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Permalink Reply by the anonymous pick on November 29, 2012 at 6:22am

1-  when  using  slide  ..  you should be  placing the slide    right above  the     forward  ( fret  wire)    of the   note   you   want  ..     not the (fret  marker)  .

 

2- string height  may be  an issue  ..  the lower   the action ,  the  less  difference you  will see  .

 

those   2  issues   may  solve  your  problem   before  you  continue to  troubleshoot  .

 

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Permalink Reply by Bullet Head Jeffrey on November 29, 2012 at 6:22am

i notice that when my action is high. my string hight is usually high on all my fretless so it doesn't matter for me but the fretted guits will do this if the strings are too high off the fretboard.

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Permalink Reply by Busyhands Slim on November 29, 2012 at 11:48am

Yep, string height. High is good for playing slide, but when you try to fret a string with high action, you have to stretch it to get it down to the fret. By the time you get there, you've "tuned" it highter.

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on November 30, 2012 at 10:15am

A few things:

Is your bridge at the right place? At the octave, for both your low note and your high note strings, when you sound the note with a slide it should be the same as if you fret the string and pick the note. If the picked note is higher, your bridge at that point needs to be moved back. If the picked note is lower, your bridge needs to move forward.

Do you have the right offset on your saddle if you have a separate saddle? The 25" scale is measured from the nut to the middle of the saddle. From that point the saddle drops toward the nut on the high strings and towards the back of the guitar on the low strings. For steel strings the offset is normally 1/8" per 1 1/2". For classical strings, there is no offset. So, if you fret the high string and everything seems fine and then fret the low string and the note is off from the note played on a slide, younknow the ofset is wrong.

These fret scales have a built in adjustment for pressing the string down. I think on a 25" scale, the offset is .15".

There are probably a ton of spelling mistakes in here. &)$();&()($ iPad

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Permalink Reply by Skeesix on November 30, 2012 at 10:41am

If your bridge saddle is straight (aligned with the box) your guitar will be grossly mis-intonated. I see this all time in photos on here.

Adjust your saddle as David described in his first paragraph. Your saddle will end up slanted with the higher note closer to the neck and the bass note farther from the neck. The string height off the fretboard also plays into the intonation as others have observed. So getting your strings lower for fretting should help.

At the 12th fret (or where the 12th fret would be if it's fretless) the fretted note should be the same as the harmonic (and the note done with a slide). They should all agree.

The 12th fret is exactly 1/2 the length of the string (measured from nut to bridge). There is a strong octave harmonic at this point. While plucking the string, touch your finger lightly on the string at the 12th fret and quickly remove it. You will hear a pretty bell-like tone, which is the harmonic.

Use a chromatic tuner for the most accurate results. Unless you have individually compensated saddles, it won't be 100% accurate for all the strings, but even the string or strings that are slightly off will be 95% there, and a vast improvement over what you have now.

Then glue your bridge/saddle down so you don't lose your intonation setting every time you change strings!

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Permalink Reply by David McQueen on November 30, 2012 at 10:56am

Thanks for that. I was thinking harmonic octave and wrote slide. The offset I described is the standard on a normal steel string guitar.

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Permalink Reply by Mike on December 1, 2012 at 12:20pm

Thanks everybody I'm getting closer. My 4 string has the lowest action and is just about there.

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