opinions on the Evertune bridge

[Bandersnatch]

Unless you are a touring musician and your guitar is flown, driven in a van, run over by a train and dragged through multiple different climate areas, you do not need an Evertune.

 

[Lindmann]

Neither am I a touring musician nor is my guitar run over by a train but I still love the advantages of the evertune.
Sounds crazy I know.

I think that the reason so many guitar players do not see any benefits of the evertune is that this bridge really doesn't fit their needs. For example for someone who is playing a lot of lead stuff or someone who doesn't tune very low, the majority of the benefits just don't apply. In these cases the tuning stability is almost the only advantage left. And this may be not worth the upcharge.

But low tuned rhythm stuff is where it shines. Even if the detuning crowd may not be the target which the developers had in mind in the first place.
Benefits like
- beeing able to use thin strings and short scale without having to deal with the notes bouncing around
- superb intonation without having to worry too much about filing the nut (as explained earlier). Every chord anywhere on the fretboard just sounds prefect even if you havent tuned it for months.
- not having to worry about applying to much finger pressure when fretting (which might be an issue if you're playing with very low tension)

So I totally get that this bridge isn't for everyone. It's a rather small group of players that use the full potential of it. But it has its place and after I've had an evertune for a couple of years now I still love it to death.

 

[Meeotch]

Good explanation. I think most of the Evertune hate comes from either fear of the unknown, or wrong tool for the job. If you place high priority on having that light touch/subtle vibrato feel then it's not the best bridge.

The nice thing about the Evertune is that you can just set it in zone 3 and it performs just like your regular hardtail. Want your subtle vibrato back? = zone 3

I don't get the "solves a problem that never existed" mentality. I can't tell you how many recordings and live acts I've heard where the player strums hard and sends the notes sharp. It sounds like shit! Evertune solves that problem in an elegant fashion.

 

[Bearitone]

Good explanation. I think most of the Evertune hate comes from either fear of the unknown, or wrong tool for the job. If you place high priority on having that light touch/subtle vibrato feel then it's not the best bridge.

The nice thing about the Evertune is that you can just set it in zone 3 and it performs just like your regular hardtail. Want your subtle vibrato back? = zone 3

I don't get the "solves a problem that never existed" mentality. I can't tell you how many recordings and live acts I've heard where the player strums hard and sends the notes sharp. It sounds like shit! Evertune solves that problem in an elegant fashion.

Anything in zone 3 is sharp my friend.

You have to be in zone 2 to be in tune. Your pitch raises during bending or vibrato when you leave zone 2 and enter zone 3.

Just buy one. Blow the money and see for yourself.

 

[Bearitone]

Not only on the 12th fret.
My Evertune guitar is the only guitar I ever had that hits each note dead center on every single fret.

Come on dude. I get you’re happy with your purchase but straight up spreading misinformation doesn’t earn you points anywhere.

 

[Lindmann]

How is this misinformation?
It's just how it is.
This is actual experience...

I pick up my guitar that hasn't been tuned for months.
Grab a chord and strum it...all in tune.
Then I put on a new set of stings, slightly different gauges than before. Leave the nut completely untouched.
I retune realy quick, grab any chord...still all in tune and still intonating correctly.
Pull out my tuner, fret a randon spot on the fretboard, pick really hard....hit the note right at its center.

 

[c7spheres]

Are the zone's on a per string basis? Could you have some strings in Zone 2 and others in Zone 3?

 

[Bearitone]

Pull out my tuner, fret a randon spot on the fretboard, pick really hard....hit the note right at its center.

I’m not buying that every fret plays the intended note dead on. No guitar with straight frets (not TT) is able to do that.

It’s the entire reason True Temperament exists as a company/concept/product.

Call me skeptical but, your claim is a fucking big one. Go double check every single fret while playing through a standard tuner (Boss or Polytune).

 

[Bearitone]

Are the zone's on a per string basis? Could you have some strings in Zone 2 and others in Zone 3?

Yes! The guy from Rise Against does this with his guitar.

He sets the 3 low strings well in zone 2 because that’s where he does his rhythm work and a lot of moving around on stage. He sets the higher 3 to be able to bend for leadwork. There’s a great RigRundown showing it.

Again. I love my ET for what it was designed to do. It does it’s job well. It’s just annoying that i have to adjust the tuning keys to keep the strings zones correctly.

Bottom line: I’m still touching my tuning keys just as often. I’m doing it for a different reason though: zone control. Not pitch control.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

It’s the entire reason True Temperament exists as a company/concept/product.

For the record, True Temperament is not about more "accurate" intonation, it's about "sweetening" the intonation to be more pleasing to the ear.

It's the same basic idea as the Buzz Feiten Tuning System.

 

[c7spheres]

Yes! The guy from Rise Against does this with his guitar.

He sets the 3 low strings well in zone 2 because that’s where he does his rhythm work and a lot of moving around on stage. He sets the higher 3 to be able to bend for leadwork. There’s a great RigRundown showing it.

