Nut (string instrument)

The nut may be made of ebony, ivory, cow bone, brass, Corian, Tusq or plastic, and is usually notched or grooved for the strings.

The nut, however, is called a de:Sattel ("saddle"; also Obersattel) in German, whereas the part of a guitar known as the saddle in English, the surface of the bridge on which the strings rest, is called a de:Stegeinlage or Steg, in German.

These instruments use a zero fret—a fret at the beginning of the scale where a normal nut would be that provides the correct string clearance.

A conventional nut can make open strings sound slightly different—and for this reason some high-end instruments use a zero fret.

A compensated nut aims to correct this, by staggering the starting position of each string according to thickness.

While not a complete solution such as a true temperament fretboard, there is a noticeable difference in tuning within chords.

A drawback however, is that the locking nut must be loosened using an Allen wrench to tune outside the range of the fine tuners on the bridge (if present).

In this design, made popular by Fender, the strings sit on roller bearings instead of nut slots.