of any interval size is 8 cents. So in some keys an interval can have its harmony improved by 8 cents, in some keys it will be worse by 8 cents. So it is a case of 'slightly improved harmony' and 'slightly worse harmony'.


c7spheres said:


> They also say that the TF1 adjusts every string to fret contact point so that the freq plays exactly at each fret, and they claim perfect intonation too.


See my post above, this is deception.


c7spheres said:


> Apparently this TF1 is their end all be all height of their accomplishments with this so they stopped using the other methods.


No, the TF1 system cannot replace the other systems they used to offer, because they are all significantly different temperaments, and one was 12TET.
It is probably because the TF1 system was the one getting all the media attention, and the one chosen by Strandberg and most of the endorsing artists, so is the one with the most commercial potential. It is really bad that they stopped the 12TET system which is what you would think guitarists would actually want (if they understood all this).
TF1 is also the most subtle Well Temperment they offered, so is the least dissonant when played with other instruments.


c7spheres said:


> but basically it seems if you read everything they talk about under the preface of realting to their well tempered TF1 technology then it is "technically" all true.


It is not =)


bostjan said:


> My problem with it is that the corrections are too toned down to make it worth all of the trouble.





ramses said:


> Why do you think they went that route? To reduce cost? Is it a good compromise for versatility of the resulting instrument?


The offsets from 12TET are limited to a maximum of +/- 4 cents so that there is not any significant dissonance when played with other instruments (that use 12TET).


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## ixlramp (Jan 12, 2020)

Every time TT state 'perfect intonation' and 'in tune', which is their basic marketing message, they are deceiving. Because everyone understandably assumes they mean 'intonated to' and 'in tune with' 12TET, but they do not, they actually mean 'intonated to' and 'in tune with' a 'Well Temperament' tonal system, which is slightly out of tune with 12TET.
This is how they are 'deceiving by omission' while retaining an excuse: "But we meant Well Temperament!"

The old site clarifies this in the FAQ:
https://web.archive.org/web/2014041...etemperament.com/site/index.php?go=4&sgo=0#A1

"*What does “True Temperament” mean?*

What we mean by True Temperament is that our fretting system will give you super-accurate intonation over the whole fingerboard in the particular temperament it is constructed for, whether this be standard 12-tone Equal Temperament or any of the other temperaments we offer."

Now that they only offer the TF1 system, the temperament the fingerboard is constructed for is a 'Well Temperament', not 12TET.

I feel we are about to see a large scale deception for commercial gain.

To be clear, i think it is good to offer Well Tempered guitars and i have nothing against such guitars. In a way i appreciate what TT are doing. I just object to the intentional deception and am concerned about the ignorant hype in the music media.
The old TT site was quite good, and i always got a good vibe from the original inventor Anders Thidell, and have not yet seen him deceive in video interviews. His original partner Paul Guy of Guy Guitars has kept his site similar state to the old TT site.

As TT became mainstream, the company grew, and it seems that 'the people with illuminated currency symbols in their eyes' moved in and have turned it into a deceiving money-prioritising project, taking advantage of the misunderstandings and ignorant hype in the guitar community. This of course is common but sad to see.


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## Winspear (Jan 12, 2020)

c7spheres said:


> The last claim on their FAQ's says that it works just fine with "ordinary" instruments and causes no dissonance whatsoever. I don't buy that because if it didn't then what dissonance is it eliminating in relation to "ordinary"? It can't be different and the same. I think they mean that it sounds good together still, but that seems debateable.





bostjan said:


> My problem with it is that the corrections are too toned down to make it worth all of the trouble. I'd prefer a Werkmeister or Young formula that makes bolder corrections.



That's exactly the thing. It's so subtle (has to be, else the half of keys that are worsened would be unusable - plus compatability with other instruments) that it still works with 12TET.
Digging up the old chart I made analysing chords built from their chromatic offsets listed on their site (includes my initial comments listening to the chords on a synth). Green is better than a normal guitar, orange is worse - though I didn't colour the 5ths for some reason. (You're aiming for roughly -15c on major thirds and +15c on minor thirds, ie 400>386 and 300>315, along with 700>702 for 5ths).






