FALKEN
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yes, you can intonate so that the 12th fret is "in tune" with the open string. But what do you do when other frets are not in tune? what adjustments should be made?
G
Guitarer
New member
Tune it...
S
Spin Doctor
New member
You gotta make sure that thing's in tune ALL OVER the neck.
D
Dani Pace
New member
When setting up a guitar I check intonation at 7th, 12th and 17th frets. If a guitar is right at these locations it will be as close to right all over as possible. Some guitars will not be dead on in every position so you just have to compromise and settle for getting as close as possible. I rarely find guitars which can be set up to be 100% in every fret position.
Roguetitan
New member
FALKEN
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uhm, ok. I have been checking mine at the 3rd fret and the 15th fret...below the 12th fret tends to go sharp, and above tends to go flat. If you guys think this is a joke I feel bad for your audience.
muttley600
Banned
For the reduments of intonation read this message from a thread currently active
To understand why your guitar is never in tune you need to understand a little about the physics and mechanics of temperament tuning and the system we currently use, it's basically a fudge. You also need a little knowledge on the nature of vibrating strings. It's not hard to grasp but you do need to do a little background reading and some searches as the answer is not compact enough to put in a single reply.
To answer your specific question the adjustments you need to make depend entirely on why the guitar is not intonating as you want it to. Could be anything from a badly adjusted nut, old strings, badly adjusted saddle. poor action and neck relief or even your ability to detect tuning errors others would not notice and thats just the likely reasons.
To understand why your guitar is never in tune you need to understand a little about the physics and mechanics of temperament tuning and the system we currently use, it's basically a fudge. You also need a little knowledge on the nature of vibrating strings. It's not hard to grasp but you do need to do a little background reading and some searches as the answer is not compact enough to put in a single reply.
To answer your specific question the adjustments you need to make depend entirely on why the guitar is not intonating as you want it to. Could be anything from a badly adjusted nut, old strings, badly adjusted saddle. poor action and neck relief or even your ability to detect tuning errors others would not notice and thats just the likely reasons.
muttley600
Banned
Assuming the neck relief is set correctly, If the intonation is sharp it generally means one of two things. The saddles are too close to the 12th fret, the cure is to move them back. As you have flat intonation above the 12th fret it will make that worse. The other common cause is an action or relief that is too high. The more you push the string down onto the fret the more tension you add to that string adding tension in the string increases pitch. Your problem is not at all common and I would set everything first to be correct below the 12th fret. Start by getting the relief right. Then set the action as you want it. Nott too high!! Then adjust the saddles to play in tune at the 12th and report as to what the intonation is doing up the dusty end. You may have an issue with the break angle. Are this good clean strings? To get intonation right you need to work with everything as everything has an effect elsewhere on the instrument. It's a balancing act.
FALKEN
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yes these are new strings and the neck angle is good. the fingerboard meets the saddles under the strings when extending with a straight edge. You say this problem is not very common but I bet most people just don't check it. In fact, most guys in guitar shops you pay to do you setups don't check it, either. It seems to me that a higher action would have more effect on pitch further up the neck, so raising the action would raise the fretted pitch more and more the further up you go, effectively *lowering* the fretted pitch on frets 2-10, if fret 12 is made to be even again. This is how I've handled it in the past but it sucks to raise your action just to get your notes to fret properly.
T
timthetortoise
MADE OF SANDALWOOD
Any time I've taken my guitar to someone to get it set up, it has been intonated. And if it hadn't been, I would have brought it back and had them do it. Essential part of a setup.
FALKEN
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yes but "intonation" usually means does it fret in tune at the 12th fret. IMO this isn't the whole story.
H
heroics321
New member
No it's not the whole story. Just look at the technical name for the process: string length compensation. The 12th fret is the generally accepted starting point. Beyond that, it's personal preference and varies between instruments and players. I'll usually check at a few different positions, and try several chordings up and down the neck. Your guitar will never be perfectly intonated. String height, neck relief, string gauge, finger pressure, worn frets, bad fret jobs, misplaced frets, rust on the saddles, rust on the strings, and quite a few other things can lead to varying intonation issues. There's no silver bullet for correcting it on ALL guitars, or even the same guitar between two different players. Do the best you can with what you've got and rule out as many problems as possible.
D
dementedchord
Psychotic State alumni ch
just a question from an interested pianist... any of you guys use the buzz feiten system??? i saw him at namm once and it seemed to work pretty cool though i can remember what it was exactly he does...
FALKEN
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is that the one with the frets that angle? Never tried one...
Even in this thread some say it will never be perfect and others say it should be done as a matter of fact. I don't think temperment has anything to do with it. Each note on the fretboard should ring out "in tune" on an electronic tuner despite unequal temperment. I guess I can get it "as close as possible" but it drives me nuts.
