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Post subject: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:19 am
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To my ear, intonation is out on my '52 AV Telecaster (with the brass barrel saddles). I've read a lot of negative comments about these barrel saddles on vintage style guitars and how near to impossible it is to get intonation corrected.

Should I expect less than I can correct the intonation on modern vintage six-screw bridge, like my Am. Dlx. Stratocaster?? Anybody with experience changing the intonation on barrel saddles? How were your results?

Thanks.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 8:26 am
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I have a follow up question on intonation. Being new to guitar maintenance, maybe this is an overly simplistic question. Having read up a bit on intonation, I was wondering how often people check, or adjust intonation on a guitar? Is it set and forget? Something I should check once a year, or just wait until my ear hears problems? I've read changing string size (and maybe brands) has an affect on intonation. Is it realistic to say intonation should be checked every time strings are changed?

I ask because if this is true, and from my first post barrel saddles are notoriously difficult to adjust, is it a losing proposition to think vintage style guitars (with brass barrel saddles) will have good intonation?

Thanks.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Fri Jul 08, 2016 9:34 am
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Yes, you're going to have to learn to live with compromise concerning your intonation.
There are special brass saddles available on the aftermarket designed to "compensate" but in my opinion they compensate too much and you still end up facing a compromise. The simple fact the saddles are affixed to each other means compromise is inevitable.
That's the price you pay for using that style of bridge.
That being said, no Tele is ever perfectly intonated.
It's always a matter of degree.

(it's not just Teles)

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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Sat Jul 09, 2016 7:55 am
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Correct. As long as you can't move each fret for each string up and down, a guitar will always have an intonation that's off. At most, you can get perfect intonation for two notes per string.

But even for just two perfectly intonated notes per string, there is a problem.
The telecaster, with 2+2+2 bridge, worked reasonably well in the 50s, because back then, people used a wound G string. That led to a "staircase" where every pair of strings were close in string length, and could have a good compromise value. But with the switch to plain G strings, Telecasters became harder to intonate well, because there suddenly was a big difference between the D and G strings. This is still a problem, and a reason why many opt to not have the traditional 3-piece bridge, and why there are about a dozen different compensated bridges.

But as Leo designed his first guitars, it was for a wound G string (which is also why the "traditional" staggering of pole pieces doesn't work well today). Either live with the intonation problem and compensate through playing, or get a different bridge.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 6:07 pm
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BMW-KTM wrote:
The simple fact the saddles are affixed to each other means compromise is inevitable.
That's the price you pay for using that style of bridge.


Yep, this is about the best cure to the problem, that I've found. And I've tried a few.

http://www.hotroxuk.com/joe-barden-amer ... Anv38P8HAQ

You still have the problem at upper fret chording sounding off. If you intone to get lower fret chording sounding right. I got round that a bit by making my own compensated nut to pair up with the bridge. However it's a lot of work.
All I do these days is intone my tele for open chording. Get them to ring right and you're about as good as you can get.

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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Sun Jul 10, 2016 11:37 pm
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nikininja wrote:
Yep, this is about the best cure to the problem, that I've found. And I've tried a few.

http://www.hotroxuk.com/joe-barden-amer ... Anv38P8HAQ


The Barden bridge sure helps when using "modern" strings with a plain G while still having a "barrel" design with a round top for the string to rest on. But you still can't adjust intonation for each string in a pair, but have to find the best point for the pair as a whole. And you won't be able to switch to a wound G without intonation going seriously bad.

The Fender Movable Intonation Telecaster Bridge overcomes those problems, but for three of the strings, you have to loosen them enough to move them out of the way in order to adjust the intonation, which seems like a hassle. Still, I'd think that's probably the best intonation adjustment you can get with a 2+2+2

Image

That said, personally I find the modern 6-saddle bridges much easier than the 2+2+2s, both for adjusting intonation and curvature.

And Gibson Tune-o-matics are the worst, having to use an angled screwdriver to get to the screws, and no curve adjustment at all. They do make it easy to adjust action, though, with no tools needed.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Mon Jul 11, 2016 4:50 pm
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dpe94 wrote:
To my ear, intonation is out on my '52 AV Telecaster (with the brass barrel saddles). I've read a lot of negative comments about these barrel saddles on vintage style guitars and how near to impossible it is to get intonation corrected.

Should I expect less than I can correct the intonation on modern vintage six-screw bridge, like my Am. Dlx. Stratocaster?? Anybody with experience changing the intonation on barrel saddles? How were your results?

Thanks.

My 2009 AV '52, for what ever reason, adjusts perfectly at the 12th fret to match all open string tunings.
I'm not sure if I have a magic AV'52 or not, but I would work on it with a chromatic tuner, instead of your ears, to see if you can't get the intonation adjustment correct using the original brass barrel bridge.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 7:14 am
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Or you could look for a bridge similar to the one found on the MIM Tele Special.

Image

Yep, there's six saddles on that-there bridge, and yet it still has the vintage-style "cupped" bridge plate.

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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 7:45 am
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MickJagger wrote:
My 2009 AV '52, for what ever reason, adjusts perfectly at the 12th fret to match all open string tunings. I'm not sure if I have a magic AV'52 or not, but I would work on it with a chromatic tuner, instead of your ears, to see if you can't get the intonation adjustment correct using the original brass barrel bridge.


