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Post subject: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 1:08 pm
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I have a new American Standard Tele. The Low E goes sharp at the 3rd fret (G) when I play an open G chord it sounds like hell. Any suggestions? I don't think the guitar was set up with any care at all. I guess all the American Fender employees were too worried about Obamacare to set my guitar up right.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 3:45 pm
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Check proper neck bow . New guitar may need set up , different temperature and humidity in your country / home change neck bow and set-up


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 3:49 pm
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This guy rocks!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_qZ_QGXI4w


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Fri Oct 04, 2013 11:04 pm
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Also make sure you tune it at the volume you're going to play it. If you tune the low E by gently picking it, or letting the tone die off before the tuner reacts, it will sound way sharp when struck harder. It is going to be most noticeable when it's the base note of a chord that's off, like in a G chord.

The problem with strings sounding sharper when struck harder is worse the thicker the string is, so it's most pronounced for the E string.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:18 am
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arth1 wrote:
Also make sure you tune it at the volume you're going to play it. If you tune the low E by gently picking it, or letting the tone die off before the tuner reacts, it will sound way sharp when struck harder. It is going to be most noticeable when it's the base note of a chord that's off, like in a G chord.

The problem with strings sounding sharper when struck harder is worse the thicker the string is, so it's most pronounced for the E string.



+1000

Doing a set is one thing , doing it properly is another story .

I read often on the forum this story , people tell they do the job / test /reading but nothing work . After many post they admit they forget or do something wrong .

That is experience and we are here to learn.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:54 am
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I can press the E string at G gently and get a true G note if I press it harder, it goes sharp. It isn't that I am hitting too hard necessarily, it's that I am FRETTING it too hard. Seeing how that doesn't happen on ANY other guitar I own, I am a bit alarmed. I have a GREAT set up guy (who is fixing another of my guitars right now) so I imagine he can fix it. One thing I have to say: Fender puts virtually no care in what they put out to their consumers. I have bought 30-40 guitars in my life and NONE were as poorly prepared as my Telecaster. Every Hamer I ever bought was dead on at purchase. Could just be this guitar. Love it otherwise.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:47 am
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No guitar maker can predict how hard each individual player presses the strings... :twisted:

But you might want to check the lowE's groove on the nut. Might be too tight for the gauge you use, might be a bit high...


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:26 pm
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cwgatti wrote:
I have a new American Standard Tele. The Low E goes sharp at the 3rd fret (G) when I play an open G chord it sounds like hell. Any suggestions? I don't think the guitar was set up with any care at all. I guess all the American Fender employees were too worried about Obamacare to set my guitar up right.

Hi CW. While the Fender employees may be excited that 50 million uninsured Americans finally have a chance to get affordable health care insurance coverage, regardless of pre-existing conditions, I doubt that their level of excitement was the reason that your MIA Tele was not set up properly when you bought the guitar.

I have seen guitars arrive from the Corona that could not produce harmonics at the 12th, 7th and 5th frets, which indicates that the guitar needs an intonation adjustment. While this could be due to carelessness in quality control of the final product at the factory, it is more likely due to temperature and humidity changes that the guitar experienced after leaving the factory, and the failure of the guitar store to properly inspect and setup the guitar.

In any event, assuming that the action of your strings is to your liking, and a truss rod adjustment or bridge height adjustment is not needed, just adjust the intonation. Tune the guitar with a chromatic tuner and then check the tuning of each string at the twelth fret. Use the adjustment screw on the bottom side of the bridge saddle and bridge to adjust the tuning at the 12th fret to match the open tuning of each string. Re-tune the open string after each adjustment and recheck the intonation at the 12th fret. Adjust again as needed. Since you have six bridge saddles, adjusting intonation on your guitar is even easier than signing up for Obamacare.


Last edited by MickJagger on Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:38 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 1:24 pm
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MickJagger wrote:
In any event, assuming that the action of your strings is to your liking, and a truss rod adjustment or bridge height adjustment is not needed, just adjust the intonation. Tune the guitar with a chromatic tuner and then check the tuning of each string at the twelth fret. Use the adjustment screw on the bottom side of the bridge saddle and bridge to adjust the tuning to match the open tuning of each string. Re-tune the open string after each adjustment and recheck the intonation at the 12th fret. Adjust again as needed. Since you have six bridge saddles, adjusting intonation on your guitar is even easier than signing up for Obamacare.


Checking on the 12th fret was the recommendation back from a time before chromatic tuners. It's easy to hear if the octave is off compared to open, and doing it by ear thus works well. The guitar doesn't even have to be in tune. So there's nothing wrong with doing that.
However, with a chromatic tuner, you can easily check that both open and your highest fret are in tune. If not correct, the offset will be larger than at the 12th fret, and you can adjust the intonation more precisely.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 2:16 pm
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arth1 wrote:
Checking on the 12th fret was the recommendation back from a time before chromatic tuners. It's easy to hear if the octave is off compared to open, and doing it by ear thus works well. The guitar doesn't even have to be in tune. So there's nothing wrong with doing that.
However, with a chromatic tuner, you can easily check that both open and your highest fret are in tune. If not correct, the offset will be larger than at the 12th fret, and you can adjust the intonation more precisely.

