Fret Not If Your Guitar Doesn’t Perfectly Intonate Up Down The Fretboard

  • Thread starter Thread starter 60's guy
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60's guy

60's guy

Well-known member
I stumbled upon a great article...I'll circle back to that later.

A few days ago I reached into my closet of acoustic guitars that I hadn't touched for at least 6 years. I grabbed an Alvarez, tuned it at the nut end, worked my way up the fretboard only to discover that something was amiss. It simply didn't feel right and didn't intonate quite right all along the fretboard.

Fortunately, I noticed the slight concave shape of the neck that had set in. I adjusted the truss rod....let it sit for a couple of days and voilà.... I can play harmonics at the 12th, 7th frets that are in perfect tune with open string plucking.

I got lucky! My bridge saddle is fine, but I had lived in fear that one of my nuts needed an adjustment or replacement.

acousticguitar.com

Why Your Guitar Won’t Play Perfectly in Tune—and Why That’s OK

It’s time to face the elephant in the room: there is a compromise built into the tuning of every fretted instrument.
acousticguitar.com acousticguitar.com
 
Years ago, here at HR, there were a few luthiers who inhabited HR. I miss their advice and continued presence, but I understand their decisions to move on.
 
Thanks for that article 60’s guy. Yah I’ve been struggling with intonation issues lately. Maybe I’ll experiment with some different string gauges and see if that helps a bit. I’m playing an epiphone sg and it’s sounding wonky to me. Trouble is I can get the intonation between the open note and fretted 12th note in tune but between those two spots it deviates
 
BTStudio said:
Thanks for that article 60’s guy. Yah I’ve been struggling with intonation issues lately. Maybe I’ll experiment with some different string gauges and see if that helps a bit. I’m playing an epiphone sg and it’s sounding wonky to me. Trouble is I can get the intonation between the open note and fretted 12th note in tune but between those two spots it deviates
Click to expand...
Is the bridge on your SG adjustable for each string?
 
Ever since they started making guitars with those wiggley perfect intonation frets it made me realise that fixed bridges and straight frets are always a compromise. You can never have it perfect. Pressing a string stretches it, so you alterthe bridge saddly to compensate and that puts the frets in the wrong place! Always a compromise.
 
Well, maybe it comes to how you "compromise" on the tuning. I know for me, when I am trying to get the guitar to sound "perfect" (I think good should be the goal), I will audit the the pitch and when I tune (since I tune to a tuner) and see it is out, I will make the guitar not quite perfect, so it is close to perfect all the way through. Or tune to the area I play the most.

But, I will be honest, I do the best I can and then the final tuning is just the personality of the guitar. As you can tell, I am not a guitar player. Also, if you are using digital, you may have to detune your other instruments. I just was made aware of this with this new analog synth I purchased, it has a master detuner. What!
 
I dont understand the detuning if you use digital? I never have to detune things? A=440 analogue or digital.
 
rob aylestone said:
I dont understand the detuning if you use digital? I never have to detune things? A=440 analogue or digital.
Click to expand...
Not everything is at 440. Therefore, you might have to detune to get in tune with that, that is not in perfect 440. If you work at sampling sounds, you would understand what I am saying.

I recorded a tug boat going up a river. I liked the pulse of the engine, but it was not in a pitch that I could work with. It was flat or sharp depending on your PoV. SO I tuned it to a perfect (I think E). Now, I cold have detuned everything to match the pitch of the pulse. Since everything else was at 440, I decided I would bring that sound inline with the other instruments.
 
I do work with sampled sounds, and my piano tuner is coming tuesday. I've only had one exception to A440 in years. Church organs. These can be wildy adrift. However - if you dump your guitar tuner and do it by ear like we all used to, the intonation shifts very little. I suppose this is simply that intonation is just maths. Physics too, to explain why thicker or differently tensioned strings need different fret placement?

Most older guitarist get pretty good at tuning to anything - like E and a half. This has never been an issue with intonation to the degree where I'd have to cringe?
 
No - Mid way between E and E sharp, so 50 cents in DAW parlance. I've played in loads of guitar bands where everyone tunes to the first person who had the guitar connected to the amp - so everyone tuned to that person, no matter what actual 'E' they had. Then the keys guy arrives and it's horrible - everyone moaning that they had all to retune.

Oddly, I have a friend who has perfect pitch. You sing a note, he shouts E flat! He cannot cope with the E and a half at all - his brain screams at him and his teeth go tingly. He has his piano tuned far more often than other people as he detects everything related to 440. The trendy people using other temperaments he cannot play with - and he cannot play some church organs. If he plays an electric keyboard and somebody has pressed transpose when he plays a G, and hears a F, it's like an electric shock, his fingers leap off the keys. Working with students, he often had to listen to the E and a half bands and we all knew looking at his face. perfect pitch is a blessing and a curse, because many old well known songs were varispeeded and also fall into the no mans land when they've ended up on CD or spotify. Those where you try to play along and its clearly out of tune. Most people don't notice, but for those that do - it's torture.
 
No fixed pitch instrument can play in perfect tune. It’s these very imperfections in the guitar are exactly what gives it its charm.
 
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