Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi, still a newbie Im afraid..lol

I'm really hoping someone can help me with this.

Ive got one guitar where the high E string touches the saddles sharp forward edge and plays perfectly in tune.

My other guitar never sounds in tune and the high E string sits on a saddle where the edge is at the rear of saddle.

Is this saddle discrepancy the reason for one sounding great and the other not so great, or are there other forces at work here causing so much intonation trouble.

Thks

The saddles brake point location in relation ship to the scale nodes are what is driving this. the saddles brake point should be filed so that the open pitch and the mid octave harmonic pitch are exactly an octave apart + or - 2Cents is ok, + or - .5 cents is good and+ or - .05Cents is great.

You are lucky to find many factory guitars where it is + or - 4Cents. Most players casual players can hear + or 6-4Cents trained musicians get irritated at about 3cents and someone with near perfect pitch hears the variance at about .25- .05Cents

Most digital guitar tuners are set with an accuracy variance of + or -4Cents
A good tuner can read + or – 1 Cent and strobe tuners can read + or - .005Cents

My guess is you saddles need intonated either due to change in the guitar from age in which cake the likely ne a full set up review. Or were never set up well in the first place.

neither. intonation had many factors . In essence you are matching the static scale length to the working length of the string , that is a dynamic ( constantly changing ). Your 2 different guitars are not the same and the bridge placement may not be the same. You havn't said what guitars you have or what the scale length is .
On top of this you have string gauge and action height , and on top of this ,are the bridges the same , are the saddles the same material and width ? What is the most influential to tone and volume had to do with the string height , bridge thickness and saddle height.
Sorry if this may confuse you but as you can see the factors involved on guitar A may not be the same factors of guitar B. Compensated saddles that are shaped to help intonation should be shaped to the individual guitar and the factors of the guitar. So lets start at the beginning and see what factors you have and what the influences in each case.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

This is where a little more info will be really handy....

When it is tuned dead on at the open strings....
Is it sharp or flat when fretted closely at the 12th fret

Assuming your nut is made correctly...
If Flat, you need a shorter open string distance at the saddle
If Sharp, you need a longer open string distance at the saddle

The "Standard" adjustment on Steel strings is usually at the Saddle... but you can have problems other places too...

The nut setup is one of those places.. If the string stops too far up in the nut.. it can make the guitar act like the string is too short when it is really too long... but compensating at the Saddle when you have a Nut problem going on makes it go more out of whack on various fretted notes...

Then, the string heights also matter quite a bit... High 1st fret actions and very high 12th fret actions also create/magnify intonation errors....

The 1st thing I would do is carefully measure from the back of the nut to your saddle break point.... Check this vs Stew Mac's fret calculator for your scale. Also check the 12th fret placement vs the fret calculator at the same time. If both are right, I would first check 1st and 12th fret string heights... get these into "Standard" ranges and see how it plays.... If it is out of whack in ways it shouldn't be...check out whether the string is stopping off in the middle of the nut or near the back edge...

Tell us what you come up with.

John