Multi-scale fingerboard

Last updated September 14, 2024

A multi-scale fingerboard (also called multiple scale length fretboard^[1]) is an instrument fretboard which incorporates multiple scale lengths. This allows each of the strings to have a different string tension and thus, balanced tonal characteristics.^[2]

The lowest string with the longest length can be strung at a higher tension compared to an equally scaled instrument of a comparable size and construction. The opposite is true with the highest string which experiences a lower tension. This system utilized in guitar fingerboards is identical to that of a piano soundboard and creates the same effect. The tighter lower strings can resonate with clearer lower overtones while the looser higher strings can freely create cleaner higher overtones.

Most modern Guitars (and bass guitars) generally employ a single scale length for all of the instrument's strings, though the employed scale length can vary significantly between manufacturers (electric guitar scale typically falls between 24" and 25.5"). This measure is the effective length of each of the vibrating strings, not counting compensation for adjusting intonation.

A multi-scale fingerboard or fretboard is typically based on two scale lengths, but could potentially incorporate more. The most typical use is one (long) scale length for the low string and a different, usually shorter, scale for the highest string. This could be achieved by angling the nut, and bridge, and fanning the frets. Strings between the highest and lowest would also each have a unique scale length.

History

illustration of a bandora from Syntagma Musicum Theatrum Instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia, Wolfenbuttel, 1620CE. Bandore1.gif — illustration of a bandora from *Syntagma Musicum Theatrum Instrumentorum seu Sciagraphia*, Wolfenbüttel, 1620CE.

The bandora is a late 16th-century instrument with a longer string length for its bass strings than for its trebles. It is depicted in Praetorius' music dictionary Syntagma Musicum published in 1619.

The concept of the multiscale fingerboard goes back to at least 1900, when the first patent for such a fingerboard was filed by E. A. Edgren. (Patent #652-353, E. A. Edgren)

In his 1900 patent Edgren describes in his claims: "… a musical instrument the combination with a sounding body or box, of the following instrumentalities, to wit: a neck approximately in the form of a double convex in cross section…" a plurality of frets secured to said neck, said frets being positioned at an angle one to the other so that the first and last frets incline in opposite directions "... it will be noted that the bottom flange of the head C runs at an angle so that one side of the neck B will be longer than the side opposite. The frets diverge, running from the center outward, so that the lower frets extend slightly in a direction opposite to the upper frets". This patent is no longer in force. When it was, it affected only instruments with a curved fingerboard, such as most steel-string guitars.

The first modern multiscale fretboard was used on an instrument called a StarrBoard, invented by John D. Starrett in 1977. Starrett developed a tapping instrument that employs a matrix of halftones, fretted horizontally with strings spaced vertically, to allow one fingering to cover all scales. Because of the large range of notes from low B on a 5 String Bass, to high B four octaves above, however, he needed a way to have a long scale for the low B, but a shorter scale for the high B. He simply laid out the two scales he thought would work and connected the dots.

The person generally credited with first using “fanned frets” on an electric guitar is Ralph Novak. In 1989 he was awarded the patent, which expired in 2009. Ormsby guitars ignored / violated the patent prior to its expiration. Other companies showed more restraint, and waited until 2009. ^{[ editorializing ]} The expiration of Novak's patent and subsequent production of "fanned fret" guitars by more companies has led to an increase in interest and sales of multiscale guitars overall.

Fanned-fret guitar

Fanned fret guitar

Fanned-fret guitars have a multi-scale fingerboard because of "offset" frets; that is, frets that extend from the neck of the guitar at an angle. Ralph Novak (Novax Guitars) was the first to apply this idea to the electric guitar (1988).^[2] The frets are arrayed on an angle, in contrast to the standard perpendicular arrangement of other guitars. Proponents of this style of guitar claim such benefits as comfort, better ergonomics, better intonation, and better control of the tension of the strings across the fretboard.

Related Research Articles

The classical guitar, also known as Spanish guitar, is a member of the guitar family used in classical music and other styles. An acoustic wooden string instrument with strings made of gut or nylon, it is a precursor of the modern steel-string acoustic and electric guitars, both of which use metal strings. Classical guitars derive from instruments such as the lute, the vihuela, the gittern, which evolved into the Renaissance guitar and into the 17th and 18th-century baroque guitar. Today's modern classical guitar was established by the late designs of the 19th-century Spanish luthier, Antonio Torres Jurado.

An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar. It uses one or more pickups to convert the vibration of its strings into electrical signals, which ultimately are reproduced as sound by loudspeakers. The sound is sometimes shaped or electronically altered to achieve different timbres or tonal qualities from that of an acoustic guitar via amplifier settings or knobs on the guitar. Often, this is done through the use of effects such as reverb, distortion and "overdrive"; the latter is considered to be a key element of electric blues guitar music and jazz, rock and heavy-metal guitar-playing. Designs also exist combining attributes of the electric and acoustic guitars: the semi-acoustic and acoustic-electric guitars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guitar</span> Fretted string instrument

The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">String instrument</span> Class of musical instruments with vibrating strings

In musical instrument classification, string instruments or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.

A fret is any of the thin strips of material, usually metal wire, inserted laterally at specific positions along the neck or fretboard of a stringed instrument. Frets usually extend across the full width of the neck. On some historical instruments and non-European instruments, frets are made of pieces of string tied around the neck.

