Official Luthiers Forum!

Does anyone find that their guitars play decent in standard tuning but when going to alternate tunings they have intonation problems? I know we have had several conversations on intonation etc. in the past but I was wondering if we could discuss some thoughts of how people set up their intonation. I would think that most of us don't have expensive strobe tuners. How is it then that you get your guitars intonated? Do most people just go with a standard compensation on the bridge end and leave it at that? I am trying to find an easy description for my students of how to get their guitars to play in tune without having to be experts on intonation and invest in expensive equipment. Any thoughts and instructions would be greatly appreciated.     

Robbie I think the problem is that your strings, when in alterered tunings are at different tension than when the guitar was intonated.

That is the main reason that I have a guitar or two dedicated to just the drop tunings. I also always use balanced sets of strings on my DADGad guitar, that are specifically for the tuning, with heavier strings on the dropped notes. Basically if I'm using (as I usually do) extralight, I'll have strings from a light set on the dropped notes that is the 1,2 and 6. Actually I buy them separately from Newtone, but you get the point of trying to have a normal tension for the dropped notes.

If you just de-tune a standard guitar you will always end up with a compromise.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Robbie,

My personal guitars very rarely are in standard tuning, so I have evolved my own ways in building for this.

Colin is right in that you ideally need to put together balanced sets of strings for the tunings to keep good tension on them - especially for strings that are dropped in tuning. However, I like to change tunings a lot on the one guitar and have managed to do this in the common D, G and C tunings using light strings (D'Addario EJ16's 0.012"-0.053").

The main thing I do in my guitars is to allow sufficient slant on the saddles for the 4th to 6th strings (I use split saddles like Lowden etc). If you measure along the strings from the nut to saddle break point of the string, then the additional length to the scale length (which I'm defining as the distance from the edge of the nut to the centre of the twelfth fret along the centre of the fretboard multiplied by two) typically are +2mm, +4mm, +2mm, +4mm, +6mm and +7mm. This may be what builders here already use but it is certainly more slope on the 5th and 6th strings than guitars such as Taylor and Lowden that I have measured.

In standard tuning the 6th string at E may be marginally flat but this is no problem as the ear doesn't really hear it (sharp it definitely hears). In fact before I made guitars I always tuned the low E slightly flat anyway on my guitars.

The other thing I do for alternate tuning dedicated guitars is use a slightly longer scale length (25.75" or 655mm) which gives a little extra string tension.

Hope this helps.Dave White38998.4631134259

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

I think the biggest problem people have with open tunings is the tuning
itself. When tuning to an open chord folks usually want to tune as pure as
possible, and when you have major or minor thirds, sixths or sevenths
involved this can throw thing quite out of whack. Say you tune to a
perfectly pure open D (DADF#AD), you will have to keep that F# a little
sharp in the open chord or it will be useless in anything other than
straight barred chords. DADGAD doesn't have as much problem because
you've replaced the third (F#) with a fourth which doesn't require much
tempering.

Proper strings and setup are of course absolutely necessary to getting
your best intonation. Even with this however, I find most players with
chronic intonation problems just don't understand how to tune (or
temper) thier own instruments. This is why the most common problems
people complain about in standard tuning involve the G or B.   dang
thirds.....

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I agree with David .. 3rds and 6ths are usually the culprits, even with standard tuning - for instance the high E string F# in a D major chord - alasy seems a bit sharp, but when you switch to a G chord, the high G is fine. Defintely string gauge plays a huge roll - try playing Hedges 2nd law with lights - the low E goes down to an octave below the 5th string A for that one, and when you play ton hammer on at the 8th or 10th fret its awful. I believe Michael used a 70 or so on that tune when he recorded it.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Fascinating stuff...I am dying to explore the world of different tunings, yet am afraid that keeping a guitar in permanent DADGAD would wreck it..it's prolly a superstition I have held on to for many years...so apologies if it seems like a foolish thing to think.

