SteveFord, on 28 March 2018 - 04:46 PM, said:
The problem, as I see it, is the string spacing on the nut.
I've had an SG where they put the high E string a bit too close to the edge (for you Yes fans).
Instead of taking a look at the nut they went with the Aircraft Carrier neck profile.
Nibs should not present a problem with playing unless they're FUBARed.
In all these years I've never had a problem with them, I always thought they were a classy touch.
I can actually agree with that, all you have to do is leave enough space maybe 1 mm extra metal, I actually have seen some less Paul's with binding nibs that actually have enough fret before the binding, so I probably got one that was very low on the quality control scale.
frets 5 through 13, the high E string came off the Fret 60% of the time.
I've owned about 50 different guitars from all 20 different guitar manufacturers not a single one of these excellent machines, did I have the high E fall off the board,
So I know i do not need practice, I can blame it on the guitar. all of these other well thought out excellent highly engineered guitars would not consider using Nibs. no manufacturer in the world in the modern day would consider introducing a guitar with 20% of a fret being plastic and 80% being metal.
I never experienced the problem until I played the Les Paul with nibs.
I'm not saying that type of design especially at the time period, is not a good guitar, clearly it's a very good guitar with some minor minor flaws, as you say because many people
used it to make good music , but just because something can be made to work does not mean that it can't be improved. It has a lot of parallels to golf clubs. the equipment improves a players playing. no golfer of the 60s could hit a 300 yard drive now 90% of the players can hit the 300 yard drive. it's all related to improved equipment.
I'm just saying the HP version is an improved version to an already very good guitar, not disrespecting the 60s. but engineers do learn how to make things better.
if you are regularly hitting 280 yard drive with a driver today, and someone gives you a persimmons wood and it's not much bigger than a golf ball itself, and you only hit it 180 yards, and your friends tell you you just need more practice, you actually say no I just need modern equipment.
absolutely from an engineering perspective there are multiple approaches to correct this design flaw or quality control flaw of a string too close to a rounded fret edge, combining the approaches would probably be best.
1. optimize the string spacing give the outer edge strings a little more freedom to operate. i.e different string spacing in the nut cut,
2 extend the fret somehow.
3. extend the fret by extending or widening the fret board relative to the nut cut string spacing.