Nut Comparison - Synthetic / Bone / Buffalo Horn
Channel: Jared Corgan
Date: 2012-10-31

Comparison setup - Same guitar, three different nuts. For each nut I recorded the guitar acoustically then amplified.  I like to hear acoustic differences that turn into tone changes amplified and I think it is a good way to consider how the changes one is making affects the instrument.

The stock nut was the synthetic, it is of an unknown material. I call it plastic in the video, but after removing it I found it to be more brittle than most plastics. It however did deform before cracking. 

The bone nut is a bleached bone nut.  I can't speak to the type of bone, I presume it is bovine in origin.  I made this one up from a blank. 

The buffalo horn nut I also made from a blank. I don't know the type of buffalo. 

Notes: The bone and buffalo horn nuts were my first nut making ventures. The bone nut did not have as tight of a fit as the buffalo horn nut did. I made the blank for the buffalo horn from a larger piece where the bone was a sized blank for a fender style neck. I an undoubtedly did a much better job on the buffalo horn nut than the bone nut.  The value I found in doing this comparison is that not only the material used in the nut, but how well it is fit to the nut slot and overall construction influences the sound quality aside from the playability. In other words the material definitely influences the sound, but any gain in tonal quality is also subject to how well it is installed and constructed. I like the buffalo horn nut most because it seems to provide a bigger rounder sound. A guitar is the sum of a lot of little things transmitting the sound characteristic and a nut is one of many components.  It's hard to say for certain what the difference in sound are, but I can say that having the guitar in my hands while playing and listening to it acoustically it feels bigger and more resonant than before.

The string spacing inequalities are an experiment I did to see if it would affect my playing - the outcome being that I couldn't tell that the strings were not evenly spaced.