Intonating an acoustic

[Owen]

I went with a friend to look at acoustic guitars the other day. I will not go into naming and shaming because it is frankly unhelpful, but he was looking at £3K guitars and the intonation on the bottom E string on one of them was out. Not in a whole quarter tone style, but in a way that frankly I would expect a £3K instrument to not be. How hard is it to intonate an acoustic?

We did not discuss it with the shop because he did not want to take it any further.

[icastle]

It takes a fair bit of work as it involves reshaping the bridge and/or nut.
As soon as a different gauge of guitar strings are used, you have to start again if you're after precision.

Most manufacturers instruments seem to get reasonably close with the factory strings though.

[Dad3353]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1467561493' post='3084553']...the intonation on the bottom E string on one of them was out...
[/quote]

This is often caused by an old or duff string, on expensive as on more modest instruments. A string change may have fixed the issue, perhaps..?

[Beedster]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1467569258' post='3084614']


This is often caused by an old or duff string, on expensive as on more modest instruments. A string change may have fixed the issue, perhaps..?
[/quote]

Yep, that's the most likely cause if it's an otherwise decent guitar. Same is true of bass but it tends to be less noticeable

[Owen]

OK, thanks y'all. I was guessing it was a bridge re-profile thing. The guitar was brand new and cannot have had more than 10 hours playing time as people played it in the shop. It was just very odd for such an expensive instrument to have such a glaring issue.

[RhysP]

[quote name='owen' timestamp='1467584067' post='3084730']
OK, thanks y'all. I was guessing it was a bridge re-profile thing. The guitar was brand new and cannot have had more than 10 hours playing time as people played it in the shop. It was just very odd for such an expensive instrument to have such a glaring issue.
[/quote]

Was it a Martin by any chance?

[Owen]

[quote name='RhysP' timestamp='1467726310' post='3085650']
Was it a Martin by any chance?
[/quote]
Actually not.

[Manton Customs]

It'd most likely be the E string is not making contact with the saddle where it should, therefore not having enough compensation. So it'd be a case of filing the saddle as mentioned above to get it how it should be. The E string nut slot being too high would definitely throw things out also and could have been the culprit, but that would (arguably) not be so easy to forgive!

Edited July 6, 2016 by Manton Customs

[paul h]

I've gone through a phase recently where every guitar I own seems to have terrible intonation!

I think it's partly because they are all cheap guitars ...but I'm beginning to realise the main reason seems to be that I'm too heavy handed and the strings I use are too light.

[JapanAxe]

Poor intonation on an acoustic would be a deal-breaker for me. Almost all electric guitars can be intonated by the average person with a few simple tools, but if an acoustic has been built wrong it's not an easy fix.

[Owen]

It was a total deal breaker for my friend. Everything else was proper lush, but it was not playing in tune which kind of defeats the whole object of the excercise.