As you can see, most adjustments are no more than five cents. This is often quoted as the practical threshold of perception. You'll have that kind of deviation with string movement, fretting pressure, slight mistunings between band members etc etc. So it's incredibly subtle. Even as someone picky about tuning and intonation, I can't say I'd have noticed _most_ of these if I wasn't playing them on a perfect synthesizer and forcing myself to listen and comment on them. The improvements are so subtle that I'm not sure the occasionally not quite so subtle _worse_ chords are worth the trade off, for me.

Much like has been said - I appreciate what they are doing and this subtle improvement to popular keys really is the best you can do without making the unpopular keys sound poor. But the lack of transparency, misunderstood hype (there's already enough misunderstanding around tuning without this), price for such subtle change, and durability (that has at least been addressed now) leaves me a bit eh...So I'll take the opportunity to put this information in threads even though we probably sound like a bunch of "actually..." nerds ranting about something which is really a pretty cool invention 

-------

For anyone curious, play an E major 022100 with the G string tuned to 0 cents (normal guitar) and then -5 cents. -5 should sound very slightly better if noticeable. This is the most extreme improvement TT provides, to ~4 keys on the guitar at a similar cost to 4 others.
Now tune that string -15 cents - that's what a Justly tuned major chord actually sounds like. You may want to play just 0xx1xx or xx21xx to hear it more clearly. This is likely the pitch your ear will lock to if tuning by ear. TT will not give you this.

Similarly, do the same with E minor 022000 but in the opposite direction. +15 is the Just tuning and sounds great. TT barely gives you +3 in most keys.


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## c7spheres (Jan 12, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> Every time TT state 'perfect intonation' and 'in tune', which is their basic marketing message, they are deceiving. Because everyone understandably assumes they mean 'intonated to' and 'in tune with' 12TET, but they do not, they actually mean 'intonated to' and 'in tune with' a 'Well Temperament' tonal system, which is slightly out of tune with 12TET.
> This is how they are 'deceiving by omission' while retaining an excuse: "But we meant Well Temperament!"
> 
> The old site clarifies this in the FAQ:
> ...



- Basically what I was saying is when you relate everything they say under the preface of it relating to their well tempered TF1 technology what they are saying is techincally true, but I agree with what you're saying about it being decieving. Im not sure ifit matters much and I think it's probably for a reason.
- To play devils advocate I'd say it's easier for them to market in a way so people understand it will sound better and not messed up with "normal" instruments, because I don't think most people know about all the techinical jargon and I doubt most people care honestly. People care that it sounds better and don't mess with anything, so I guess the marketing is just tilting it in favor of these people. For people who are interested and do care, the information is there to be found and they have made it available and don't seem to deny it.
-


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## Winspear (Jan 12, 2020)

^ You are of course absolutely right. I just don't think it's right that from what I can see almost all customers or potential customers are under the impression that TT magically cures all intonation problems and makes the guitar sound perfect all over the board. It would have been possible to keep the marketing similarly simple whilst just saying "it improves popular keys slightly" - but of course that would not seem nearly as worth the investment. I understand their decisions. I just think its good for attention to be drawn to this info where possible so that some may see "oh, hang on , this isn't what I thought it was at all"

It's really not helped by the fact that as far as I'm aware there are still no actual product demos. There have been some slightly more useful videos recently but no real direct and fair comparisons. Most of what people see amounts to little more than "hey check this out it sounds great", with some playing that hypothetically could have been recorded on a regular and well intonated guitar without the vast majority of viewers thinking it sounds any less great


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## c7spheres (Jan 12, 2020)

Winspear said:


> That's exactly the thing. It's so subtle (has to be, else the half of keys that are worsened would be unusable - plus compatability with other instruments) that it still works with 12TET.
> Digging up the old chart I made analysing chords built from their chromatic offsets listed on their site (includes my initial comments listening to the chords on a synth). Green is better than a normal guitar, orange is worse - though I didn't colour the 5ths for some reason. (You're aiming for roughly -15c on major thirds and +15c on minor thirds, ie 400>386 and 300>315, along with 700>702 for 5ths).
> 
> 
> ...



