Purpose
The zero fret is primarily used to reduce production costs. The zero fret was commonly (but not exclusively) associated with cheaper instruments, since the cost of the labor involved in making a nut with slots carefully filed to the correct height is greater than the labor required to install a zero fret. Some manufacturers that frequently use(d) a zero fret are MTD (Michael Tobias Design), Gretsch, Kay, Selmer, Höfner, Mosrite, Framus and Vigier. Now very few manufacturers use this design and those who do list it as a feature.
It is claimed that with a zero fret, the sound of an open string more closely approximates the sound of a fretted string as compared to the open string sound on a guitar with no zero fret. Countering this claim are musicians who feel that a bone or even synthetic nut will enhance the overall tone of the instrument regardless of the string being played open or fretted. Since tone is so subjective, the two claims are likely to continue perpetually.
Steinberger uses a zero fret with their headless guitars. Strings are mounted in place where the head would normally be, so there is no need for the string guides that the nut provides.
Read more about this topic: Zero Fret
Famous quotes containing the word purpose:
“Nowadays, if New York has a heart, it might be the Garden. Almost everyone goes there, for one purpose or another. There are dog shows, and Sonja Henie and mass meetings.”
—In New York City, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“If God bestowed immortality on every man then when he made him, and he made many to whom he never purposed to give his saving grace, what did his Lordship think that God gave any man immortality with purpose only to make him capable of immortal torments? It is a hard saying, and I think cannot piously be believed. I am sure it can never be proved by the canonical Scripture.”
—Thomas Hobbes (1579–1688)
“As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.”
—Samuel Johnson (1709–1784)