Hey muttley ... a question about guitars

[Lt. Bob]

actually a question about MY guitar.
You know the Stinnett right?
Neck thru .... 25.5 scale ...... played by a dashing handsome guy.

Anyways ...... I change strings when they sart to lose intonation. I don't really care that much about the high end loss of older strings and I use NYXLs which don't seem to change much anyways.
So I change strings when they start to go flat at the octave.

Now , I have a pretty good bit of experience at how that happens but on my Stinnett it's a bit different.
The small E basically suddenly goes WAY flat .... enough so that it's flat at the 5th fret even.

I've never seen a git do it like this.
The other strings don't .... they behave like I'm used to ..... gradually getting flat at the octave over a period of time.
When this E goes the others are all still playable .... only a little flat.
But that E just goes wonky all of a sudden and a lot more flat than I'm used to strings ever going.

Now ..... I think Will may have put the bridge a few mm too close to the neck ..... I have most of the saddles all the way back to get them intonated.
I'm thinking of getting some shorter saddles to get a little more room.
But I DO get it properly in tune at the octave so I don't see how that could cause the E string thing.
I only mention it because it's the only abnormality I can think of.

Have you ever run into anything like that?

[muttley]

From what you describe and simple physics it can only be a change of one of three things, tension, string length and mass per unit length of the string. It has to be the last of those. Smaller strings wear disproportionately to bigger strings so any work hardening or fret wear is proportionally greater on them than strings with larger mass per unit length and similar wear. Thats what I would suspect as the tension and string length have not changed. The other strings that can be troublesome for the same reason are wound G strings which also suffer from a wear to unit mass ratio against their bigger counterparts. The other strings do suffer but you dont notice it as much because the change in mass per unit length is smaller and our ears do not perceive temperament changes as much the lower down the frequency range you go.. .

[Lt. Bob]

I don't rely on my ears to tell me .... I'm fairly tolerant of out-of-tuneness.
But the tuner shows a large amount .... it's not really a matter of my ears sensitivity to it

[muttley]

Using a tuner to tell you how far out of intonation your guitar is is fine if you are playing to a room full of tuners...

[WhiskeyJack]

Using a tuner to tell you how far out of intonation your guitar is is fine if you are playing to a room full of tuners...

I like this ahaha

[Lt. Bob]

Using a tuner to tell you how far out of intonation your guitar is is fine if you are playing to a room full of tuners...

sorry but a tuner is perfectly acceptable for gigging ..... and I AM a long time piano tuner ya' know .... it's not like I know nothing about it

[muttley]

OK, Ignore what I said, Go with what you know.

[muttley]

do you know what one of these is?...........

[Lt. Bob]

yeah, I know what it is.
But I didn't feel my response was grumpy ..... I apologize if I gave you that impression.
....
I was just directly responding to a point that a lot of people try to make. That electronic tuners aren't a good way to tune your guitar.
I've actually never talked to you about that so I don't know if you feel that way or not.

Personally I feel they do fine ... especially with a lot of them having 'sweetened' tunings.
To me, I hate someone who's always tuning between every song.
With a decent tuner you don't have to keep stopping to tune so I prefer them.
Your position on this?

[Bubba]

I think the only point that Muttley was making is that the audience aren't sitting there with a bunch of tuners and that what seems a lot on a tuner display is inaudible to the average person. Or even somebody with a good ear, like yourself.

[muttley]

yeah, I know what it is.
But I didn't feel my response was grumpy ..... I apologize if I gave you that impression.
....
I was just directly responding to a point that a lot of people try to make. That electronic tuners aren't a good way to tune your guitar.
I've actually never talked to you about that so I don't know if you feel that way or not.

Personally I feel they do fine ... especially with a lot of them having 'sweetened' tunings.
To me, I hate someone who's always tuning between every song.
With a decent tuner you don't have to keep stopping to tune so I prefer them.
Your position on this?

Sometimes I use one on gigs sometimes I dont. It depends on the gig. If I'm in a band with a lot of brass I tune to them. If it's mainly strings I use a tuner to get a reference then tune to that. There is nothing wrong with tuners I have a bunch of them mostly in the workshop. The problem with them is that they make people lazy and distracted and they make no account for tempering the overall band sound. How many times have you seen bands have to wait while a guy or gal religiously goes through every string and checks them before each number? The first few thousand gigs I did we didnt have electronic tuners we learned to do it on the fly and by ear. Tuners are better at science, ears are better at music. I'm betting that if you didnt have you tuner on a gig you would do just as good... You have the chops, the ears and the music. I do as well. In the workshop they make me more accurate when it is needed. They definitely do not speed things up.