Yep, Seems to be more trouble than it's worth, plus the actual numbers I'm seeing and also what they claim don't really impress me. I have my own offset method that is getting me better results than this anyways, but I still use straight frets. My method has to do with the entire setup of the guitars action height vs string gauge vs spring tension (on LoPro). My neck is dead straight and it uses different tensions at the saddles on the fine tuners too so that when "I" play at my normal pressures everything lines up really well and sounds great. I know some people will debate if tension can be transfered around to the nut vs fine tuners vs string tree etc, but in my experience it can and does affect how the string yaw's/ stretches. It's always worked well for me so I figure I should stick with the mantr "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" .


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## c7spheres (Jan 12, 2020)

Winspear said:


> ^ You are of course absolutely right. I just don't think it's right that from what I can see almost all customers or potential customers are under the impression that TT magically cures all intonation problems and makes the guitar sound perfect all over the board. It would have been possible to keep the marketing similarly simple whilst just saying "it improves popular keys slightly" - but of course that would not seem nearly as worth the investment. I understand their decisions. I just think its good for attention to be drawn to this info where possible so that some may see "oh, hang on , this isn't what I thought it was at all"



Totally. I really don't appreciate company putting me through all this time reserching stuff just to find out it's not all it claims. I've ran into this type of stuff so many times (especially with studio gear and processors) making claims only to find out it's bs. Really pisses me off when you have to buy it to find out and then do the whole return process.


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## Hollowway (Jan 12, 2020)

Yeah, I will say (again) huge thanks to @Winspear and @ixlramp for taking the time to parse this out. This isn’t the first time you guys have put in effort to help us all out, and it’s very much appreciated.
For me, the net result of this is that TT (TF1) doesn’t sound nearly as ground breaking as I assumed based on what I read on the site. It’s been years since I looked into this stuff, and what you guys have explained shows that I’m not likely to get nearly the wow factor I was thinking I would. I’m honestly better off investing in other parts of my instrument to get things sounding better.


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## narad (Jan 12, 2020)

Winspear said:


> It would have been possible to keep the marketing similarly simple whilst just saying "it improves popular keys slightly" - but of course that would not seem nearly as worth the investment.



I would kind of like, "Still flawed, but different."


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## ramses (Jan 12, 2020)

Winspear said:


> Much like has been said - I appreciate what they are doing and this subtle improvement to popular keys really is the best you can do without making the unpopular keys sound poor.



The good news is that soon I'll be able to try it out in a Guitar Center, to decide if it's worth it for me. Sounds like it won't be, but I'll give it a try.


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## OmegaSlayer (Jan 15, 2020)

Point A - Do we "all" play "only" power chords because of the beating and would play more complex sound with TTs? In with "all" I mean everyone even outside the forum

Point B - TT for multiscale when?


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## bostjan (Jan 15, 2020)

OmegaSlayer said:


> Point A - Do we "all" play "only" power chords because of the beating and would play more complex sound with TTs? In with "all" I mean everyone even outside the forum
> 
> Point B - TT for multiscale when?



Power chords are as popular as they are because of consonance. More consonance is almost universally seen as better, all else being equal. The standard guitar power chord is less than 2 cents error from ideal consonance. Moveable power chords in TT would be, on average, 2 cents off, but ranging from less than 1 cent to almost 6 cents off. Honestly, none of that is going to be the least bit noticeable to 99% of listeners, nor even to most players with a keen ear.

That's kind of my point from earlier. The TT corrections are so minimal that, in theory, they shouldn't even matter. It says right in the TT literature that the difference between standard and TT is undetectable when playing in mixed ensemble (TT vs. 12edo).


