Tuning a Guitar that has Buzz Feiten Tuning System

Tuning a guitar that has the Buzz Feiten Tuning System for an intonation setup requires you to tune the guitar a bit differently to take advantage off the intonation off-sets.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Forbes Guitars
• Darren Forbes
• Buzz Feiten Tuning system
• guitar intonation
• tuning
• luthiery
• luthier

[guitartec]

I wish I had something (anything) constructive to say about this. I'll be quiet.

[DarrenForbes]

@guitartec Clearly you disapprove of something. Please share your criticism. On a quality guitar, BFTS works. Anyone with ears can hear the improvement. As a guitar tech I am sure you can elaborate on your perspective.

[Jst0911]

Do people turn the peg with their right hand? lol

[DarrenForbes]

@Jst0911 I explained why I do that in the video.  :-)

[ciman18]

Thanks for the video!!

Let me ask you something: I have a Washburn with the BFTS and many problems to tune it properly. I think everything's OK, because I tune it following your instructions but when i play in the first three frets (chords like F or D) it sounds awful, i think the big mistake is in the G string. Can you give me any advise?

[DarrenForbes]

@ciman18 if you have tuned as described it might be another issue. Make sure you keep with a similar string gauge.Make sure you have not altered the bridge height. Make sure the neck relief is correct. If it is not you might need a truss rod adjustment. If your guitar is not in good "health" than it won't tune no matter what method you use. The neck might not have the correct neck angle as well but that is a more complicated fix that requires a neck reset by a luthier.

[guitartec]

They only allow me 500 characters in one shot to respond, so in short, I'll just say I have no problem whatsoever with the BFTS, except maybe the cost. The Earvana compensated nut seems to make more sense money-wise, and it requires no special method of tuning. This is simply my opinion. I'm honestly not attacking the BFTS. It's that viewers now think some special tuning method is required for it. This is unnecessary.

[Jst0911]

@DarrenForbes my comment was dumb. but your video helps. thanks

[PennylandMusic]

Great concept - but two issues:

The idea is to compensate for the fact that at frets near the nut suffer an "end effect" whereby the tension of the string is increased disproportionately for the first couple of frets. But intonation error is a function of the action (string height) at the first fret. Higher the action = greater error. No mention of this.

Second issue:the error is also a function of string gauge. Lighter gauge = lower tension = greater error. I'm not convinced. Anyone disagree?

[wolfsinister]

hi darren, thanks for all the info!

- i've just got a washburn with the factory set-up but i tune the top 2 strings to C and F so i've tried the tuning with a high fretted F on the A-string, and the higher F on the E-string, ie 1 octave down.

do you think its ok to tune across different octaves like that?

and does tuning the top 2 strings a semi higher to C and F knock the intonation out?

[ciman18]

@DarrenForbes Thanks for the advice! I'll take the guitar to a luthier because everything seems fine right now.