Even in this thread some say it will never be perfect and others say it should be done as a matter of fact. I don't think temperment has anything to do with it. Each note on the fretboard should ring out "in tune" on an electronic tuner despite unequal temperment. I guess I can get it "as close as possible" but it drives me nuts.
H
heroics321
New member
What should be the case and what's reality are two different things. It's just one of the drawbacks of fretted instruments. Your standard electronic tuner isn't always going to tell the truth either. The best time to address the problem is before you buy the guitar. And no matter what the build quality, intonation is always a compromise once you throw two or more strings into the picture.
muttley600
Banned
You really have to read and understand more about temperament and 12 step Equal temperament in particular. The fact that you can get the notes to ring true on your tuner perfectly in tune for 12 note ET does not mean that you are in tune. Many, if not all of the intervals are a compromise. You will also struggle to get all the frets playing perfectly to your tuner and if you could when you give it to someone else to play it wouldn't be exactly the same simply because of his or her technique.
First part true, yes the higher the action the more tension you put on the string as you fret it so typically the note higher up the fretboard would play sharper. That doesn't lower the pitch of the frets below the 12 fret it, you are just not raising the pitch as much. You shouldn't need to raise your action to get it to play properly. If your frets are playing sharp below the 12th and flat above the 12th you have other setup issues. That is my point. It is a compromise at all places and everything you do has an influence. Its not just about action. It is a balancing act.
What you say about some guitar techs not even testing intonation up the dusty end may well be true. I would suggest that a good many of them don't even understand the basics of temperament. One thing you have to understand is that with a fretted instrument and 12 ET you are never going to get it right. what you want to do is to get it as little wrong as possible.
In thirty years I have very rarely come across a guitar that can't be set up well and I have built or worked on thousands. Those that won't have had some major problems that would not be covered by a setup.
FALKEN
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ok...I am with you. I don't think my guitars fall into the rare category of not being able to be made to play in tune. I guess its possible but for argument's sake and the sake of statistics lets say that my guitars are able to get in tune. Lets also assume that I want every note to fret in tune to a tuner, regardless of temperment problems and what 'sounds' right. my ears are accostomed to equal temperment anyway... if you have set up thousands of guitars, what steps would you take to tackle this issue?
S
Spin Doctor
New member
You just gotta tune that shit. Tune it like there's no tomorrow.
Buy a tuning pedal if your ears aren't perfect. Most of us don't have perfect pitch.
Buy a tuning pedal if your ears aren't perfect. Most of us don't have perfect pitch.
R
RandyW
New member
As Muttley stated earlier, no guitar is ever in tune. That being said you can compromise thing a bit and perhaps maybe think it's in tune.
I know a posted a while back some tuning solutions I think for a tele. I never seen it stated what you actually have.
Something that can help a lot is a compensated nut I played a custom LP with one of these and it was quite impressive.
I think most folks just alter their tunings a cent or 2. Most of my intruments intonate fine but to make certain chords sound right you have to have notes
in tune with each other not merely open strings.
I think if you spend a while getting E on the second string tuned with E on the first string, B on the 3rd string tuned with B open 2nd string etc, etc you will find things still don't sound much better. It is going to be a compromise between open notes fretted notes.
It not just guitars it's every instrument. Even the tunings on electronic boards are purposely programmed to play slightly out of key to couple
different tuning standards or they wouldn't sound natural.
I know a posted a while back some tuning solutions I think for a tele. I never seen it stated what you actually have.
Something that can help a lot is a compensated nut I played a custom LP with one of these and it was quite impressive.
I think most folks just alter their tunings a cent or 2. Most of my intruments intonate fine but to make certain chords sound right you have to have notes
in tune with each other not merely open strings.
I think if you spend a while getting E on the second string tuned with E on the first string, B on the 3rd string tuned with B open 2nd string etc, etc you will find things still don't sound much better. It is going to be a compromise between open notes fretted notes.
It not just guitars it's every instrument. Even the tunings on electronic boards are purposely programmed to play slightly out of key to couple
different tuning standards or they wouldn't sound natural.
crazydoc
Master Baiter
As has been noted above, a guitar is never in tune - it's always a compromise. I never use a tuner, except to get a reference pitch. Here's how I tune my guitars: http://www.stagepass.com/tuning.html
Here's another interesting link on intonation and tuning: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/coleman005/intonati.htm
Another: http://hubpages.com/hub/Equal-Temperament-Guitar-Tuning
Maybe your ears are more sensitive to frequency variation than many others.
You just have to accept that it's not always going to sound perfect.
Here's another interesting link on intonation and tuning: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/coleman005/intonati.htm
Another: http://hubpages.com/hub/Equal-Temperament-Guitar-Tuning
Maybe your ears are more sensitive to frequency variation than many others.
You just have to accept that it's not always going to sound perfect.