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## OmegaSlayer (Jan 15, 2020)

bostjan said:


> Power chords are as popular as they are because of consonance. More consonance is almost universally seen as better, all else being equal. The standard guitar power chord is less than 2 cents error from ideal consonance. Moveable power chords in TT would be, on average, 2 cents off, but ranging from less than 1 cent to almost 6 cents off. Honestly, none of that is going to be the least bit noticeable to 99% of listeners, nor even to most players with a keen ear.
> 
> That's kind of my point from earlier. The TT corrections are so minimal that, in theory, they shouldn't even matter. It says right in the TT literature that the difference between standard and TT is undetectable when playing in mixed ensemble (TT vs. 12edo).


I'm not arguing on your point, except for the fact that it's "on paper"...it's data that can't be argued
What I mean is that...we're sitting there, writing some music and a chord, a passage sounds wrong when it shouldn't, then you either decide to record it in separate tracks to avoid the beating, or you just trash that solution and find a new one

The paper/data say that the difference is more or less negligible, hearing Mattias Eklundh tells me it's not negligible


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## bostjan (Jan 15, 2020)

OmegaSlayer said:


> I'm not arguing on your point, except for the fact that it's "on paper"...it's data that can't be argued
> What I mean is that...we're sitting there, writing some music and a chord, a passage sounds wrong when it shouldn't, then you either decide to record it in separate tracks to avoid the beating, or you just trash that solution and find a new one
> 
> The paper/data say that the difference is more or less negligible, hearing Mattias Eklundh tells me it's not negligible


Hearing him play or hearing him talk?

Have you heard him play standard guitars? If I played a random clip of him playing, could you tell me if he's using his TT guitar or not?


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## Russian Robot (Jan 15, 2020)

bostjan said:


> Hearing him play or hearing him talk?
> 
> Have you heard him play standard guitars? If I played a random clip of him playing, could you tell me if he's using his TT guitar or not?



Honestly, probably so, if the samples are anything like what was captured in Levi Clay's video. Doesn't the paper data even suggest that there technically are 'more improvements' than 'worse-sounding chords' over ET?


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## bostjan (Jan 15, 2020)

Russian Robot said:


> Honestly, probably so, if the samples are anything like what was captured in Levi Clay's video. Doesn't the paper data even suggest that there technically are 'more improvements' than 'worse-sounding chords' over ET?


Without adding more notes, you basically have a minimum amount of overall sourness at equal temperament. TT takes a tiny bit of sourness out of the most common keys on guitar (E, A, G, C...) and sacrifices less common keys (Gb, Ab, Db, B...). It's a clever idea, but the idea's also been around since JS Bach was writing baroque music. Equal temperament (ET) has only been the standard for around 150 years or less, although fretted instruments had some characteristics of equal temperament out of necessity.
The question I'm asking, though, is if older temperaments had deviations from ET of 6 to 15 cents, and TT has deviations of 2 to 4 cents, and those older temperaments were only subtly different from ET (enough that non-musicians didn't even notice), is it even worth all of the trouble to get TT?
If you have a discerning ear, I bet you can tell quickly when two simultaneous notes are 4 cents apart, but if the notes are played seperately, you'd need super powers to tell. If one was played on a saxophone and tge other on a guitar, then you really couldn't tell.

I'm all for trying it out, and I love this becoming more mainstream, on the surface. I also know deep in my heart that TT is thriving off of misinformation and a lot of "hand-waving" explanations, so once the novelty wears off, people will likely stop giving a shit about it.

Were you around in the 90's, when shelved nuts and compensated tunings were the black magic du jour? Then Washburn offered Buzz Feiten systems on their guitars and within a year, people, by and large, lost interest. Those offsets were around 2 to 5 cents. The general consensus on guitar forums about BFTS now is overwhelmingly meh, although a handful of people love it. Personally, I thought it was nifty.

There are a lot of comments on Levi's video from people that couldn't tell.