You can obviously check intonation tuning at numerous frets, including the last fret. However this is completely unnecessary with a six saddle bridge, since no compromises are required for adjusting the inonation between strings, such as when using a traditional (non-compensated) three barrel Tele bridge.

On a six saddle bridge, such as on an American Standard Telecaster, there is not a more precise method for adjusting intonation than checking open string tuning with tuning at the 12th fret.

If the string is in tune at the 12th fret with the tuning of the open string, the string tuning at the 21st or 22nd fret will also be in tune with the proper note for the fret scale. This cannot vary if your neck is in good working order. Adjusting intonation for a traditional three barrel Tele bridge requires a different approach, which is not the subject of this thread.

Assuming that you are talking about a six saddle bridge, there is no need to check tuning at the highest fret, as there can be no variation in intonation, or more precise method of adjustment.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 6:17 pm
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MickJagger wrote:
On a six saddle bridge, such as on an American Standard Telecaster, there is not a more precise method for adjusting intonation than checking open string tuning with tuning at the 12th fret.

If the string is in tune at the 12th fret with the tuning of the open string, the string tuning at the 21st or 22nd fret will also be in tune with the proper note for the fret scale. This cannot vary if your neck is in good working order. Adjusting intonation for a traditional three barrel Tele bridge requires a different approach, which is not the subject of this thread.

Assuming that you are talking about a six saddle bridge, there is no need to check tuning at the highest fret, as there can be no variation in intonation, or more precise method of adjustment.


Yes, you can check it at the 12th fret, as I already said. Nothing wrong with that.
The benefit to checking at a higher fret is that the precision is higher, despite what you seem to think. What you seem to not realize is that there is no such thing as absolute precision when measurements are involved, and that errors in measurement grow with scale. The longer the distance you scale to, the larger the error grows.

It's simple mathematics. Say you have a really good tuner, and are really good at adjusting, and can get the intonation to within +- 0.5 cents.
If you adjust it at the 12th fret, and get 0.4 cents off, it rounds to 0 - no error. It's as good as you can get it. At the 22nd fret, however, that error grows to 0.7 cents, which rounds to 1 cent.
However, if you adjust it at the 22nd fret, and get 0.4 cents off, that will mean 0.2 cents off at the 12th fret.
Your choice. Both are going to be "good enough", but the latter is more precise.
And if your tuner and/or hand isn't that uncannily precise, the difference will be even larger.

Again, that the 12th fret is recommended isn't because it's precise, period, but because there were no chromatic tuners back in the 50s and 60s. Tuning by ear was required, and an octave is the easiest interval to compare by ear. Without using a tuner, it is going to be the most precise way to do it.
But with a chromatic tuner, this changes.

Old habits die hard, so most people will still say 12th fret and accept it as gospel. And it sure works. It's just not the most precise way of doing it anymore.


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:24 pm
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arth1 wrote:
What you seem to not realize is that there is no such thing as absolute precision when measurements are involved, and that errors in measurement grow with scale. The longer the distance you scale to, the larger the error grows.

It's simple mathematics....

That is simple nonsense!!
You have no idea about what you are talking about.
We're not making "change" here, we're adjusting intonation.

If the intonation note is correct at the 12 fret with the open string tuning using a chromatic tuner, it has to be correct at the 22nd fret unless you have a defective neck.
There is no growth in error measurements as you progress down the scale unless the the note and intonation are not correct at the 12th fret. It's simple mathematics.

How about telling us where you learned about this fairy tale....
Or did you come up with this fallacy on your own?


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:18 am
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arth1 wrote:
Tuning by ear was required, and an octave is the easiest interval to compare by ear.

The easiest interval to compare by ear is no interval.
That's why we were taught to compare the 12th fret fingered note to the 12th fret harmonic wa-a-a-a-y back in the good old days before chromatic tuners and such nonsence... :mrgreen:


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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2013 2:54 am
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I suggest that MickJagger and arth1 spend some time researching "equal temperament" since neither one of them has any real understanding about guitar tuning. If what either one of them claim were true, there would be no need for guitars like this:

Image

http://www.truetemperament.com/site/index.php?go=4

Note: I have no stake in these guitars or any alternate fretting or tuning methods. I muddle along just fine using my Boss TU-3 tuner. :D

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Post subject: Re: Low E String Intonation
Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2013 4:26 am
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The intonation is pretty close. The sharp G note is leading me to believe that there may be some fret work required. On a new American Fender that is a troubling thought. I will keep you updated.


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