Are you really into intonation?

[Guildedagain]

Intonation is a wonderful thing to to get right, "for the guitar to be in tune with itself".

On electrics it is very simply done - but seems to elude many - with any tuner, as long as you grasp the concept correctly.

"If the fretted note is sharp compared to the harmonic, the bridge saddle will need to be moved back, away from the headstock. If the fretted note is flat compared to the harmonic, the saddle will need to move forward, toward the headstock."

And some tricks.

"If your bridge saddles are as far back as they can go (or a fixed bridge) and your intonation is still a couple of cents sharp, use a .001 or .002 thinner gauge string to flatten the intonation."

 

[Charlie Bernstein]

Yup. It's easy with an electric.

With my Guild, not so. I should probably invest in a compensated bridge, but the guitar sounds good without it, so it would be throwing money at a problem that isn't.

 

[lungimsam]

I have found all short scale basses I have played to be a little difficult to tune and intonate on the low E string. But the benefits of a short scale far outweigh it.

 

[Taylor Martin Guild]

I have 3 guitars with Tech right now, for set up and intonation issues.
One needed to have the saddle slot opened up wider to the rear of the guitar, to help with intonation issues.
One is a resonator and the cone may have to be shaved a bit in order to move it back toward the bottom of the guitar.
This will help with the sharp tuning when using a capo.
The third guitar is a baritone 8 string.
This guitar will get the nut and saddle worked over for each individual string to get it's best intonation.

All three will have the truss rods adjusted as part of the set up.
All three will have the frets worked on as needed to get them all at the proper height

I have all my guitars set up by the same Tech.
He does wonders for intonation issues.
Well worth having the work done..

 

[merlin6666]

Intonation is a wonderful thing to to get right, "for the guitar to be in tune with itself".

On electrics it is very simply done - but seems to elude many - with any tuner, as long as you grasp the concept correctly.

"If the fretted note is sharp compared to the harmonic, the bridge saddle will need to be moved back, away from the headstock. If the fretted note is flat compared to the harmonic, the saddle will need to move forward, toward the headstock."

And some tricks.

"If your bridge saddles are as far back as they can go (or a fixed bridge) and your intonation is still a couple of cents sharp, use a .001 or .002 thinner gauge string to flatten the intonation."

Good stuff. I assume that when the bridge saddle is at the front and is still flat then use thicker gauge?

 

[Guildedagain]

Yes, the opposite.

I'm on an intonation rampage - do it with the guitar in playing position last - guitars, basses, everything. It feels good, and sounds even better.

My intonation tools.

 

[The Guilds of Grot]

One nice pert to being tone deaf. "Intonation? What intonation?"

 

[GGJaguar]

My intonation tools

I dig the Sabine tuner! I have two ancient ones from the 1990s kicking around here somewhere.

 

[lungimsam]

I notice when I play low f on low bass e string with fingers it can sound out, but useing a pick shows it is in fact in tune.
Interesting that depending on how string is plucked can give an out of tune effect when it’s not really out of tune.

 

[Midnight Toker]

Being a fan of the tone that comes w/ 3 brass barrel saddles on Fender electric guitars, I often have to compromise on splitting the difference between perfect intonation on two strings. I've since changed to 3 Callaham compensated brass saddles, which has helped even more, but a few strings are still slightly off by a very finite margin. I can live with it as long as the tone doesn't suffer. Getting rid of the stock bridge w/ 6 independent saddles in favor of the much heavier Callaham one w/ brass barrels was the biggest game changer I ever did to a guitar. Both my Strat and Tele now ring loud acoustically....which they never did w/ the stock bridges.

 

[tommym]

I have become more sensitive to intonation over the years as I now do fret (at times) much higher up the neck. That being said, I got an earful from the tech that was setting up my acoustic guitar. Scale length, string gauge, string tension, tuning pitch, alternate tunings, etc. all come into play. Getting the guitar to intonate correctly at the 12th fret is the easy part. Getting it to intonate correctly everywhere else is the problem.

Tommy

 

[Guildedagain]

I had a Tele that came to me with the Fender 6 saddle bridge, the worst thing you could ever do to a nice Tele.

People who rave about how great these are are maniacs. I've never wanted to get a bridge off a guitar worse than this monstrosity, I should have smashed it rather than to sell it to someone else, ohhh the misery....

I went to a Joe Barden bridge, but in the end, just the straight up vintage '52 sounded best of all. Just flat out the original design without any deviations sounded and looked best.

Teles are kind of an exception. Here is the bone stock set up on a '92 '52 Reissue. I'd still have it if hadn't weighed over 9lbs.