Charting the 'sweet spots'
This is a simple routine that lets you come up with the exact location where you
need to position the bridge. It also lets you determine whether you need
a compensated bridge or not and if so, it tells you the exact amount of
compensation you require for each of the strings. Also, if your bridge
needs to be positioned on an angle this routine will tell you exactly what
the angle is for your banjo
. Read these instructions carefully but don't get intimidated, they are pretty easy to
follow.
Knowing
where and
how to
position a banjo bridge is par for the course in banjo land, it's required skill just like
knowing how to tune your strings. Banjo bridges do "travel" on
the banjo's head so you need to check if its still at the proper spot
about once a month or so. In other words, don't rely on
others to do it for you, "you gotta learn how to pick yer own
nose..."
In case you are not quite to sure about these instructions, take a
trip to your local music store and ask them to show you how to set up the
intonation on an electric guitar by adjusting the moveable saddles. Looking
at the way this is done ought to give you plenty clues about what you'll
be doing with your bridge. In case you're wondering, sure enough, that's
where I got the idea for making my custom compensated bridges the way I
do.
If, after going through steps, it turns out you need a compensated
bridge then make sure you've settled on your favourite string gauges,
bridge height, string spacing and neck angle before ordering a custom
compensated bridge - any changes here and all bets are off and you need to
re-measure.
Please note:
to come up with accurate measurements you need
to:
-
use new strings: old strings often create intonation
problems
-
use a bridge with a thin top: 2 ~ 2.5 mm thickness is ideal. Thicker than
3 mm is too thick for this purpose and I don't recommend you use budget priced bridges as, unfortunately,
they are known to be intonation unfriendly. By the way, most of the original
"came-with-the-banjo" bridges fall in
the no-frill budget category so use a quality aftermarket bridge for
this routine. In fact, using quality aftermarket bridges more often than not,
will make intonation problems caused by no-frill bridges go away
completely and you can merrily skip this routine. If you don't have a
thin top bridge it's real simple way to make a cheap dummy test bridge
yourself for this occasion, here's
how
.
-
play the chimed notes on the 12th fret.
Here's how: you touch the string ever so slightly directly
above the 12th fret, not behind the fret the way you do while playing
normally. Many people forget, or mix this up, so let me
repeat: touch the string directly above the 12th
fret
itself, pick the string and immediately take your finger off the
string you're chiming. You now hear a clear dreamy bell-like sound is
this is what you'll be using to compare the pitch of that tone to the
pitch of the string when you fret
it behind
the 12th string the way you normally do.
-
by the way, going through this measuring
routine takes less time than
it does to change a set of strings :)))
Let's get started: chart the 'sweet spots' for each string starting with the first string, but
before you do: be careful! Many bridges are very brittle and can snap
into several pieces that can come flying at your face real easily while you
move them! You might be wise to slacken the tension of the strings first,
especially with thin bridges, before you grab a hold of your bridge between
your thumb and index fingers of BOTH hands and move it around.
To avoid any confusion, you're measuring the sweet
spots of all strings relative to the first
string so the "sweet spot" for
the first string must be zero. One more thing
defore you dig in: if your 5th string sits on top some kind of a slotted
pip thingie behind the 5th fret (up in the air above the 5th fret instead
of resting on the 5th fret itself) then there's no point in compensating
it and you use a zero just like the first string.
- Position the bridge at a 90 degree angle to the third string (the
normal, proper position)
- Move the bridge to where you can play a chime at the 12th fret (or 19th fret for
greater accuracy) starting with the first string.
- Now play the same note fretted, also at the 12th fret (or 19th fret
for greater accuracy)
- If the pitch of the fretted note is higher, move the bridge towards
tail piece (away from the neck). If you don't trust your ears to tell
whether the pitch is higher, lower or the same, use an electronic tuner.
- Pitch lower? move the bridge away from tail piece (towards the neck)
- Mark the spot on the head where the pitch of the
chime equals the pitch of the fretted note. Use a pencil to mark the spots.
- Repeat steps 2 through 6 for all strings - keep in mind, the fifth
string's chime, or harmonic, is on the 17th fret instead of the 12th
like the other strings.
- Draw a straight line (or use a sticky label stickers, sticky, green painters tape or whatever) at the
first string's zero point at a 90 degree angle to the 3rd string.
- Measure the distance from the zero line to the marks you've made for
all strings
If your 'zero line' off-set measurements show zero for all strings - no
matter what you've been told, you simply don't need a compensated bridge,
period. Don't be surprised though if your results show something like
this:
String |
Zero line off-set |
#1
|
0 mm (always zero) |
#2 |
2 mm |
#3 |
4 mm |
#4 |
3 mm |
#5 |
0 mm
|
blockquote>
Down & dirty: for a quick way to get your bridge
close to the proper position, "good enough for now," follow steps 1
through 5 until you have the 1st string properly intonated then
do the same thing for the 4th string only while making sure the bridge
stays in the same location for the 1st string. Chances are the bridge now
will no longer be at 90 degrees to the 3rd strng - instead
it might be angled, the 4th string side being closer to the
tail piece. Like I said, "good enough for now."
