I remembered he was talking a lot of crapola about how the true temperament frets make the instrument super in tune and how he was going to put them in all his guitar, yet it was short lived and he removed or put another neck lmao

Dude couldn't realize is just another guitar gimmick and went ahead with it, probably paid thousands to have them installed only to never use them again

He was still using them here, but now all his guitars not longer have them

This true temperament probably makes the guitar worse

I’m sure he didn’t pay anything to have anything installed. You seem to be a pretty negative guy, Fowleri, and it’s getting tired.

Yeah he probably didn't pay anything but he was raving about them for so long, how they were an amazing invention and how the guitar is a failed instrument that doesnt stay in tune and this fixes it

Guess he's finicky..................like the rest of us

Flo has had a true temperament neck for over ten years, it was recently scalloped.

Evos true temperament neck is on the evo replica.

Necks get switched, need to be worked on (replacing frets means sending the neck to texas for TT or even Sweden), etc. evo has been through 3 or 4 necks in the last ten years.

It doesn’t have the true temperament frets anymore. Ive seen new videos where he is using flo and it doesn’t have them. No its not flo 2 or 3. Its flo.

With Caparison, Mayones, Strandberg and other manufacturers offering True Temperament frets, I believe your "gimmick" argument is invalid.

As far as Steve, who knows? The guy has alien ears. Maybe it made him cringe when he had to play with guitarists who didn't have TT frets. Maybe he thinks it's an awesome idea, but cooled it off when he couldn't convince Ibanez to pursue a licensing agreement with TT. Maybe it was too much of a pain in the ass to get a replacement neck in a time-frame he thought was acceptable.

He may have switched from Charmin back to Northern toilet paper, too. Maybe for the same reason; TT frets made his butthole itch.

Sign up the next time there is a Vai Academy and ask him in person. I bet he says they make his butthole itch.

Best answer ever.

Vai “academy” where you pay hundreds and hundreds just to go to an “academy” where all he does is jam and talk about esoteric topics

Yeah, probably best you don't go. It appears the value of the experience would be as wasted on you as the value of having a properly set up tremolo.

Keep bashing everything related to Steve, though. That seems to be winning you lots of admirers. Just like all of the ones you gained in the Facebook groups you were banished from.

I agree

Vai is a weird quirky guy, always has been. He does have theory books... I have one called Vaideology. Great book, he released it in 2019 I think... It's full of great info, practicing idea's and different ways of visualizing the fretboard... Show's you all the ins and outs of spelling chords and how to make up your own voicings. It's a great book I recommend it. He does promotional things like most of the other guys like him do... that's how he makes money, he'd be dumb not to. He's also become a much better person than he used to be. He used to have arrogance seeping from every pour back in the and 90's and 2000's. I think he has come to be a pretty laid back genuinely nice guy. If anything I think possibly having Guthrie Govan on tour with him and Satriani for G3 humbled him a bit. That's when I noticed a big change in how he presented himself in his demeanor.

And as for him teaching people how to play his music? Just knowing where your fingers go doesn't mean you know how to play something. It just means you know where your fingers go. It's advanced guitar hero or rock band. You would benefit a lot more from learning it yourself with your ear, slowing the music down with windows media player (perfect for that since it's free) and learning what it is he is doing to capture that mood so you can replicate that sort of mood in your own music. Really the music behind him is more important than what he plays because IT dictates the possibilities.

You don't have to like vai, his guitar, his music or his fans that's fine. He IS getting older and is on the other side of his career... So is Satriani for that matter. He hasn't released an album that has blown my socks off since Crystal Planet in 1999. Don't get me wrong I do like things after that album, but nothing has been that well written across the board since then... for me anyway. Some people (like Vai) are a bit in the elite side of the world and can be a little disconnected from us little people. That's fine, it's up to you weather or not you let it bother you.

I am not sure why you seem to be so bitter about almost every subject you talk about. And I am not a hater on you either, I have attempted in private to help you. I know it can be frustrating sometimes learning new things that's all fine and well. I am not sure if you're just a young guy full of piss and vinegar or a bitter older guy who just never made the time to learn things that he wishes he did. Either way you get more results from being eager to learn and have a positive attitude, than your do acting upset that the knowledge isn't just obtained instantly. Nothing worth having comes easy. That goes for a nice instrument too. They are expensive... but they are made by skilled craftsman, craftsman are a commodity... Guys like Vai, Govan, Satriani, Van Halen, petrucci (Pick your favorite bad ass player) Didn't get that way because they woke up with the ability. They had the God given talent of the relentless hunger for being the best. Sure they are naturally talented with the instrument, but it's that hunger, never putting that guitar down is what makes them great. And not just practicing things you know, LEARN things. Knowledge is king, TIME is the best asset for gaining any skill. And they made it a career, all they had was time.

Great post.

Why do you look at everything from a negative angle and always over-think things? Steve is a guitarist like all of us, we have things we like and then sometimes we stop liking them or stop caring and move on, it's not a big deal. Some people love TT frets, some don't and some go back and forth, great get on with your life.

Well, Steve is experimenting with and trying out stuff like most of us are, whether it's pickups, wiring or squiggly frets, don't know what's so controversial about that. I suspect he went back to normal frets for the most part because in a live situation, unless everyone else you're playing with uses the compensated frets, it would make everyone with normal frets sound out of tune, and vice versa. If you're just alone in the studio, then it's fine, as you're in full control of the musical situation. He probably felt that, for himself, there were ultimately more trade-offs in using TT frets than regular ones for most musical situations. Maybe the practicalities of the system and getting it done were also factors, as mentioned in the thread.

People complain about how much the Jem and Pia cost these days, well, can you imagine if Ibanez released one with TT frets? It's a pretty labour intensive process to make/install these compared to straight frets, the mark-up on a production guitar would've been significant. As an example, Matthias Eklundh's Caparison is over 6k.

The TT frets are just one out of several possible ways of subdividing intervals in the octave to allow certain ones to sound more in-tune when playing combinations of notes. In the Renaissance and Baroque periods, lutes had tied on gut frets so players could adjust them according to the keys of particular pieces. So if you're playing in major, for example, you could tweak the frets to make major thirds sound more assonant etc. Bowed instruments, being fretless, don't have to deal with this, as it's down to the player's sense of intonation and finger placement.

Conventional frets on a guitar are a kind of averaged out compromise, so we can in all keys and it sounds ok. This also applies to the piano, the strings of which are tuned to allow all keys to sound pretty good. It's an interesting concept for guitar and has been around for a long time, going in and out of fashion in the mainstream. Personally, I don't think it's a gimmick, it's just another facet of the guitar which is available to folks who want it and can pay for it, and it's cool that that's an option. It just shows that it's a great time to be a guitarist – lots of choice in gear at different price points.