Thanks Mick. That's exactly what I was doing, using a TU-2 to check intonation at the fretted 12th. Some string pairs were very close, other string pairs not so much. I tried adjusting without any idea of what to expect, then I thought to ask the question here. I didn't really understand how "perfect" I should expect intonation across all 6 strings on a guitar with this style of bridge. It felt like I was going to be fine tuning intonation for hours, and not really get any discernible improvement.

What I'm getting from this general discussion is 1) barrel saddles are never perfectly intonated (don't expect them to be), and 2) adjust intonation to open chords and live with what sounds right from there.

A lot of fine music was made on barrel style saddles, so they can't be all bad.

Thanks.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 11:46 am
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dpe94 wrote:
MickJagger wrote:
My 2009 AV '52, for what ever reason, adjusts perfectly at the 12th fret to match all open string tunings. I'm not sure if I have a magic AV'52 or not, but I would work on it with a chromatic tuner, instead of your ears, to see if you can't get the intonation adjustment correct using the original brass barrel bridge.

Thanks Mick. That's exactly what I was doing, using a TU-2 to check intonation at the fretted 12th. Some string pairs were very close, other string pairs not so much. I tried adjusting without any idea of what to expect, then I thought to ask the question here. I didn't really understand how "perfect" I should expect intonation across all 6 strings on a guitar with this style of bridge. It felt like I was going to be fine tuning intonation for hours, and not really get any discernible improvement.

What I'm getting from this general discussion is 1) barrel saddles are never perfectly intonated (don't expect them to be), and 2) adjust intonation to open chords and live with what sounds right from there.

A lot of fine music was made on barrel style saddles, so they can't be all bad.

Thanks.

I personally would never change the bridge, or the pickups on an AV '52 Telecaster.
I don't know how experienced you are with intonation tuning, but often you have to press the strings very close to the 12th fret (i.e. not in the middle between the 11th and 12th frets) to get a proper tune reading at the 12th fret.
If I get that, it's close enough for me.

First check the open string tuning with the open string 12th fret harmonic tuning, to make sure that the string is in fact in tune, before checking the intonation.
And obviously, you must re-tune the guitar after making a saddle adjustment, before again checking intonation at the 12th fret.

The bottom line in my opinion, is that if the intonation tuning at the 12th fret is very close to open string tuning with a chromatic tuner, and your guitar exhibits the proper harmonic qualities at the 5th, 7th, 12th, and 19th frets, and directly above the neck pickup; then any slight variation in harmonic tuning, will generally not be audible to the human ear when you are playing the guitar through an amplifier.
I believe that it is completely unnecessary to elaborately try to adjust intonation, relative to string tunings at different areas or fret levels of the neck, beyond the 12th fret.

As you may know, you cannot expect notes elsewhere on the neck to be exactly in tune on any guitar, regardless to the style of bridge, because a guitar is simply not a piano.
The 25.5" scale length slightly exacerbates this problem, but makes up for this with superior sustain, and in my opinion, better playability, in comparison to shorter scale length guitars.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 12:25 pm
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Dpe94, you might find this article interesting: Jerry Donahue on Tele intonation/SD Blog

On a three saddle Tele, intonation is a compromise. But actually, that applies to all guitars; no guitar plays perfectly in tune on every string and every fret.
IMHO, mostly the 12th fret intonation [or e.g. 2nd vs 14th, if you have a heavy touch...] plus checking with chords is enough.
Sometimes a special key, or custom tuning, or just the player's style need some minor tweaks.
But, don't get lost in the modern digituners "one cent off, one cent off, one cent off" vortex. :wink:


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2016 5:56 pm
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jmattis wrote:
Dpe94, you might find this article interesting: Jerry Donahue on Tele intonation/SD Blog

On a three saddle Tele, intonation is a compromise. But actually, that applies to all guitars; no guitar plays perfectly in tune on every string and every fret.
IMHO, mostly the 12th fret intonation [or e.g. 2nd vs 14th, if you have a heavy touch...] plus checking with chords is enough.
Sometimes a special key, or custom tuning, or just the player's style need some minor tweaks.
But, don't get lost in the modern digituners "one cent off, one cent off, one cent off" vortex. :wink:

+1

This is another reason to set your intonation in playing position rather than on a bench.

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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2016 7:05 am
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I remembered this same question coming up on the Robben Ford forum several years ago. I checked back and Robben's guitar tech at that time said that his solution was that for each pair of strings he intonated the lower string slightly flat and the upper string slightly sharp. He said that was the best solution he had found.

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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 5:33 am
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bigfrank wrote:
.... was that for each pair of strings he intonated the lower string slightly flat and the upper string slightly sharp.


I found a similar article on GuitarWorld (I think) a couple days back. Thanks for the reply. I haven't tried; I'm resisting because it just feels wrong to deliberately tune sharp or flat. But that might just be the OCD in me.


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Post subject: Re: Telecaster Intonation
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 5:44 am
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MickJagger wrote:
I personally would never change the bridge, or the pickups on an AV '52 Telecaster.



Agree. I bought what I bought because I liked the stock guitar


MickJagger wrote:
I don't know how experienced you are with intonation tuning, but often you have to press the strings very close to the 12th fret (i.e. not in the middle between the 11th and 12th frets) to get a proper tune reading at the 12th fret. If I get that, it's close enough for me.


Fretting very very close to the fret wire seemed to help. Intonation sounds better now.

I don't know if I'm doing it 100% right, but I'm only checking intonation at open (which I guess technically is just 'tuned' not intonated) and the fretted 12th. Harmonics at 12th seem to match fretted 12th.

For my tin-can ear, that's good enough.


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