The fingerboard is an important component of most stringed instruments. It is a thin, long strip of material, usually wood, that is laminated to the front of the neck of an instrument. The strings run over the fingerboard, between the nut and bridge. To play the instrument, a musician presses strings down to the fingerboard to change the vibrating length, changing the pitch. This is called stopping the strings. Depending on the instrument and the style of music, the musician may pluck, strum or bow one or more strings with the hand that is not fretting the notes. On some instruments, notes can be sounded by the fretting hand alone, such as with hammer ons, an electric guitar technique.

The Appalachian dulcimer is a fretted string instrument of the zither family, typically with three or four strings, originally played in the Appalachian region of the United States. The body extends the length of the fingerboard, and its fretting is generally diatonic.

A nut, on a stringed musical instrument, is a small piece of hard material that supports the strings at the end closest to the headstock or scroll. The nut marks one end of the vibrating length of each open string, sets the spacing of the strings across the neck, and usually holds the strings at the proper height from the fingerboard. Along with the bridge, the nut defines the scale lengths of the open strings.

Bolt-on neck is a method of guitar construction that involves joining a guitar neck and body using screws or bolts, as opposed to glue and joinery as with set-in neck joints.

The truss rod is a component of a guitar or other stringed instrument that stabilizes the lengthwise forward curvature of the neck. Usually, it is a steel bar or rod that runs through the inside of the neck, beneath the fingerboard. Some are non-adjustable, but most modern truss rods have a nut at one or both ends that adjusts its tension. The first truss rod patent was applied for by Thaddeus McHugh, an employee of the Gibson company in 1921, though the idea of a "truss rod" appears in patents as early as 1908.

In music, intonation is the pitch accuracy of a musician or musical instrument. Intonation may be flat, sharp, or both, successively or simultaneously.

The scale length of a string instrument is the maximum vibrating length of the strings that produce sound, and determines the range of tones that string can produce at a given tension. It is also called string length. On instruments in which strings are not "stopped" or divided in length, it is the actual length of string between the nut and the bridge.

A solid-body musical instrument is a string instrument such as a guitar, bass or violin built without its normal sound box and relying on an electromagnetic pickup system to directly detect the vibrations of the strings; these instruments are usually plugged into an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to be heard. Solid-body instruments are preferred in situations where acoustic feedback may otherwise be a problem and are inherently both less expensive to build and more rugged than acoustic electric instruments.

The action of a string instrument that is plucked, strummed, or bowed by hand is the distance between the fingerboard and the string. In keyboard instruments, the action is the mechanism that translates the motion of the keys into the creation of sound.

The neck is the part of certain string instruments that projects from the main body and is the base of the fingerboard, where the fingers are placed to stop the strings at different pitches. Guitars, banjos, ukuleles, lutes, the violin family, and the mandolin family are examples of instruments which have necks. Necks are also an integral part of certain woodwind instruments, such as the saxophone.

An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked, its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, resonating through the air in the body, and producing sound from the sound hole. While the original, general term for this stringed instrument is guitar, the retronym 'acoustic guitar' – often used to indicate the steel stringed model – distinguishes it from an electric guitar, which relies on electronic amplification. Typically, a guitar's body is a sound box, of which the top side serves as a sound board that enhances the vibration sounds of the strings. In standard tuning the guitar's six strings are tuned (low to high) E₂ A₂ D₃ G₃ B₃ E₄.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zero fret</span>

A zero fret is a fret placed at the headstock end of the neck of a banjo, guitar, mandolin, or bass guitar. It serves one of the functions of a nut: holding the strings the correct distance above the other frets on the instrument's fretboard. A separate string-guide is still required to establish the correct string spacing when a zero fret is used.

A bridge is a device that supports the strings on a stringed musical instrument and transmits the vibration of those strings to another structural component of the instrument—typically a soundboard, such as the top of a guitar or violin—which transfers the sound to the surrounding air. Depending on the instrument, the bridge may be made of carved wood, metal or other materials. The bridge supports the strings and holds them over the body of the instrument under tension.

Guitar bracing refers to the system of wooden struts which internally support and reinforce the soundboard and back of acoustic guitars.

Dingwall Designer Guitars is a manufacturer of bass guitars and electric guitars based in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. It employs the fanned-fret system started by Novax Guitars for manufacturing basses, increasing the scale length of the strings on the bass side of the guitar compared to the treble side. This design is more akin to a piano or harp, giving the bass strings length that increases the sustain.

References

↑ Mottola, R.M. (1 January 2020). Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms. LiutaioMottola.com. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-7341256-0-3.
1 2 Sulistiono, Sulistiono; Suhardi, Bambang; Ishartomo, F; Nugraha, I (2021-07-29). "Preliminary Review of Multiscale Fret as Innovation of Ergonomic Guitar". Journal of Technology and Operations Management. 16 (1): 81–90. doi:10.32890/jtom2021.16.1.7. ISSN 2590-4175.

External links

A calculator to calculate fret locations for a multiscale fretboard can be found on the Calculating Fret Positions page of the Liutaio Mottola Lutherie Information Website.

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[1] Mottola, R.M. (1 January 2020). Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms. LiutaioMottola.com. p. 107. ISBN 978-1-7341256-0-3.

[:0-2] 1 2 Sulistiono, Sulistiono; Suhardi, Bambang; Ishartomo, F; Nugraha, I (2021-07-29). "Preliminary Review of Multiscale Fret as Innovation of Ergonomic Guitar". Journal of Technology and Operations Management. 16 (1): 81–90. doi:10.32890/jtom2021.16.1.7. ISSN 2590-4175.

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