Again. I love my ET for what it was designed to do. It does it’s job well. It’s just annoying that i have to adjust the tuning keys to keep the strings zones correctly.

Bottom line: I’m still touching my tuning keys just as often. I’m doing it for a different reason though: zone control. Not pitch control.

That seems really annoying actually. If I was always messing with the tuning machines just to stay in the zone I wanted that would be annoying. I like the idea of having the low s in zone 2 and highs in zone 3, but the more I think about it the more I realize I woul dbe messing with it alot too because I bend and vibrato on all the strings more the I initially thought the more I think about it. It would be nice to have a guitar with it for certain songs where you just want to brutalize the heavy stuff, but then again, I can do that with my RG's and not go out of tune still so I guess it doesn't matter that much. Great bridge idea though. I can see it's uses for sure.

 

[Bearitone]

For the record, True Temperament is not about more "accurate" intonation, it's about "sweetening" the intonation to be more pleasing to the ear.

It's the same basic idea as the Buzz Feiten Tuning System.

Could i ask you to go into more detail? I thought the buzz feiten system was just a compromise between equal temperament and true temperament.

And that TT made every note on every fret the exact frequency it should be.

 

[MaxOfMetal]

Could i ask you to go into more detail? I thought the buzz feiten system was just a compromise between equal temperament and tru temperament

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads...-summary-of-true-temperament-fretting.337522/

 

[c7spheres]

For the record, True Temperament is not about more "accurate" intonation, it's about "sweetening" the intonation to be more pleasing to the ear.

It's the same basic idea as the Buzz Feiten Tuning System.

Actually the True Temperment website claims it's about getting super-accurate intonation under thier FAQ's page, but I see what you mean. It really is a sweetening in reality because it's just moving the fret to where fingers more naturally land on the fret board so it effectively is more accurate. It's nothing that perfectly accurate playing couldn't compensate for with straght frets. Still some odd fingers or complex chords certainly would be helped by this for sure, as well as hard left hand fret pushers too. I'd love to try these out sometime.
I had the Buzz Feiten system on one of my custom 7's years ago. It was really cool at first but also very strange too. The near-perfection of it was great but it's also like it took the energy out of everything. It's like the energy of everything was dynamically flat somehow is the best I could describe it. They claim you can just play with anyone without it and sound fine, but I find that's not true (I've heard the same for TT also). You can tell immediatley someone is out of tune when you play with someone that doesn't have it also. I eventually sold the guitar for other reasons (not jiving with the scale length) but wouldn't entertain it again because it was too odd feeling yet great sounding. The True Temperment on the other hand is much more appealing to me because it's not messing with the bridge and nut tensions, only the frets.

 

[sharedEQ]

I think proponents of the evertune are incorrectly using the word "intonation" instead of "tune" or "pitch".

No one is denying that the notes are "in tune" (as well as any straight fret guitar could be), but IMO its not clear how correct the intonation is, how the intonation is set, etc etc.

I don't believe intonation and "tune" are the same thing.

IMO, the evertune sacrifices intonation in order to stay in tune. When the string tension changes (either from turning the tuning peg, slipping, vibrato, bending, other..) the evertune mechanism counteracts the increased/decreased tension by changing the string length.

The reason this works is that pitch is a function of string thickness, tension, and string length. When one variable changes, another variable also changes to keep the pitch the same.

 

[Krucifixtion]

I don't own any Evertune equipped guitars, but after tracking 95% of all the guitar parts on a 60+ minute album some years back I really wish I had one. We constantly tuned in between takes to make sure guitars were always in tune well and with each other. Would have saved soo much time on tracking not spending half of it tuning after takes.

 

[Bearitone]

https://www.sevenstring.org/threads...-summary-of-true-temperament-fretting.337522/

Fuck. I really need to get on learning some theory because a lot of that was over my head.

What i took from that is that there is no such thing as perfect harmony across the entire fretboard regardless of your temperament. Whether it’s TT, WT, or 12TET you’re making a compromise somewhere.

 

[Meeotch]

Anything in zone 3 is sharp my friend.

You have to be in zone 2 to be in tune. Your pitch raises during bending or vibrato when you leave zone 2 and enter zone 3.

Just buy one. Blow the money and see for yourself.

Wrong. Tune down with the hex key at the bridge saddle to make it slightly flat. Then move into zone 3 with the tuning peg to hit perfect pitch. And I own an Evertune guitar, it's great.

 

[Bearitone]

Wrong. Tune down with the hex key at the bridge saddle to make it slightly flat. Then move into zone 3 with the tuning peg to hit perfect pitch. And I own an Evertune guitar, it's great.

So you aren’t ever in zone 2. You’ve maxed out the saddle’s travel and it’s now acting like a standard fixed bridge 100% of the time.

I just don’t see the logic :/

 

[Meeotch]

The nice thing about the Evertune is that you can just set it in zone 3 and it performs just like your regular hardtail. Want your subtle vibrato back? = zone 3

You have options.