David, I'm cutting and pasting your info about the split saddle measurements for future reference. Thanks!

Sam Price38998.512962963

As a general rule I believe the worst invention to affect the guitar was the electronic tuner! People now slavishly tune each string to what their tuner tells them it should be then wonder why it sounds awful up the fretboard, throw them away and tune it by ear! This is the method I've posted before, I always use this and my wife's ear to tune with, even when using altered tunings I tune to this then drop the strings as needed:

firstly:- tune 1st to E using reference tone or electronic tuner or wife's perfect pitch.

secondly:- tune 6th to first using harmonic at 5th fret of 6th string. (this is an octave harmonic and is in tune.)

thirdly:- instead of sounding the harmonic on the 7th fret of the 5th string, fret it there and tune it by ear to the open 1st.   

fourthly:- fret the 4th string at the 2nd fret and tune by ear to the open 1st string.

fifthly:- Fret the 3rd string at the 9th and tune by ear to the open 1st.

sixthly:- fret the second string at the fifth fret and tune it by ear to the open 1st.       

In this way all the strings are tuned to fretted notes and thus contain the amounts of "out-of-tuneness" specified by the equal temper system. If you successfully follow this method of tuning you will be pleasantly surprised to notice one day that you don't seem to have had that tuning problem with the 2nd and 3rd strings that used to drive you nuts. The major third interval (which is what G to B is) is the one carrying the largest adjustment and should be flat enough that it "beats" 8 times a second. If you listen carefully in a quiet room you should hear it.

Colin
Colin S38998.5458564815

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

This is all great information, Thanks! Is anyone compensating a bit on the nut end also by either adding shims to the nut or shortening the fretboard a "skoshe"?
Let's say you had to explain to someone in a nutshell what it means to temper and intonate a guitar and then explain to him/her how to do it. How would you got about this?

[QUOTE=Robbie O'Brien] This is all great information, Thanks! Is anyone compensating a bit on the nut end also by either adding shims to the nut or shortening the fretboard a "skoshe"?
Let's say you had to explain to someone in a nutshell what it means to temper and intonate a guitar and then explain to him/her how to do it. How would you got about this?
[/QUOTE]

Robbie,

I shorten the fretboard at the nut by a "skoshe"

I'd get him/her to read and inwardly digest Mike Doolin's Intonation Articles

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Robbie,

I wrote a two sided tri-fold flyer for the main reason of introducing the
concepts of temperament to customers who had never thought about it
before. I made it available over at the MIMF for anyone to print and hand
out to customers with tuning issues. If Lance has a place to make flyers
available here I'd be glad to post it here as well. I'll eventually do some
more elaborate articles on my web site, if I ever get around to actually
building one.

Most players have no concept of the inherent flaws in our twelve tone
scale, and no matter how nicely you phrase it, telling a musician that they
just don't know how to tune can be a bit of a blow to the ego and put
them on the defensive. I find it much better to provide them with
something they can read by themselves, wherein they can learn of
something on thier own and avoid the awkardness of admitting ignorance
in front of anyone.

As to the nut compensation, on new fret boards I leave the nut where it is
and compensate the first three to five frets. Typically somewhere in the
order of .020"(1st), .013"(2nd), .008"(3rd), .005"(4th), etc. I'm fairly non-
specific when I say "three to five", which is because once you get down in
the .005" range it's pretty insignificant, but I do it anyway.

And along the lines of what Colin said, tuning by octaves is what I usually
recommend to players with tuning issues. Every note other than unison or
octave has to be at least slightly out of "perfect tune", and with open
tunings people often try to adjust to perfect intervals.

My favorite and most obvious demonstration of the power of the
tempered third is to tune the top four strings in consecutive thirds to
reach an octave. Tune the third string to an F# using the 4th fret
harmonic on the D to the 5th fret harmonic on the G (now F#). Tune this
interval to be beatless, and when you play these two strings you will get a
perfect and pure third, which is wonderful and many today are not used
to hearing. Repeat this on third to second string, tuning the B string to
what would be an A. Be careful to not allow any other strings to ring while
you are doing this because you want to focus on only that interval. Finally
tune the first E string to a D using the same harmonics from the second
string.