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## c7spheres (Jan 15, 2020)

^
I had the BFTS on one of my guitars once. It was a big difference to me. Everything definitely sounded more perfect and "better" but I could not get use to it. It was to weird. I tried going back and forth between it and standard for periods over a few years but I just couldn't get use to it. I could see where some people are looking for exactly this procedure though. 
- It did sound better but it's like the energy was sucked out of it. It was this even energy everywhere I played and didn't punch the way I liked. Hard to explain. Oh, and it does sound a bit strange with a normal intonated bass unlike I read a lot. It's not terrible, but it's not preferred. Like there's a phantom chorus effect between you on certain things. I ended up leaving it as a standard setup. When I set it up normal the guitar just came to life. Mojo restored! I put it back to BFTS when I sold the guitar for the new owner though as he wanted to try it out.


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## Mathemagician (Jan 15, 2020)

What was BFTS? I saw it on guitars growing up but never owned one/looked into it. Just assumed it was a manufacturer thing and shrugged it off.


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## c7spheres (Jan 15, 2020)

Mathemagician said:


> What was BFTS? I saw it on guitars growing up but never owned one/looked into it. Just assumed it was a manufacturer thing and shrugged it off.


 Buzz Feiten Tuning System. It's a way they offset the bridge and nut and use special tuning calibration and tuner to try to acheive better sounding guitar all over the fretboard. It works pretty well actually.


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## OmegaSlayer (Jan 16, 2020)

bostjan said:


> Hearing him play or hearing him talk?
> 
> Have you heard him play standard guitars? If I played a random clip of him playing, could you tell me if he's using his TT guitar or not?


I think it depends on what he plays and the context (live, recording, presence of other instruments) but I think people would spot the difference, and I say it considering that I'm surely not a phenom with pitch


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## Russian Robot (Jan 16, 2020)

bostjan said:


> If you have a discerning ear, I bet you can tell quickly when two simultaneous notes are 4 cents apart, but if the notes are played seperately, you'd need super powers to tell.



Yep, I agree with this. I doubt I would ever notice the difference between temperaments if, instead of chords, single notes were played.


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## ixlramp (Jan 16, 2020)

OmegaSlayer said:


> The paper/data say that the difference is more or less negligible, hearing Mattias Eklundh tells me it's not negligible


Has he made side-by-side comparison video? I have not seen one, otherwise this is covered by the below, which is so true:


Winspear said:


> There have been some slightly more useful videos recently but no real direct and fair comparisons. Most of what people see amounts to little more than "hey check this out it sounds great", with some playing that hypothetically could have been recorded on a regular and well intonated guitar without the vast majority of viewers thinking it sounds any less great


Most the TT videos i have seen so far have been a very talented guitarist with excellent technique and a very well set up guitar, showing off, then some people think 'it sounds so good, i am convinced, TT is amazing'.
Side-by-side recordings of identical chords are needed for a proper judgement.

The Levi Clay video uses a guitar with an Evertune bridge. This makes the chords sound very stable, which interferes with judgement of chord harmony.
With these videos it is essential to check what exact chords and keys they play to make sure they are in the 'improved keys', if someone is impressed by the sound of a worsened key or chord, that invalidates their judgement of TT.
The Eklundh so-called 'TT lesson' video is like that, he plays chords on all root notes, claiming it all sounds good. I criticise his video in detail in one of my other posts, he does not understand TT.
Levi Clay half gets it but still has major misunderstandings.

The improvement in chord harmony is subtle but not insignificant. The mostly 3-6 cent improvement in the 14 cent error of the major third will make a small but noticeable improvement in harmony, especially with distortion which 'magnifies' dissonance.


Russian Robot said:


> Doesn't the paper data even suggest that there technically are 'more improvements' than 'worse-sounding chords' over ET?


No, they exactly balance out, this is inherent. Every improvement in harmony in one key creates an equal worsening of harmony in another key. So 12TET spreads the errors equally between all keys by making all semitones equal in size instead of varying sizes, it is neutral and symmetrical.

This is the primary dilemma of the history of tuning: harmony or choice of usable keys? The history of tuning systems is varying compromises between those 2, increasingly moving away from harmony (Just Intonation) and towards choice of usable keys (Equal Temperaments).

