Guitar intonation problem

Question

is a guitar ever perfectly intonated, or is it just good to be close to intonation, my high b and e strings are close to being perfectly intonated but i tried turning the saddle with my flat head but nothing happened. so i'm just not going to bother with it until i get some advice on what i could do better! thanks

Answer 1

All instruments are perfectly intonated. If your strings are dead you will definitely loose intonation.  You have to change your strings every 6 months really because with humidity changing and the weather changing as the seasons go by string naturally become dead. Also dust on your strings can mess with the intonation.  

Really you are not supposed to mess with the saddle if you don't know what you are doing. I've ruined a guitar once with messing with that and I had to pay 75 dollars to get my guitar reset and was told not to touch it ever again by the guitar tech.  Though he showed me how to fix it though He told me that really once your guitar is set for perfection intonation that you have to make sure the guitar is perfectly in tune with it's self using the 5-5-5-4-5 method.

Digital tuning is the only absolute way you'll know your in perfect tuning. Also you can check the intonation by tuning via harmonics. Once you get all the strings tuned if your harmonics don't sound in tune then your intonation is out of alignment.  If you are unsure of how to fix it go to your nearest music store for them to fix it as that is the best advice.  

You have to be careful that you don't warp your neck because of the unbalanced tension that saddle when it's out of alignment puts on the neck.

I check my saddle on my 7 string all the time to make sure it's all good. I don't even mess with that part of my guitar and I'm a semi-professional musician signed to starter label.

If you have a lock nut and at your saddle you have tuning pegs I'd make sure I was in tune that way but my best advice is to take it to a guitar tech in a music store.

I hope I have helped you out! have fun

Answer 2

Hi Flyme

A guitar is tuned just like the piano. it is called tempered tuning and you can never get it perfect so you have to compensate to get the best of both world.

This means being in tune on open strings at the first fret and doing bar chords at the 8th fret. If this is in tune, the rest will also be because the 12th fret = the 1st fret and the 20th fret = the 8th.

When you do intonation, you HAVE TO DO IT WITH A BRAND NEW UNTOUCHED SET OF STRINGS.

This way, once we set the intonation at the 12th fret , 12th harmonic, then you can bet that the tuning will be perfect all over. Trust me.

Sometimes, we compensate with the truss road. if you are not sure if the neck is good, put your eye on the headstock and look down towards the 8the fret.

Put one finger on the 1st fret, and one on the 12th fret. Their should be a 1/16" clearance minimum between fingerboard and string at the 5th fret. In other words, their should only be a slight bow.

If the string touches, then the truss road is too tight and needs to be turned 1/2 turn counter-clockwise to loosed. If the spacing is more than 1/16" , then you need to turn 1/4 turn clockwise to tighten.

One last thing. Many guitarist put their pickup too close to the strings. The pull of the pickup will affect the tuning because the magnets are powerful enough to pull a string even if it is 1/1000th of an inch. These are different tricks we learn over the years and the guitar players tend to play wih .008 and .009 with is easy to affect by the pull of the pickups.

As for the saddles, if the 12th note depressed is flat as compared to the harmonic, tou move the saddle towards the neck , and if sharp, move it back.

The length from the fingerboard nut to the 12th fret has to be the same from the 12th fret to the bridge saddle. Simple.