[linux-audio-user] in tune - stupid thread [WAS: Tuning Program or wav files?]

[John Check]

On Monday 20 December 2004 12:05 am, Michal Seta wrote:
> mchristoph.eckert at t-online.de (Christoph Eckert) writes:
> > B flat is not exactly the same note as A sharp, BTW...
>
> depends in what key you are in :)
>
> I have been playing a guitar for over 20 years and I never heard of
> Feiten tuning system, although all the names that poped out in the
> linked article sound very familiar.  But I'm probaly way behind
> because I jumped from blues stright to classical guitar and then
> stright to computer music...  I guess I've got some gaps to fill.
>
> In any case, there is a touch of misinformation and/or
> misinterpretation of history in that article that someone provided
> earlier
> (http://www.buzzfeiten.com/Articles/Guitar_Shop/guitar_shop.html).
> First of all pythagoras did not get his math wrong.  He was right on.
> And he could not have miscalculated the fret distances because fretted
> instruments were invented a couple centuries after his death, if not
> later.  In the occident at least.  There are perhaps older instruments
> in the oriental cultures but have nothing to do with Pythagoras.
> Also, I fail to see how a 12TET system can sound perfectly in tune.  I
> mean, the whole idea of equal temperament is to make concessions in
> intonation as a tradeoff for having all, or most, intervals sound the
> same in all keys.
>
> As it's been pointed out, the 12TET tuning system is incompatible with
> overtone series of a vibrating string so even the Feiten tuning must
> be out of tune.  Probably differently and perhaps the differences are
> actually appealing to some players but still out of tune.
>
> I hope that some day the digital technology will bring us a just
> intonation guitar that will retune itself depending on which key
> you're playing in :)  But by then, I will probably go back to acoustic

Having frets that shift is an interesting engineering problem. 
One could have a hydraulic insert of some sort or possibly a servo controlled 
wedge system incorporated in the fingerboard. Tricking out the actual fret 
wire might get you enough tolerance not to have visible/tactilely nasty seams
Somebody somewhere had to have tried conceptualizing it. 

> instruments (providing I'm still alive).  For now, I have modified one
> of my instruments to do just intonation and it's alot of fun.  And I
> don't play tonal music so modulations to different keys are of no
> consequence to me :)
>
> cheers,
>
> ./MiS