The progression was Just Intonation (perfect harmony, only 1 usable key) -> Meantone (slightly compromised harmony, several usable keys) -> Well Temperament (significantly compromised harmony, all keys usable but some sound better than others) -> 12 Tone Equal Temperament (significantly compromised harmony, all keys usable and identical in quality).


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## ixlramp (Jan 18, 2020)

Ahh ... i was expecting Cort, but this is Strandberg:
https://www.truetemperament.com/news/strandberg-winter-namm-2020/
https://strandbergguitars.com/boden-true-temperament/
The purple 8 string looks nice. Good to see tasteful black-based 1 colour bursts on these.
Unfortunately Strandberg are repeating the 'perfect intonation', 'perfect tuning' and 'everywhere on the fretboard' nonsense. But, understandably, it would be awkward and confusing to diverge from TT's marketing in their collaborations.


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## Hollowway (Jan 18, 2020)

@ixlramp Do you know if anyone has done a JI guitar for a particular key? Would it even be possible, in terms of fret shapes?


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## MaxOfMetal (Jan 18, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> Ahh ... i was expecting Cort, but this is Strandberg:
> https://www.truetemperament.com/news/strandberg-winter-namm-2020/
> https://strandbergguitars.com/boden-true-temperament/
> The purple 8 string looks nice. Good to see tasteful black-based 1 colour bursts on these.
> Unfortunately Strandberg are repeating the 'perfect intonation', 'perfect tuning' and 'everywhere on the fretboard' nonsense. But, understandably, it would be awkward and confusing to diverge from TT's marketing in their collaborations.



Cort is the manufacturer of the Strandberg.


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## Winspear (Jan 18, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> @ixlramp Do you know if anyone has done a JI guitar for a particular key? Would it even be possible, in terms of fret shapes?



All JI guitars are for a set key 
They usually use partial frets;





But it can certainly be done with cast or bent fretwire in the same manner as TT.

For example this old TT design (not a JI guitar, just an example of what can be done with fretwire) which is more true and less universal than their commercial offering





Or this crazy thing..JI subharmonic series guitar where the usual partial frets have been connected in a dot-to-dot fashion.






But yes, JI begins with deriving all intervals from the home key root. As the spacing is unequal, all keys come out differently. All keys can be considered JI though, as all intervals that exist on the guitar are derived from harmonic ratios, but the home key, and ones harmonically closest to it such as the 5th, will be most consonant.
Then as previously explained, a temperament makes the gaps more even in the progression outlined by ixlramp (where True Temperament fits into the Well Temperament category but more subtle) until we reach completely equal temperament.


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## ixlramp (Jan 18, 2020)

Hollowway, yes that has been done many times, for example:
https://www.matthewgrasso.com/guitars.php
There are many videos on his channel featuring JI guitars:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClpWb9iaMYDhhHRZgqJX62w/videos


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## ixlramp (Jan 18, 2020)

Winspear said:


> For example this old TT design which is more true and less universal than their commercial offering


That one was actually their 'Meantone Blues' fretting, which is a 'Meantone Temperament' tonal system: Fairly close to JI but only usable in some keys.
In this video of Anders Thidell, the original inventor and original owner of TT, you can clearly hear the harmony of the distorted chords. The video description is informative too, because it is old TT literature =)


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## Winspear (Jan 18, 2020)

Indeed! Great video. I updated my post to be clear that wasn't a JI guitar - was just giving an example of bent fretwire haha


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## Hollowway (Jan 18, 2020)

@Winspear @ixlramp now THAT is something I'd want to try. A purely consonant JI guitar. I get that it's in just one key, but it would be super cool to compose on, as you wouldn't have to worry about the different keys. 

But I have a question. If you have a JI guitar in the key of E, and you detune the guitar to D standard, the fret positioning hasn't changed. Can you plan with consonance in that, or does the changed string tensions mean the intervals are now going to be off enough to be significant?