If the measured spots line up in a straight
line,
whether the
bridge
is angled or
not,
then despite what
anyone else,
especially marketing people,
tell you:
then you DO NOT need a compensated
bridge.
When you've finished this routine and your
numbers look something like 0-0-2-0-0 > all strings are fine except for the
3rd string, here's a little secret: most strings, except the 3rd (and sometimes
the 2nd string) are usually quite forgiving, intonation wise. In this case
the 3rd string notes sharp so logically speaking, it needs to be
lengthened by a +2 mm offset. Try this: grab the bridge at
both sides and pull it towards the tail piece about 1
mm and recheck the fretted notes compared to the chimed notes. Things are fine
but the 3rd string still a tad sharp? Move it another 1 mm same
direction and compare fretted and chimed notes again. You may have to tweak
the 1st or 4th string a tad but don't at all be
surprised that all string now intonate darn near perfect.
For most banjos the intonation sweet spots
line up in a straight ZERO LINE
, whether
the bridge is angled or not. Like I just mentioned, this means
you don't need a compensated bridge. Over the years I've come across some extreme cases where the intonation
offsets reached about 5 to 8 millimeter values, especially on the 3rd and 4th
strings. If you come up with number higher than 7 or 8 mm
you better re-check the proper location for string 1 as something is
likely to be out of whack. Either that, or you're probably using
a bridge that's unusually tall or wide.Then again, you never know, maybe
you got yerself a real heavy duty twister... By the way,
in all the years I've been making my custom compensated bridges I've only come
across 3 or 4 of them where the offset value was negative - meaning
of course, that the string length needed to be shortened instead of the
usual need to be lengthened. It's highly unusual for any of the string
lengths to require shortening and yes, that definitely includes the second string.
I'm sure you've noticed,
the measurements are all in millimeters. To me they're less confusing then them durned
little and big and bigger stripes on the inch rulers (I've looked at
them wrong stupid stripes once too often...). You can get rulers that
measure in millimeters in a dollar store near you.
Once you've done the measuring
you know beyond the shadow of a doubt whether you do, or
do not, need a compensated bridge for this particular banjo and
for the way this particular banjo is set up. You'll also
know the exact amount of compensation required, based on science and you no
longer have to rely on anecdotal evidence, myths or "my buddy told me."
If nothing else, you'll learn about the finer workings of your banjo. If it
turns out you do need compensation you shouldn't be surprised at that, you'll
now know exactly what to do about it. With this sweetspot routine there
simply no longer is a reason to guess. What you're your aiming for is the
ultimate sound and playability of YOUR banjo, not someone
else's.
Please note: I
have come to feel pretty strongly that the only
proper way to address intonation problems is to go it the custom
compensated route. If a compensated bridge is not made according to measurements done
on your banjo then it's a generically compensated bridge based only
on guesswork. Generic compensation simply cannot do the job custom compensation does and
my own banjos deserve better than having to settle for "close
enough," or "about this much." If you're thinking "yeah, but the second
string's always out anyways" think again - with cumstom compensation this simply does is
no longer true. Yup, with a properly compensated bridge there's no need to tune your 2nd string
flat by five
cents.
When perfection is
doable, why settle for less. Perhaps overzealous, maybe not too smart marketing wise,
but as of November 2006 I stopped making and selling generically
compensated bridges because, plain and simple, they don't cut it and I refuse
to put my name on a product like that. How could anyone pretend to
know by what and how your intonations are caused without ever having seen
or touched your
banjo?
By the way: if you inflict this routine
on a few different banjos you'll soon discover
that for banjos that do need a compensated bridge that the
required correction measurements are never the same from banjo to banjo,
they're always different. This is THE reason that generically
compensated bridges fail to solve intonation issues. When
shopping for a compensated bridge ask the maker(s) how, and by how many
millimeters each
string is compensated (strings shortened
or lengthened?). Oh, don't be surprised if they can't, or don't want to, tell
you those measurements. If their numbers do not agree with the ones you just
measured by using the routine above you'll know that their particular bridge is
definitely not the one you need and you'd be wise to keep
shopping around or, better yet, drop me an email.
There's two ways to get a compensated
bridge: take somebody's word for the "I know what I'm doing," or the "about-this-much" approach OR the
exact measurement solution. With the latter approach you'll never
have to use the word 'compromise'
again. Think twice before deciding on
generics.
If you'd like to order a bridge whether straight, or compensated, please go to this page
to let me know the details. Your
support is greatly appreciated. |