Official Luthiers Forum!

hi, I recently bought some reasonable priced tuners for my guitar because it wouldn't keep tuning for long, and it helped a little, but didn't solve my problem at all. everywhere I ask they tell me either that my guitar is crap, or then that I should send it to a luthier to adjust it.

I wonder what is there to adjust? afaik, you adjust the bridge height so strings are as close as possible to the frets, but won't touch it when vibrating anywhere, then you adjust the octaves throught the saddles, so when you press the 12nd fret, it will be the same tune as when no frets are pressed, and then you adjust your thruss rod to compensate for string tension. isn't it all? I tried to adjust my LP according to this the best I could, but it still get out of tune when I do some heavy bends. my friend have this sort of expensive guitar wich doesn't get out of tune that often. I have no experience with this at all, this is just how I think it should work, I only had 2 guitars in my life, a strat and a lp, and played with some friend's guitars aswell, but never read anything about this.

For me, the steps of a "setup" are the following
- first measure everything as your starting point and write it down
- make sure the guitar is structurally sound, proper neck angle and perfectly humidified
- make sure the frets are perfect. Dress/crown as needed/
- set the relief relatively close to the final value. I like somewhere around 0.004 under tension - too little will buzz on the lower frets, too much will buzz near the body joint
- draw a zero fret line on the nut - you will approach that as you bring the nut slots down
- cut your nut slots to a starting point higher than the zero fret line. If you already have a nut, measure the clearance.
- set the bridge or saddle on an acoustic high enough that you will be over your final action setting (lets say you are shooting for 0.080 low E and 0.065 high on an electric) Again, action is a compromise depending on your strings and playing style


- I bring each end down a little at a time, checking for buzzing up the neck as I get close to the final settings. With the nut or an acoustic saddle it is very hard to go back up if you go too far. With something like a ToM you just crank it back up. I like the little StewMac action measuring rule - it is a lot easier to read than a machinists rule. Check the relief from time to time, it should stay the same, but the lower you go with action the flatter you'll want the neck.

Once you get the action close, check the intonation and adjust the compensation screws (or on an acoustic, move the break point of the top of the saddle). Intonation is correct when the open string, the fretted 12th and the harmonic are all the same (well, within a few cents).

Last step is to adjust the height of your pups and the pole pieces - if they are too high you'll get some buzzing if the strings hit them. Balance them for output

A couple of more thoughts - if your guitar "gets out of tune when you do heavy bends" it is possible that your strings are binding either at the nut or the saddles

If I might add one thing to Freeman's excellent suggestions...

Make sure your string wraps are not too long or sloppy on the posts of the tuners.
About 5 wraps, tight and lined up nicely will help your guitar stay in tune better.
Also doesn't hurt to stretch your strings a lot right after putting on a new set.

It's rare, but I've seen some strings unravel at the ball end.... just a caveat.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

There are a couple great books on the subject you can get them from Stewmac - as I did - and Ive even seen them scanned and on P2P sites...
Dan Erlewine Guitar Player Repair Guide
and Dan Erlewine How to make your guitar play Great
Ive referenced these books a million times for repair tips and just operations I wasnt familiar with like set up of Floyd Rose whammy style instruments..
They have specific info for tons of different models and the typical things that go wrong with them, as well as factory specs and custom setups.
Hope you get your guitar sounding better
Cheers
Charlie

The quality of the keys is one thing. How they're tuned is another. Start below pitch and come up to the note to tension the gears. If you're sharp and you tune down, you've slacked the gears an the vibration will cause them to loosen a little more. If you tune too high, go down and come up again.

The strings must be properly stretched, but not over-stretched.

If your strings are stretched, you're tuning properly, and are still having tuning problems, friction is the likely culprit. The string slots at the nut may need to be widened slightly so the string can slip through without getting hung up, and some nut lubrication never hurts.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I have an Epiphone LP Studio which has the same problem, however because I know what causes it, it is manageable. The head stocks on them are to blame essentially, as the design of them means that the strings are on an angle between the nut and the machine head and not straight through. This inevitably causes more friction than a straight through setup. My G string is the worst of the lot. I have to de-tune it, then tune it up to the G, then when I bend the string a little it goes flat again and then tune up again a little more until the process leaves me with a string in tune. All my strings need me to do this. When I detune the string, I move the machine head a little, but the string doesn't detune until I bend it. The only time it has been perfect was after I had the cheap plastic nut replaced with a bone nut, and the Luthier put some Graphite grease in the string slots. I haven't done it since, and now I have these problems again.

When I picked up the guitar, he said that it was a very common problem in both the Epiphone and Gibson LP's, and that there was really no way to 100% fix it. So, now that I know what the issue is I can work around it and have a guitar that now stays in tune when I need it to.

Hope this helps.

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Epiphone LP Studio Dark Wine (wish it was a Gibson)
Ibanez EDP400 Transparent Red Bass
Ashton 12-string Accoustic
Flying V Ukelele Black
Home-made Telecaster Natural Swamp Mahogany Colour


"Never argue with an idiot, those watching may not be able to tell the difference."

I think something else must be going on with your stuff. I'm not sure about that "100%" jazz, either.

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"Act your age, not your shoe size" - Prince

Most setup/tuning problems I see begin at the nut. A poorly setup nut will cause a cascade of other adjustments to be made. IMHO, you should never need graphite in a nut. You strings are sticking in the nut because the nut slots are too tight. They're also probably too high, which will make everything play sharp around the first few frets despite your best efforts to set the intonation perfectly. It will also make the action feel very stiff around the first few frets, and high further up. To compensate, people often try dropping the action and then adding relief to get rid of buzzing but still get a playable guitar.

I see this all the time and it's classic.

1) poorly cut nut
2) tuning/intonation problems
3) way too much relief
4) high action but it buzzes anyway

And it's a big cascade effect from the bad nut.

Just my opinion, but that's always the first thing I look when I start evaluating a guitar...what's going on at the nut? Just knowing that graphite in the nut slut fixed the problem tells me right there that the strings are getting stuck in the nut. Take it to someone else in the area, tell him your tale of woe, and he'll have you fixed up in a jiffy. After everything is working properly, if you STILL want to put some graphite in the nut slot, go for it. It won't hurt anything, and it might reduce wear on the nut, but it should never me necessary to fix a tuning problem.

+1 for the cascade effect.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I tend to agree, I think my new nut is still too thinly cut, however I have to say the action on the guitar is perfect (to me) including those first few frets. I think I will take it to someone to just fix that G banger slot (the D can be an issue at times as well come to think of it).

When I do I'll post the result...

In the meantime, keep the ideas here going, there is a lot of experience in this forum coming out educating us dunderclumpins...

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Epiphone LP Studio Dark Wine (wish it was a Gibson)
Ibanez EDP400 Transparent Red Bass
Ashton 12-string Accoustic
Flying V Ukelele Black
Home-made Telecaster Natural Swamp Mahogany Colour


"Never argue with an idiot, those watching may not be able to tell the difference."