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## Winspear (Jan 18, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> @Winspear @ixlramp now THAT is something I'd want to try. A purely consonant JI guitar. I get that it's in just one key, but it would be super cool to compose on, as you wouldn't have to worry about the different keys.
> 
> But I have a question. If you have a JI guitar in the key of E, and you detune the guitar to D standard, the fret positioning hasn't changed. Can you plan with consonance in that, or does the changed string tensions mean the intervals are now going to be off enough to be significant?



Retuing the guitar is fine, as long as you keep the same intervals between the strings  The fret positions are in cents from the root - it doesn't care what actual note/frequency that root is. 
You would face intonation/setup/tension considerations no different to a normal guitar.


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## Hollowway (Jan 18, 2020)

Winspear said:


> Retuing the guitar is fine, as long as you keep the same intervals between the strings  The fret positions are in cents from the root - it doesn't care what actual note/frequency that root is.
> You would face intonation/setup/tension considerations no different to a normal guitar.


This is cool. I feel like you could get a few of these, and with tuning up and down each one cover pretty much every key.


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## bostjan (Jan 18, 2020)

I'd love to try that otonal guitar. By far the coolest JI guitar around. No idea how much something like that would cost, though...


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## bostjan (Jan 19, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> This is cool. I feel like you could get a few of these, and with tuning up and down each one cover pretty much every key.



Depends on how many keys you want to use. Since we are well ouside the realm of standardization, you could, in theory, have infinite keys. Maybe if someone with too much time and money on their hands did a doubleneck of this with open-source robot tuners, you could handle any key change, as long as you knew in advance enough to have the robotuners on your spare neck get it into the next key.

I've got my own JI template, based off of extending Zarlino's work on tuning. It takes an approach of quantizing the number of available steps used. The idea was to use it for adaptive piano/keys, but, if I ever win megamillions, I'd give it a shot on guitar.


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## ixlramp (Jan 19, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> A purely consonant JI guitar. I get that it's in just one key, but it would be super cool to compose on, as you wouldn't have to worry about the different keys.


The limitation is actually that a particular JI scale cannot be moved to a different key without changing the scale into something else.
However, placing the tonic on different frets results in the modes of the initial JI scale, these are essentially different JI scales, some more dissonant than others.
So (assuming 12 frets per octave) you would have 12 different JI scales to work with, but each fixed to a particular tonic note.


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## ixlramp (Jan 19, 2020)

Ugh sorry, i confused scales and tonal systems in part of the above, that should read:

The limitation is actually that a particular JI scale cannot be moved to a different key without changing the scale (the step sizes change).
However, placing the tonic on different frets results in different JI tonal systems, some more dissonant than others.
So (assuming 12 frets per octave) you would have 12 different JI tonal systems to work with.


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## Hollowway (Jan 19, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> However, placing the tonic on different frets results in different JI tonal systems, some more dissonant than others.



You mean like modes?


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## bostjan (Jan 19, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> You mean like modes?


Yeah, like modes where each mode is in a different tuning, and some of the tunings sound objectively sour.
The major scale, we think of as whole steps and half steps: wwhwwwh. But in JI, there are two different whole steps (say we call the bigger one W and the smaller one w) and sometimes two different half steps. So, the major scale is WwhWwWh. If you start on the fifth, you should get mixolydian, but it'd be wWhWwhW, so the second is noticeably flat compared to the major scale. Some of the modes end up being even more difficult to listen to, but none of them are unrecognizable or anything, and nothing sounds awful (just a little foreign).
Since all of the notes are (in theory) ratios with every other note, every interval is, by definition a just interval. It just might not be the interval most people agree is the best one to represent the intervals in the scale.


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## Hollowway (Jan 19, 2020)

bostjan said:


> Yeah, like modes where each mode is in a different tuning, and some of the tunings sound objectively sour.
> The major scale, we think of as whole steps and half steps: wwhwwwh. But in JI, there are two different whole steps (say we call the bigger one W and the smaller one w) and sometimes two different half steps. So, the major scale is WwhWwWh. If you start on the fifth, you should get mixolydian, but it'd be wWhWwhW, so the second is noticeably flat compared to the major scale. Some of the modes end up being even more difficult to listen to, but none of them are unrecognizable or anything, and nothing sounds awful (just a little foreign).
> Since all of the notes are (in theory) ratios with every other note, every interval is, by definition a just interval. It just might not be the interval most people agree is the best one to represent the intervals in the scale.


