(sorry in advance if this has been covered yet, but ive done a search and did not find anything!)

Hi there. I've only recently purchased my very first strat (i've used epiphone guitars and a fender mustang). Its an american standard and i'm absolutely loving it. one thing is bugging me though: whenver I bend, say, the G string followed by playing a note on the B string, the B string goes out tune. SImply put, the B string goes out of tune cause im bending the string above (??). Not fully out ot tune, but enough cents to sound of of tune. This is probably common in Strats and im not aware of it. Or perhaps my guitar needs some setup.

Thanx in advance !

Ricardo

Hello riquier

do you stretch your stings out when you put new ones???
i havent had that problem since i started doing that ..
make sure you dont pull on em to hard or else they'll break

hope that helps....

_________________

USA 1989 Clapton Signature Strat in 7up Green
USA Standard Telecaster all Blk w EMG 81/85
ESP Eclipse II w EMG 81/60
Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier & Road king 4x12

too be fairly honest, I haven't changed the stock strings ! I will try that when I change them ! Thanx a lot!

As strings age, they lose the ability to stay in tune. It is safe to assume the factory strings were worn out before you ever recieved the guitar.

This happens because of the way the fulcrum bridge on a Strat wowrks... as you bend a string, the increased tension pulls the bridge up slightly and flats the other stings... slightly, but enough to be annoying.

In my case, the cure for this was replacing the stock tremelo inertia block with a rolled steel block, like the Callaham. Once I had my trem properly balanced with the Callaham block installed, I now have to bend a string nearly a full step before the bridge will lift.

This virtually eliminates the problem for me... If I'm bending a note pretty far, I'm usually only playing that string. When I do double and triple stop bends, I'm almost never bending anything more than a half step.

I should point out that this wasn't why I installed the Callaham block... it was just a pleasant side-effect.

This is pretty much an inevitable side effect of having a floating (up and down) bridge set up, as explained by the previous post. I just live with the problem. But if it really bothers you and you dont mind losing the option to trem bend up, lower the bridge down to sit on the guitar body and tighten it up with some extra trem springs. You'll also experience some slightly beefed up tones by doing this.

Although, with a real steel block and a good balance, it can be mitigated to the point it is virtually inaudible.

I have no idea.

I'm just relating my actual experience with installing the block... it made my trem more stable, and reduced the tendency to drop un-bent notes flat.

That's possible... the Callaham has different dimension than the block it replaced, that's for sure. Bigger. It also anchors the stringsway down at the bottom of the block, rather than having them come to rest about a third of the way up.

Maybe old Strats with cold-rolled steel blocks like this one (they say it's an exact duplicate of a vintage block) were more stable. But, as I say, I have absolutely no idea why it would do this. It just did.

Absolutely. I'm a total skeptic, but this you can hear loud and clear from the first note.

Hi Ricardo, welcome to the Forum.

A well known issue with vibrato bridges. Take a close look at the back of your bridge whilst making a big string bend and watch what happens. You'll see the bridge lift under the extra tension, which of course slightly detunes the other strings - as has been stated by others.

Strangely, I never thought about this untill I arrived on this Forum and found others talking about it. It bothered me that I'd not noticed it before, and so I made a careful examination of my technique. It turned out that I was sliding my fingers around to compensate for the detuning without even realising it.

What I do with unison bends is this (I discovered). Here are A and D on the third and second strings at the 14th and 15th frets, respectively:



When bending the A up to B on that third string it seems I also bend the second string as well; less, but enough to keep it in tune:



(Those positions probably aren't quite spot on - but I was struggling to hold a heavy camera with my other hand, so bear with me. And please ignore the cuts and scrapes on my ugly old fingers!)

It seems my ears had been talking to my fingers without involving the middleman!

This doesn't work with open strings, of course - but then you don't so often bend against open strings. Not a total solution, but...

Cheers - C