fret board calculations

Lap steels, resonators, multi-neck consoles and acoustic steel guitars

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Randy Reeves
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fret board calculations

Post by Randy Reeves »

I did a search for the math in laying out a fret board. could not find it.

I want to redo a fret board for a lap steel I made.
22.5 inches.

I knowI saw thart post here.
where or where...?
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Jay Fagerlie
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Post by Jay Fagerlie »

Hey Randy,
I think the name of the program is "Fretcalc"

Jay
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Rick Aiello
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Post by Rick Aiello »

http://www.stewmac.com/FretCalculator/

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Randy Reeves
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Post by Randy Reeves »

thanks.

fretcalc worked.


perhaps it was another foum where I saw the number used to calculate the layout of a 22.5 inch fretboard.

Cris Linscott
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Post by Cris Linscott »

Randy
I used this one for a 22.5 scale
http://www.buildyourguitar.com/resources/lapsteel/table.pdf

It comes from Martin Kochs very useful site http://www.buildyourguitar.com

Cris<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Cris Linscott on 17 August 2005 at 07:07 AM.]</p></FONT>
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Randy Reeves
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Post by Randy Reeves »

thanks Chris. that is a very nice chart.

I havent seen that site before,
it's bookmarked.

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Gary Spaeth
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Post by Gary Spaeth »

take your scale and multiply it by the 1/12th power of 1/2 (0.94327431). that will be the distance from the bridge to the first fret. keep multiplying your results by 0.94237431 for subsequent frets till you have the number of desired frets. this works for any scale you desire. eg. 22.5 X 0.94237431=21.237172 which is the distance from the bridge to the first fret. 21.237172 X 0.94237431=20.045221 for bridge to 2nd fret etc. etc. if you do it right when you get to the 12th fret it will be 1/2 the scale length. at the 24 it will be 1/4. now isn't math fun!
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Randy Reeves
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Post by Randy Reeves »

ow. my head hurts.

actually, I am quite comfortable with decimals.

thanks all for the great responses.

I just double checked my layout using this last post.

it's right on.

now I need to come up with interesting fret markers.

Gary Spaeth
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Post by Gary Spaeth »

how about little square root markers. haha!
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