Are you guys aware of any multi-instrument whole songs (in any genre) done completely with JI instruments? Like, that have a youtube video we could watch?


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## bostjan (Jan 19, 2020)

Hollowway said:


> Are you guys aware of any multi-instrument whole songs (in any genre) done completely with JI instruments? Like, that have a youtube video we could watch?


Live?
Umm... other than string trio or quartet, I might have seen a duet with Tolgahan and another guy. I think Johnny Rosenberg has done a few performances in JI with small symphonic groups, but I don't ever recall seeing a video.
Prerecorded, there are a few. Sevish has done some songs in JI (programmed and sequenced, though). Most all JI music I know of is either 1. Electronic, 2. Very old, 3. Barbershop Quartet, or 4. Someone demonstrating a point.


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## ixlramp (Jan 20, 2020)

'Horse lords' have JI guitar and bass, i assume the sax player alters his intonation.
Apart from their own channel there are several live / live in studio videos.


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## c7spheres (Jan 20, 2020)

^ Wuuh mahn, tune in turn on dropout. Like, wow mann, look at the colourz. Free your mind. Oh no. I'm having a seizure


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## Hollowway (Jan 20, 2020)

bostjan said:


> Live?
> Umm... other than string trio or quartet, I might have seen a duet with Tolgahan and another guy. I think Johnny Rosenberg has done a few performances in JI with small symphonic groups, but I don't ever recall seeing a video.
> Prerecorded, there are a few. Sevish has done some songs in JI (programmed and sequenced, though). Most all JI music I know of is either 1. Electronic, 2. Very old, 3. Barbershop Quartet, or 4. Someone demonstrating a point.



So generally speaking, barbershop quartets are singing in “JI” because they have to reason not to, and the ear will natural pull them to the pure tones?


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## Adieu (Jan 20, 2020)

ixlramp said:


> Anyway, this depends on what True Temperament (TT) system Cor-Tek choose. If they have any sense they would choose the TT '12 Tone Equal Temperament' (12TET) system, which offsets frets in a subtle way so that intonation is closer to 12TET, the tonal system that all other instruments use. You would think this is what most guitar players actually want.
> Then they can truthfully promote this as being improved intonation and more in tune.
> 
> However, i expect they will use the TT 'Thidell Formula 1' (TF1) system and do what TT is doing, deceive by omission and be complicit with the ignorant hype for commercial interest.
> ...



Oh yeah

The 12TET thing is basically a row of compensated Earvana nuts, slightly shifting depending on fret position

...the TF1 thing, meanwhile, is flashy manic "this is your spiderweb on meth, day 8" shit


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## ixlramp (Jan 20, 2020)

Confirmed, Horse Lords' sax player uses microtonal fingerings to hit the right pitches.

Just remembered Cipher https://soundcloud.com/jolohaga/sets/cipher-songs-1979-1981
5 of those tracks may still be downloadable for free at the link in this article http://goutroy.blogspot.com/2009/11/cipher-selftitled-ep.html
More info found elsewhere:

"The band Cipher (Los Angeles-late 70s to mid 80s) played in a 7-limit 22-tone scale of Erv Wilson. The intonation was done under the guidance of Jose Garcia who refretted all the guitars and bass. Co-composer, Marsha Mann, who was the lead singer and lyricist for the band, also sang in the same tuning. They appeared on New Wave Theater. Cipher is listed and pictured (above The Clash) in the 1985 illustrated encyclopedia, 'Who's New Wave in Music', by David Blanco, who refers to them as a 'microtonal dance band'."


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## MisterCirKus (Jan 25, 2020)

If you want to here some different keys


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