Is my guitar broke? please help!

L

Laynestaley

Newbie Shmewbie
I've been playing a Mexican Fender Telecaster for about two years now and I've always been pretty happy with it. Though recently I seemed to get trouble tuning my guitar. For example, when I've tuned the low E string (with a tuner!), when I play the first fret, I don't get a clean F, but it is just a little higher. This is the case on all the strings...
I just recently replaced all the strings and my guitar hasn't been exposed to any extreme conditions...
The neck looks ok, but I'm not an expert...

Any suggestions on what to do are greatly appreciated..
 
Look down the length of the neck from the headstock to see if the neck is bowed. A tiny bit is normal, but if it looks a little much, you may need a truss rod adjustment (I recommend going to a tech for this). Your intonation be be off, too, but I don't know how to fix that with a tele bridge.
 
I would try adjusting the intonation, particularly if you have switched string gauges. It sounds like the saddle on the low E needs to be adjusted backward to lengthen the string. With a little guidance you should be able to make the adjustment yourself:

http://www.mrgearhead.com/faq/telesetup.html

If that doesn't work, take your Tele to a guitar tech to determine if there is anything else going on.
 
There are any number of possibilities, and no one is going to be able to do a good job of diagnosis with out seeing the guitar. Take it to a good repair tech, and they will let you know what needs to be done. Estimates shouldn't cost you anything, and then you will know. Possible problems could be a worn nut, recent climate changes, worn frets, too much bow in the neck, too little bow in the neck, back bow. It could just need a setup. Like I said, without seeing it, I can't say.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Thanks, some very usefull infomation there. I've tried changing the intonation myself but that didn't help. I actually think the neck has too little bow in it, but I'll be talking the guitar to a tech for that.
I can't believe all those years of playing without ever worrying about all the possible adjustments. Got to check my other guitars too now....
 
To throw another spanner in the works, your frets will not be perfect, at best ithey are a compromise, on any guitar tune the g string then fret "A" it will be sharp. One solution is to fit a Buzz Feilten(?) nut, these are graduated to take out the inbuilt error.
 
The rest of this I was trying to say is that the old style teles had 2 strings to each saddle, if you have one of those they are buggers to intonate and it will also be a compromise.
 
Laynestaley said:
I've been playing a Mexican Fender Telecaster for about two years now and I've always been pretty happy with it. Though recently I seemed to get trouble tuning my guitar. For example, when I've tuned the low E string (with a tuner!), when I play the first fret, I don't get a clean F, but it is just a little higher. This is the case on all the strings...
I just recently replaced all the strings and my guitar hasn't been exposed to any extreme conditions...
The neck looks ok, but I'm not an expert...

Any suggestions on what to do are greatly appreciated..
Click to expand...

The funny thing is that you get this problem on the first fret. Your intonation would have to be WAY out of wack. Are you really sure that the this is a new problem? The reason I say this is that I have only seen 1 Strat (an american version) in all my years of guitar work that had this happen. It turned out that the first fret was not placed in the right location (manufacturing defect). Try setting the guitar up first. Usually, the intonation problem does not rear it's ugly head unitil further up the neck.
 
Clive Hugh said:
To throw another spanner in the works, your frets will not be perfect, at best ithey are a compromise, on any guitar tune the g string then fret "A" it will be sharp. One solution is to fit a Buzz Feilten(?) nut, these are graduated to take out the inbuilt error.
Click to expand...


The Buzz Feinstein system is a lot more than a nut. It also involves having the intonation set differently than is standard, and then you also have to tune it differently.

But the real issue with the Buzz Feinstein system is that it DOESN"T WORK. Or, more accurately, it works for some chords, but makes other chords worse. Basically, it is a really bad idea. He was right about the nut needing to be moved a little, but every other builder already knew that, and the rest of his system is a waste of time. And your guitars nut will already be in the right place, in all likelihood.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
I think you will find that this is normal. From the Earvana (makers of a compensated nut) site, I read something about a principle that since there is supposedly a higher tension on the string for the first 3 frets or so, and this causes the string to be slightly sharp when fretted in those positions. The thicker the string, the the more pronounced the effect. The G and low E would be the worst offenders. If its really bad, I would think it would have to be either the nut or the first fret is not placed exactly right.

Guitarists with good ears have been struggling with these tuning issues for a long time. Some swear by the Buzz Feiten system, some swear by the Earvana nut solution. I have'nt tried either yet, but I may try the Earvana on one of my guits in the semi-near future.
 
The guitar was designed using the mathematics of Pythagoras ( remember your algebra classes? ) and he didn't think that the tension of the strings would affect the calculations. Of course, we all know now that this was flawed. Personally what I do is tune the guitar at the fifth fret rather than to open strings....this gives me a little better fuzzy math in either direction.
 
RattleCat said:
The guitar was designed using the mathematics of Pythagoras ( remember your algebra classes? ) and he didn't think that the tension of the strings would affect the calculations. Of course, we all know now that this was flawed. Personally what I do is tune the guitar at the fifth fret rather than to open strings....this gives me a little better fuzzy math in either direction.
Click to expand...


I tune my A String to a tuning fork. I then tune all the other As under the twelfth fret to the open A string. This gets me really close. I then tune the whole guitar to a big E power chord. The open E, the seventh fret on the fifth string, the ninth fret on the forth and third strings, and the twelfth fret on the second and first strings. When that chord sounds good, I find that a well setup guitar will sound in tune, for me. Note that I do this all by ear, and NEVER use a tuner for anything but setting intonation, which I do with a Peterson Strobe tuner.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi
 
Well I took the guitar to a tech who told me he could tell on sight that the intonation needed to be fixed. He was also going to check the neck, so I should have it back (hopefully fixed) by tomorrow. I’m sure it is not a manufactoring defect, cause then I would’ve noticed the problem a lot earlier. Also I play with rather thick strings (10-46 I believe) on my tele for no particular reason and the problem mainly exists on the thicker strings indeed. So if I would change to thinner ones this might help right? But I guess then I’d have to take it back to the guitarshop to get the intonation right..
Anyways I’ll make sure to let you all know what the problem was according to the tech and if he could solve it.
 
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