Now if our scale was naturally perfect the first string D should be a
perfect octave of the fourth string D. When you play them together
though you will quickly hear two completely different notes. This is what
is known as a Diesis, or the 42 cent interval by which three major thirds
fall short of an octave. Nearly half a semitone is a long way to be out of
tune after just three perfect successive intervals, and it's a rather
dramatic demonstration of how flawed our twelve tone scale is.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I'll testify to the effectiveness of Colin's tuning system. I also showed it to my music partner. His comment after using it for a couple of weeks was, "I like this." It doesn't compensate for the occasional squirrely string or when the strings get too old, but that's not the fault of the system. Try it--you'll like it!

David,
When you say you compensate the first 3-5 frets, does that mean moving them toward the bridge or toward the nut?
Would your measurements work for any scale or would they need to change for shorter or longer scales, specifically a baritone or a bass scale.
I'd love to get my hands on one of those handouts.

Thanks.

-j.

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“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
-jack handy

I'd love a handout too if possible

J., the compensation of the frets is toward the nut, and the measurements
are fairly arbitrary. No matter how precise a formula you can conjure up,
the best results will always have to involve some unkown and often
unpredictable variables regarding the individual player's style and setup.
Experiment and experience are the best tools for deciding how much to
compensate.

I prefer to compensate the frets rather than the nut when making a new
fret board because nut compensation can bring up other odd intonation
quirks when taken too far. I find that when compensating a nut more than
.020"-.025" you can have good intonation in the first few frets and
around the twelfth, but suffer some odd sharpness in the 5-10 range,
and worse above the 15th. I've noticed this often especially with the
Earvana style systems. When compensating a nut on an existing fret
board I like to stay around .012"-.015" on a acoustics or as much as .
015"-.020" on electrics. I might go a tiny bit more on a baritone. In all
honesty, if your compensation is in moderation it probably won't matter
whether you take it in at the nut or the frets. I just figure that if I'm
measuring out the slots I may as well position things according to my
theoretical ideals, even if it doesn't make any real difference in the end.

I'll try to put the PDF of that flyer on my web space and post a link to it
here soon. There is not really any detailed information about
temperament and intonation in it, but it is a good introduction the the
tuning paradoxes for those who have always assumed it was something
pure and natural. My main reason for making this flyer was to have a
tactful way of letting customers know what can be reasonably expected of
thier instrument, and that some of the responsibility lies in the hands of
the player. I'll try to get it posted this week some time.David Collins39000.5433564815

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

Very much appreciated, David.
-j.

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“If God dwells inside us like some people say, I sure hope He likes enchiladas, because that's what He's getting”
-jack handy

Can I ask y'all a question regarding alt. tunings? I don't want to start a new thread, so I thought I'd ask here.

My own built guitar has a low-to middle action at the 1st fret, at the 12th, it is highish.

Forgetting string gauges for the meantime, would say, storing the guitar at DADGAD harm the guitar in any way? I feel silly asking this, as I have played standard tuning for many years...

[QUOTE=Sam Price]
Forgetting string gauges for the meantime, would say, storing the guitar at DADGAD harm the guitar in any way? I feel silly asking this, as I have played standard tuning for many years...[/QUOTE]

Sam,

Apart from the guitar getting over excited at the thought of all of those sympathetic open ringing strings, and humming quietly to itself in anticipation . . . err . . . . no.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Dunno about the guitar getting excited, what about the owner???

Alternate tunings here I come!!!

Sam, Like Dave said it's no problem, my DADGad guitars live like it permanently. I've usually got one in open G as well.

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

[QUOTE=David Collins] ...this flyer... I'll try to get it posted this week some time.[/QUOTE]

David, where is your website? And, was that you on the teeter-totter?

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia