Tuning problems help please

[ibanezrocks]

Give light a break, no matter how smart you are and how many things about guitar you've, you still can't do a setup as good as someone who has done it a thousand times. At the same time though, you still should practice things that you have the tools to do that don't risk damaging the guitar, and if you screw it up, who cares you can bring it to the shop and get it setup anyways without it costing any more. So set up as much of it for yourself, but don't expect it to be a pro setup.

 

[crazydoc]

Guys,

OK, so the guitar stays in tune but it never really reaches a "good tune" It sounds OK but not Great. That is the problem...

Now what the hell are you talking about? What is a "good tune"? Either it's in tune or it's not.

So maybe you mean it sounds like shit when you play it? Then take it to someone who can set it up for you. Maybe the intonation is off, maybe the frets aren't spaced right, maybe the pickups arent set right, maybe it's just a shitty guitar or maybe you don't play that well. We're not going to figure it out here.

 

[goldtopchas]

WOW! What a can of worms we've opened. Here's my two cents!
1.Get a good tuner with a meter . led's are worthless.
2. Once the strings are thoroughly stretched, make sure they don't stick at the nut. Tune "upward" to pitch, bend, see if it stays.
3. Good tuners do make a difference. Is it hard to make it stop "in tune"?....keeps going over, under, over...
4.Don't forget the bridge. They stick there too..I use 1200 grit sand paper folded and just "polish" a little in the saddle. A toothpick to apply a dab of lube works well.
5.Wrap a few turns, or a shitload, it doesn't matter once the string is stretched. BB KING winds the WHOLE string!!! It looks like 6 little bee hives !!
6.Set intonation at the 12th fret and then check it at the 2nd or 3rd. You may have to find a happy medium, due to inaccurate nut placement, fret issues, truss rod adjustment, squeezing the strings too hard, bad strings (not just worn, but poor quality). AND YES,..... SOME GUITARS JUST WON'T PERFORM WELL NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO. Don't get rid of it till you have a GOOD tech check it out. Do a search for a luthier in your area .
GOOD LUCK!!!!

 

[timmerman]

Willis,

I did mean explicit (Fully and clearly expressed; leaving nothing implied.).... "Secondly"... I'm cool, I was joking

Guys,

OK, so the guitar stays in tune but it never really reaches a "good tune" It sounds OK but not Great. That is the problem.
Also.. for as long as I've had the guitar I've had the idea that it's a low end guitar so why expect more of it... it's an Epi LP-100....

Anyone know of a good place to take my guitar in South Carolina?

Anyone of you any more suggestions for Alexrkstr ??

Sorry dude I am too far from South Carolina, but you could certainly ship your guitar to Leeds, here in the UK, there are more than 10 guitarshops in this city and I am sure they are more than willing to take yours, even if it does not hold its tuning very well

By the way, has the problem been solved yet? I must say it is a very strange story, but then I guess we have not heard it all yet........................

Eddie

 

[ggunn]

Give light a break, no matter how smart you are and how many things about guitar you've, you still can't do a setup as good as someone who has done it a thousand times. At the same time though, you still should practice things that you have the tools to do that don't risk damaging the guitar, and if you screw it up, who cares you can bring it to the shop and get it setup anyways without it costing any more. So set up as much of it for yourself, but don't expect it to be a pro setup.

I wasn't aware that I was being hard on him. What about it, light? Am I not being civil? My apologies if I've offended you.

As to setup, I've said all along that I can do a lot but not all of my own work. I can set my intonation, string height at the bridge, and pickup height as well as anybody; it's just not that hard. I deal with my own friction issues at the nut and the balancing of the floating bridge assembly on my Strat. Electronics work on passive elements is no prob for me.

I could probably set a truss rod, but I'd just as soon someone with a lot of experience do that. I wouldn't even attempt any sort of fret work, or nut shaving/shimming/notching. I'm sure there's other items that would better be handled by an experienced tech.

 

[jimistone]

But it wasn't. He just looked at it and played it; he never did a bit of work on it. His assertion about the spring tension was just plain wrong; I have had three springs, four, and five, claw config and straight, with the block position close to one side, close to the other, and in the middle. None of those variations had the slightest impact on it staying in tune. Putting a graphite T on it and getting the nut cut right, plus a little graphite and teflon in the notches when I change strings completely fixed it.

Now, I don't mean to try to put you in a position of defending some guy you don't know; I'm sure that you run a great guitar shop. He had a very respectable business, too, and was well respected around town, and for the most part did great work. It's just that his high school education and years of experience left him with some misconceptions about the physics of the instrument.

I have helped other Strat players with this problem (it's very common with floating bridge guitars when the block is not pulled all the way to the body), and the problem has always, 100% of the time, been with the nut and string T(s) and never with the bridge itself. I'm not saying that it couldn't be, just that I've never seen it, and I freely concede that I've not worked on nearly as many guitars as you have.

Peace,

I set the trem on my strat to float...upward and downward trem arm movement...with 5 springs. It has been my experiance that if you set it up where you only have downward trem arm movement (recommended by Fender), it will always go out of tune when you use the arm. When you have the trem centered (as much upward swing as downward swing), you can keep somewhat in tune when using the trem alot. You have to use the "every action has an equal and oppisite reaction" formula. When you push down to flatten a note, you have to pull a note sharp at approx. the same distance from "center".....its comes alot closer to staying in tune like that...especially if you work on your trem technique.

When you have the trem set up to only acheive downward movement of the trem...forget it...its not going to stay in tune, no matter how many springs you use.
Its not going to stay in perfect tune, even with the trem centered...but you can keep it a hell of alot closer, and get through a set without having to tune, or switch guitars.
If you have a floating trem, and do not use the trem bar,....adjust it all the way back (bridgeplate setting flat on the guitar body), use 5 springs, and block the trem with a piece of wood. It will stay in tune forever if you have good keys.
I am playing blues and country now, and I have my trem blocked....when I was doing rock (with several Hendrix numbers in the set list) I had the trem cented, as descibed above, and I got pretty damn good at keeping the guitar in tune, to spite the radical trem arm work I was doing.
my 2 cents

 

[ggunn]

I set the trem on my strat to float...upward and downward trem arm movement...with 5 springs. It has been my experiance that if you set it up where you only have downward trem arm movement (recommended by Fender), it will always go out of tune when you use the arm. When you have the trem centered (as much upward swing as downward swing), you can keep somewhat in tune when using the trem alot. You have to use the "every action has an equal and oppisite reaction" formula. When you push down to flatten a note, you have to pull a note sharp at approx. the same distance from "center".....its comes alot closer to staying in tune like that...especially if you work on your trem technique.

When you have the trem set up to only acheive downward movement of the trem...forget it...its not going to stay in tune, no matter how many springs you use.

Once again, this usually (in my experience) has nothing to do with the tremelo itself, it's friction in the nut. When you push on the bar, the strings go slack, and some of every string moves through the nut toward the tuners. When you release the bar not all of it comes back, so the tension between the nut and the tuner is lower than it was, therefore that between the nut and the bridge is higher than it was, hence the strings go sharp. The unwound G string is the worst for this, at least it is on my Strat. Yes, a pull on the bar will reverse this somewhat, but you can actually overcompensate and send the strings flat this way. As long as the friction is there, there will be that lag in the equalization of tension in the two parts of the string. This is why steel guitars have rollers between the pedals/bars and the active parts of the strings.

This doesn't happen at the bridge on a Strat, because in the operation of the tremelo on a Strat, the strings do not slide over the saddles.

The solution is to reduce the friction in the nut, and if you have metal string T's replace them with graphite or roller T's; the coefficient of metal on metal sliding friction is extremely high - it's the reason for brake pads and engine oil. As I said, steel guitars have roller nuts for this very reason, and you can get them for regular guitars as well, but I'm not going to chop up my '61 Strat for that. Brass nut? Fuhgeddaboudit!

My remedy (after I got a graphite string T) is to mix a slurry of teflon grease and graphite and to put a tiny glob of it in each slot of my bone nut whenever I change the strings. Occasionally, I need to regrease the G string slot if I don't change strings for a while. It stays in tune, although with a strobe there one might still see a little of this effect left; there is always a little friction, no matter what you do. It's pretty good, though.

The other way would be a locking nut. The strings must be either completely free (within reason) to move or locked down totally to avoid this problem. Even a fixed bridge guitar can have it if you bend strings a lot (bend a string, then it's flat). I use the teflon and graphite on my Les Paul as well. I believe that what a lot of folks blame on tuner slippage is really this effect.

Well, this has been fun. I am off to spend a couple of weeks fishing and SCUBA diving, so I'll be offline for a while.

Cheers,