[Bill L]

Sometimes I use one on gigs sometimes I dont. It depends on the gig. If I'm in a band with a lot of brass I tune to them. If it's mainly strings I use a tuner to get a reference then tune to that. There is nothing wrong with tuners I have a bunch of them mostly in the workshop. The problem with them is that they make people lazy and distracted and they make no account for tempering the overall band sound. How many times have you seen bands have to wait while a guy or gal religiously goes through every string and checks them before each number? The first few thousand gigs I did we didnt have electronic tuners we learned to do it on the fly and by ear. Tuners are better at science, ears are better at music. I'm betting that if you didnt have you tuner on a gig you would do just as good... You have the chops, the ears and the music. I do as well. In the workshop they make me more accurate when it is needed. They definitely do not speed things up.

I know what you mean about people that tune too much for too long a time. In my case, it depends on a lot of things. It's very cold here at the moment so for the first half hour or so the guitar is coming up to temp and the tuning gets a little wonky. I usually find by the time I start my gig I will tune up and I'll check just before each set. Many times my guitar stays in tune all night (or I just don't hear it dropping out of tune). The one exception is I use alternate tunings occasionally and I don't always bring more than one guitar.

[Lt. Bob]

Sometimes I use one on gigs sometimes I dont. It depends on the gig. If I'm in a band with a lot of brass I tune to them. If it's mainly strings I use a tuner to get a reference then tune to that. There is nothing wrong with tuners I have a bunch of them mostly in the workshop. The problem with them is that they make people lazy and distracted and they make no account for tempering the overall band sound. How many times have you seen bands have to wait while a guy or gal religiously goes through every string and checks them before each number? The first few thousand gigs I did we didn't have electronic tuners we learned to do it on the fly and by ear. Tuners are better at science, ears are better at music. I'm betting that if you didn't have you tuner on a gig you would do just as good... You have the chops, the ears and the music. I do as well. In the workshop they make me more accurate when it is needed. They definitely do not speed things up.

well that's true for sure.
It's certainly not just ear tuners that tune between every song. I do see guys being obsessive over getting that display JUST right.
I'll tell them, "That's close enough man" but they don't seem to be able to help it.

And if Bubba was correct about your original point I do agree with that.
The audience doesn't have a clue unless it's quite badly out of tune.

I have to say, (and I may get some flak over this ) I'm fairly tolerant of out of tuneness. I hear it but a little bit doesn't send me to the tuner
Maybe because I'm a horn player ..... with horns there's no such thing as getting it in tune beyond a certain point because every note is different.
One may be sharp and another flat.
You have to constantly lip it up or down from note to note.
So it becomes a matter of 'playing' in tune whereas with a git, to some extent, if you get it in tune and press the fret properly it'll be in tune or at least close.
Horns can have notes that aren't even close unless you control it.
So with guitars you can pull a flat string into tune and since I have to do that with the sax I'm comfortable doing it with the git.

[Greg_L]

Compulsive tuners are a nightmare. I have one in my band. He's great guy but at practice I'm always waiting for him to tune.

[Bill L]

My biggest pet peeve with some players is the where they use a Snark (or the like) to tune but don't roll off their volume. Then I'm subjected to them spending way too long to get their shit in tune blasting through their amp. I keep my tuner in my pocket. If I need it, I pop it on and tune up in seconds then back in the pocket. Just get it close.

[Greg_L]

My biggest pet peeve with some players is the where they use a Snark (or the like) to tune but don't roll off their volume. Then I'm subjected to them spending way too long to get their shit in tune blasting through their amp. I keep my tuner in my pocket. If I need it, I pop it on and tune up in seconds then back in the pocket. Just get it close.

Haha right? WTF is wrong with those people? No one, and I mean NO ONE, wants to hear a guitar player tune his guitar.

I'm gonna start tuning my drums in the middle of practice or a set so I can show guitar players how lame they are.

[Bill L]

Haha right? WTF is wrong with those people? No one, and I mean NO ONE, wants to hear a guitar player tune his guitar.

I'm gonna start tuning my drums in the middle of practice or a set so I can show guitar players how lame they are.

Don't get me started on drummers.

[Greg_L]

Don't get me started on drummers.

Lol. I hear ya. For long time I was like "fuck all these frilly bitch guitar players always picking on drummers". Then I started guitaring in bands myself, and I was then like "stupid fucking drummers".

One thing I think we can all agree on....bassists are the worst.

[JD01]

Snark type things are fine knocking about the house, I wouldn't use one live though. You really need a pedal tuner that mutes everything.

[Bill L]

Snark type things are fine knocking about the house, I wouldn't use one live though. You really need a pedal tuner that mutes everything.

The only times I've an issue live with a Snark type tuner was when someone (or many others) were playing VERY loud while I was trying to tune. Most times it's not an issue. And most times, I'll let them wank for a while and when everything quiets down I'll tune. I've never had a problem using one live. As I mentioned earlier, I roll off my volume when tuning. I can't remember the last time anyone heard me tune a guitar (acoustic not with standing).

One thing I think we can all agree on....bassists are the worst.

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