: How do you calculate correct fret spacing for a mandolin?
Hi, John!
It doesn't make a bit of a difference if it's a mandolin, a guitar or even a boardwalk with strings attached. If it's strings, then the laws of physics rule. What is a fret for? To shorten the effective length, and therefore raising the frequency of the sound. At the very middle of the string: 1/2 of the length -> 2 times the frequency. This is exactly one octave (12 half steps, that's where this funny twelfth root of 2 comes from; it's appr. 1.059). You keep raising it to the power of 2, 3, 4, etc. When you get to 12 you realize that the result comes darn close to 2. So close that it IS 2. So, 12 half steps => 1 octave => half of the original length.
Do use a scientific calculator with lots of decimals, though. And use exponentiation. Its button looks like this: x^y.
Better yet, I just made up the table, drop me a line, I'll be happy to send it to you.
Re: fret spacing
: How do you calculate correct fret spacing for a mandolin?
Hi, John!
It doesn't make a bit of a difference if it's a mandolin, a guitar or even a boardwalk with strings attached. If it's strings, then the laws of physics rule. What is a fret for? To shorten the effective length, and therefore raising the frequency of the sound. At the very middle of the string: 1/2 of the length -> 2 times the frequency. This is exactly one octave (12 half steps, that's where this funny twelfth root of 2 comes from; it's appr. 1.059). You keep raising it to the power of 2, 3, 4, etc. When you get to 12 you realize that the result comes darn close to 2. So close that it IS 2. So, 12 half steps => 1 octave => half of the original length.
Do use a scientific calculator with lots of decimals, though. And use exponentiation. Its button looks like this: x^y.
Better yet, I just made up the table, drop me a line, I'll be happy to send it to you.
Have fun,
Steve