Still showing I'm wet behind the ears here. I'm learning about music and building cbgs at the same time and so far, this us the best place for answers. My last 5 guitars, I used rod piezo pickups under the bridge. And here is where I show I need to learn more. I had the strings tuned in perfectly when they were open. I have a local music store interested in buying some of my guitars so I took them in to show them. Now I'm learning about intonation after he pointed out that both guitars were out. So here is where my question comes in. It seems I may have to move my bridge one way or the other.....but I have a hole drilled fir the wire, which doesn't allow me to move too far at all. I'll work my way around it on these guitars and I'll get it to work. But what I'm wondering is, if I mount the rod piezo between the box and the neck, under the location of where the bridge will be, so that I can move the bridge freely without a wire and a hole to worry about, will I still get good sound transfer from the strings to the piezo? I'm thinking it would be ok, but wondered if anyone has experience with that. I was also considering keeping clearence between the neck and the box to help the box to amplify the strings acoustically when it's not plugged in. That brings me back to the problem with the rod if I move it to the inside of the box. I'm guessing if there is no direct "link" from the strings to the bridge to the piezo, I might lose even more sound. Sorry for the long winded question.

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Replies

  • Are you sure the frets are in the right place?

    Are you just tuning the strings at the nut and not checking the 12th fret to make sure it is 1 octave above?

    How is the string height at the higher frets(close to the bridge)?  If the string height is too high anywhere on the board, the notes will be sharp when fretted.

    Are all the strings intonation off of just the high/solid strings? You may need to angle the high side of the bridge towards the neck or angle the low side away from the neck to get all the strings intonation right.

    Are the strings stuck in the nut/bridge slots? This can also cause sharp notes when fretting.

    String angle on the tuner side of the nut or the back side of the bridge can cause intonation problems too.  A lot of things can work against you if they are off just a little bit.

    Some pics of these mentioned areas might help.

  • Good advice as always. Thanks guys!
  • One thing that might help is when you set your bridge to your required scale,to intonate, you will almost certainly not need to go forward and you will go rearward less on the top[thin] string,so having your wire enter the bridge near the treble end will reduce the need for masking the hole a fair bit

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