Stratocaster intonation help please!

[JimmyJ]

Hi guys,

I have 3 strats, a MIA deluxe, a MIJ Standard and a MIM JV.

let me start by saying, i have no idea what is going on.

On any of my guitars, if i play an open D major chord
(standard shape)

2
3
2
0 (typical d major shape)

I get a bad warbly note when i get to the 2nd fret E the F# note, the string is perfectly in tune and intonates perfect too. it is so bad that when i have some overdrive on and i play the d and f# together it sounds like its not in tune at all...

i have to bend the d (3rd fret b) slightly sharp so it doesnt do this 'beating' sound.

This happens on ALL my guitars, but noticibly less on my MIM JV,

here is an mp3 sample
http://members.dodo.com.au/jjer/intonation.mp3

at 14 seconds you can hear the beating i talk about, the F# just sounds wrong, the high G is fine.

at 45 seconds you can hear it all intune in the D chord becaus i have slightly flattened the E, i hit the open e a few seconds after and the E is flat.

i suspect bridge issues but im not sure, all my strats do it, if you say its normal then so be it, but i dont know why a MIA deluxe worth just shy of $3000 cant play a d chord in tune......


like i said, the guitars are intonated perfectly, the pickup heights have all been lowered to stop the magnetic warble, i am going to stop by the music store tomorrow and get a new bridge for my MIJ, what should i go for? modern or vintage styel?

i just want it in tune.

its not as obvlious with clean channel but with distortion i think it stands out.


thanks for your help guys.

Jim

[Algiman]

It isn't sympathetic ringing from the springs is it? Try padding them out with something and blocking the trem to see if the problem goes away.

My strat did that and it was a similar effect, I cured it by altering the angle the bridge sits at. It did sound like it was out of tune, even though it wasn't. If you have the same problem, the reason bending a string cures it it you more away from the resonant frequency of the springs.

[JimmyJ]

Originally Posted by Algiman

It isn't sympathetic ringing from the springs is it? Try padding them out with something and blocking the trem to see if the problem goes away.

My strat did that and it was a similar effect, I cured it by altering the angle the bridge sits at. It did sound like it was out of tune, even though it wasn't. If you have the same problem, the reason bending a string cures it it you more away from the resonant frequency of the springs.

thanks mate, i will try that.

this guitar i sampled the mp3 from has 4 springs and they are tightened all the way to make the trem sit flat against the body. what should i do there? the trem is already pulled as low as it can go, any more help please? i really wanna get this sorted!!


cheers
Jim

[Algiman]

Yep, mine was set exactly the same way, bridge flat against the body, when I had that problem. It is a vintage style bridge? Slacken off the springs so that the back of the bridge lifts 2 mm or so of the body. I'm betting that alone will get rid of the problem.

[JimmyJ]

yep its a vintage bridge
ill try it now and let you know!

[JimmyJ]

i just had a fiddle with my mim strat and it didnt seem to help it much, i raised the bridge slightly and now the whole thing wont stay in, its an original fender custom shop bridge too....

[IbanezGirl]

JimmyJ it's very interesting that you bring this problem up.

I too have exactly the same problem on my strat and ibanez, but it's with the G string playing an open Dmaj, and yes it's much much worse once distorted.
I also have the same string problem at the 5th fret when playing a partial A7 chord. Like yourself, my guitar is in tune and the intonation seems fine.

Sorry i don't have answer for you, but i get where you are coming from, it does drive you nuts.

[JimmyJ]

Originally Posted by IbanezGirl

JimmyJ it's very interesting that you bring this problem up.

I too have exactly the same problem on my strat and ibanez, but it's with the G string playing an open Dmaj, and yes it's much much worse once distorted.
I also have the same string problem at the 5th fret when playing a partial A7 chord. Like yourself, my guitar is in tune and the intonation seems fine.

Sorry i don't have answer for you, but i get where you are coming from, it does drive you nuts.

maybe its australia...soemthign about the equator....

im sending my strats to a luthier to get nut jobs (sounds a bit rude dont it...) apparently its the nut so yea...ill let you know how replacing my nuts go....(OUCH) joking...

[felipe82]

Didn't see this post, I answered your other one. Anyway, try www.earvana.com

[David McCarroll]

Earvana sounds exactly like the Buzz Feitin tuning system:

www.buzzfeiten.com

apparently Mr Vai swears by it.

Cheers

David

[Algiman]

Jim how did you get on with this? Has the nut surgery cured it?

[MicJustMic]

This is usually caused by a number of things . . .

First, no guitar is perfectly in tune at every fret, and even if it were possible, the human ear doesn't actually "like" uniform tuning. It sounds harsh to us, this is why piano tuners have adopted "stretch" tuning for the past, I don't know, 300 years or something like that.

They don't actually tune the thing "perfectly." There is a pattern to it, a few cents up or down in relationship to other octaves.

This is the basis of the Buzz Feitin system. I've found that you don't actually need the modified nut to come close to what this does. You simply need to intonate to a balanced, tempered tuning and tune the open strings to the same off-sets.

If you Google "Tempered guitar tuning" you should find a few pages that explain this much better than I have the time or patience to do here.

Other factors include how hard you press the strings, or if you tend to have a "Lazy" left hand that pulls the strings toward the Earth when you chord.

I've noticed many guitarists, and amature techs, will only press the strings hard enough to get them to sound while intonating, but then when they play they practically push the strings into the wood on the fret board, causing everything to play sharp. You have to intonate to your, or the players, natural touch, else the guitar will always sound out of tune.

And even if you take all these things into account and set up and tune the guitar to perfection, it's still never going to actually be perfectly in tune. And some chords at different points of the neck will give you "beat" notes.

Just a fact of the thing. Some guitarists will tune in the studio based on exactly what they are playing. If they are playing a song in G, for example, they will tune the open G chord perfectly as they can, while other parts of the neck will be way out of tune . . . then when they need to record something using those parts of the neck, they tune so that part of the neck is in tune . . . and so on . . . and live they simply live with it being slightly out here and there. No one really notices anyway.

Mic

[JimmyJ]

Hi guys


heres an update,

I took it to the guitar doctor, and i purchased a new vintage style wilkinson bridge for my strat. this fixed a few issues but while i was there the guitar tech said that my frets were worn quite badly and that would be causing the problem, because my frets were uneven i had to raise the action to be quite high on certain strings, if your action is too high it causes intonation problems.

So im going to send my strat neck away for a refret quite soon, they also noticed some fret "dents" on the problem notes.

They said this is quite common for guitars over 10 years old.

Not bad considering this strat is almost 20 years old...

so thats the latest, ill let you know when i send it away and get her back

Jim