Official Luthiers Forum!

I've seen a few off hand comments about the string angle above the nut impacting playability and tone, but I can't find any detailed discussion of this issue. Is there a difference between headstock designs that allow for a straight path from the nut to the tuner, as opposed to designs that direct the strings to the tuner on an angle? If so, what might they be? Anyone care to share their thoughts on this issue?

(The headstock shape used in the examples below is for demonstration purposes only. The impact of the string paths are what I'm curious about.)

Thanks in advance,

George :-)

...it wouldn't surprise me if example B caused less tuning problems due to less binding at the nut slots, but i much prefer the looks of example A, ie "traditional" 3x3 headstocks. most of the greatest acoustic guitar players in the world play "example A" instruments, so the design must be adequate.
so in summary: i have no idea

also, your "example B" won't work unless you somehow have tuner key shafts of varying lengths; you'd need to cut the headstock into a vee shape to accomodate the tuners

I think the Gore/Gilet books have a section on that. Look at Seagull headstocks to see a straight path design. Personally, I don't bend on acoustics, so I don't care about string compliance.

Thanks for the replies. As noted earlier, the examples above are not meant to suggest an actual headstock shape. I included that only to provide some perspective. The same is true of the nut slots. I angle mine toward the tuners as well, wherever those may be placed.

I'm curious as to whether anyone has found that the path the strings follow above the nut (straight or angled) impacts the playability and/or tone of the instrument. Based on the comments so far, it appears that it may make bends easier...? If that is so, then one might assume that it makes fretting easier in general, thus improving playability. Thoughts?

Info on this is included in the Gore/Gilet books? Interesting. Anyone up for paraphrasing that here? Trevor, are you out there?

Thanks again!

_________________
George :-)

I can tell you one thing- if you do the straight pull style, then it's way better, and makes your guitars stay in tune play so much easier than everyone else's, you can't imagine why those big manufacturers wouldn't do it.

But if you do the equal spacing style, then any advantages of straight pull are undetectable as far as you can tell, and why would you make your guitar look all ugly and non-traditional for no reason?

In reality, both can look good or bad, and both seem to work just fine. Mine is pretty much like your example A, where there's a little spread, but not like equal spaced tuners where you can end up with strings coming in contact with other tuner posts if you're not careful. I think it looks better.

George: Not sure if example A is suppose to represent the more traditional shape such as on a Martin guitar(also many others) but if it does the hole lay out is a bit different. On the tradition headstock it's a good idea to not have the tuners in a straight line. If you do the A string will hit on the E at the post, same with the B hitting the high E. It's a good idea to move the A and B strings about 1/16" closer to the center line of the headstock. This is a subtle detail that sometimes goes unnoticed. Check a Martin to get the idea if you can't follow my ramblings. The snakehead design works nicely and am using that on my latest work. Good luck and take care.
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Non-traditional perhaps - ugly is an opinion, which you entitled to.
I think it is a matter of the overall design and balance of the look.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Must every difference of opinion end in a goat pic?

Thanks again, fellas. I'd just like to reiterate that the layouts I provided are NOT actual designs, spacings, angles, etc. I just threw that together to try and help illustrate my question.

_________________
George :-)

Dennis,
I can't tell if you are being serious or sarcastic. If serious, why would the spacing of the tuners counteract any benefits derived from the straight pull?

Now that I have a new phrase for searching, I'm going to go looking for info on "straight pull" style headstock designs.

Thanks again everyone!

_________________
George :-)

For the chronically curious, like me, here's what Trevor Gore states on his website:

I didn't see anything about the action being easier. I'm gong to keep digging.

_________________
George :-)

George: I was not being critical of layout etc., but rather seen both layouts ending up as snake heads shapes. I thought sample A was suppose to be the more conventional lay out, guess not, and I was just adding comment if you went in that direction. Not sure the relevance of the goat in the next post........??
Tom

_________________
A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

Sorry, I need to learn that sarcasm never comes across in writing Yes, I was poking fun at the way marketing people talk about little details like that.

So many guitars have been made with both styles, and nobody seems to have problems with either, I consider it to be a purely aesthetic choice.

Well, no more out there than any of the rest of you, I'd suggest , perhaps with the exception of Colin's goat. Sadly, Colin's goat picture looks rather more Australia than Aberdeenshire, having experience in both locations!

Here's a picture of my standard headstock.


If you want to do a straight string pull, you pretty well have to stagger the tuners, because you can't do symmetrical and get the D and G tuners close enough.


The very first guitar I built had a straight string pull and a compensated nut. One of the questions you have to ask yourself when doing "exotic" compensation is "where does the string end?". From the vibration point of view the ends are the nut and saddle. From the string stretch point of view its from the saddle to what? The nut or the tuners? The string stretch affects the intonation (amongst other things) so it's handy to know. The longer the stretchable length of string, the less pitch rise you get on fretting, so the less compensation required. It makes a difference. The question boils down to "does the string move or not in the nut when you fret the string". The answer on most guitars is "sometimes", which is not a good answer if you're trying to get the intonation right. You want either yes or no. Whether it moves or not depends on the quality of the string slots in the nut, and the angle you turn the string through, both horizontally and vertically. A locking nut would guarantee a no and a well executed straight string pull pretty much guarantees a yes. I determined that answer over 20 or so guitars, some of which I assumed the string moved (and adjusted the compensation accordingly) and some of which I assumed it didn't (and adjusted the compensation accordingly). Then I did a statistical analysis of how in tune each population of guitars played (all strings, all frets) and the "movers" won out.

So a straight string pull reduces the friction over the nut and gives you all the benefits that George quoted from my website.

Does it make bending easier? Well, it depends what you mean by easier. When the string moves at the nut you have to push the string further across the fretboard for a given pitch increase, because the string is effectively less stiff, so doesn't increase in tension and pitch as much. But it is easier to push, because the tension doesn't rise as fast.

There was once a "fashion" (set by SRV, I think) for using left handed Strat necks on right handed guitars and this is one of the reasons why (as well as the tuning buttons being easier to get at). He could get a seriously big tone bend without falling off the low E side of the board, because the treble side strings were effectively stiffer because of the shorter distance to the tuners (and he also used heavy gauges...)

Looking at this from the other side, long lengths behind the nut help you play in tune, because you don't get as much pitch shift if your fingering isn't spot on. Similarly, a straight string pull and low nut friction means that a set of 12s will feel like a set of 11s under your fretting fingers. There's more to the story, but this is one of the many smaller things that add up to making for great playability. As to the headstock look, you either like it or you don't. You don't have a lot of options as to the shape if you want a true straight pull. For me, (as it usually does) the functionality won out.

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I like the straight string pulls , it reduces the friction over the nut which IMO helps reduce intonation problems,...there are design considerations though, the top 2 tuners as you have in your drawing won't fit so some sort of asymmetrical headstock will need to be incorporated...

Not the best pictures ..but you can see the different symmetry

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

and what Trevor said!!!!!

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

Excellent information and very interesting, at least I think so. :-)

Thanks Trevor and Wes for chiming in. I've been playing around with logo and headstock ideas of late and that, of course, got me to thinking about a couple of comments I'd read somewhere about string paths and then I wondered... you get the idea.

Thanks!

_________________
George :-)

There's the pegs solution of course, as in this matching SS/classical pair:

...but for slot heads, this is about as close as you can get:

As Meat Loaf says, (and taking out a factor of two), "two out three ain't bad"...

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

String path above or after the nut is not the question unless your talking compliance produced from the stings after lengths.

Its the fulcrum(s) and the path through the nut that may be of some concern.

Weather the sting angle bends befor or after the nut will make no difference on tone as the friction on the sting as it passes through the nut is still the same.
However besides friction the common +- 14 degree angle fulcrum point produces on the in line string, the second angle path on the way to the tuners, weather entering the nut or upon leaving also produces additional friction on this second fulcrum Negligible yes, but still a form of constriction on the string. Hence the strings compliance would decrease with a double fulcrum.

Me, like Flipo, likes to combine these two angles together by doing a single compound angle so as to hopefuly lessen the friction on that single fulcrum me would think.

Now the longer the after length between the string and the posts will yield a higher compliance to the strings stretch feel to some players.

Hope this helps George.

Well that's my understanding, but then me don't understand all that much anyways.

_________________
.

Audiences and dispensations on Thursdays ~ by appointment only.


.

I don't have any research or data, but just intuitively, straight must be better.

When it's not straight, I've done the nut both ways, but I like the nuts slots to be square. It seems like when the string bends coming out of the nut, it's going to wear. I'd rather have that wear at the back.

_________________
Mike Lindstrom

Curious if high compliance (fret ease) contributes to less attack when a string is plucked.
This seems to be the case on two Tele's I made, one "normal" string path from nut to tuner, and one with much sharper angle from nut to tuner.
The one with high compliance is easier to fret, but the other seems to have louder attack and sound's fuller.
The low compliance seems less mushy when picking.
I know this is vague, but it does have me wondering if I want to go with high compliance.
Dan

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah