Fretsmith

FRETSMITH — THE LUTHIER'S BENCH, IN YOUR POCKET The nut isn't a nut. The saddle isn't a saddle. The action isn't exciting. Your guitar has been lying to you for years, and Fretsmith is here to translate. Ever wonder why your guitar plays like butter at the shop and fights you at home? Why the low E only buzzes when someone's listening? Why a Les Paul feels nothing like a Strat? The answers are boring physics and very specific numbers — and they're all in here, so you don't have to become a luthier to find them. It's every spec, formula, and setup procedure a working luthier or tech reaches for, verified against manufacturer documentation and real bench practice. We're annoyingly accurate about the details. The jokes are free; the data is checked. WHAT'S INSIDE • Brand Specs — 47 brands, 623 models. Scale lengths, nut widths, radii, truss-rod tools, saddle-slot dimensions, nut materials, and the model-specific traps that quietly ruin your afternoon. Fender, Gibson, Martin, Taylor, Ibanez, PRS, Rickenbacker, Warwick — and dozens more. • Setup Checklists — 12 job-aware checklists, in the right order, because doing the nut before the relief is like frosting a cake before you bake it. • String Tension Calculator — physics, not vibes. Exact plain-steel math and verified published unit-weight data for wound strings, plus phosphor-bronze for acoustics. Any gauge, tuning, scale — electric, acoustic, bass. • Nut Slot & Intonation Calculators — file-target slot depth, and the exact saddle-compensation direction and distance. (Yes, your guitar plays sharp. This says by how much.) • Measured-Spec Comparison — punch in your measured relief, action, and nut-slot depths; it flags each against the model's published spec and the typical working range. • Acoustic Diagnosis — tells you it's a neck reset BEFORE you file $200 of saddle into sawdust. • Diagnostics — tuning-stability and buzz decision trees, for when it buzzes and you've officially run out of guesses. Plus a truss-rod quick lookup. • Pickup, Tonewood & Quick Reference — magnet types and pickup heights, 32 tonewoods (tone tags + CITES status), and an action/relief/nut table across 16 instrument types. • Chromatic Tuner — built in. Because your ears lie too. NOT A LUTHIER? DOESN'T MATTER. If you've ever tuned up and wondered what's actually going on down there, this is that. We're not trying to take advantage of you — honestly, we'd rather you learn this stuff. Fretsmith just skips the three-forum-threads-and-a-2009-PDF part. Something wrong or missing? Tell us. We want the feedback. WORKS EVERYWHERE, OFFLINE iPhone, iPad, Mac, and Android. No account, no subscription, no ads, no "sign in to continue." Works in a shop with concrete walls and zero bars. FOR THE PRICE OF A PIZZA One-time $9.99. The pizza is gone in twenty minutes. This is still on the bench a year from now. We can't make you buy it. But you'll think about it the next time you're elbow-deep in a setup, phone propped against the toolbox, Googling a saddle-slot width. FOR PROFESSIONALS Fretsmith is a reference tool for trained luthiers and technicians. The procedures it documents can permanently damage an instrument if performed incorrectly. Always verify on the actual instrument; when in doubt, consult a qualified professional.