A fact of life for guitarists: most of the world's guitars do not play in tune.
Classical guitars will always need lots of tuning just because of the vagaries of
nylon strings. Many guitarists, however, expend much more time and effort tuning
their instruments than should be necessary, and they often blame "bad strings"
for their troubles when the real culprit is the guitar itself.There are a number
of reasons for poor intonation in guitars. The spacing of the frets may be
inaccurate. (Some of the worst offenders on fret spacing are individual guitar
builders whose work may be otherwise estimable.) The fingerboard may be
distorted: backbow, or too much forward bow, or a crook at the 12th fret. The
most important reason why guitars don't play in tune, however, is that the scale length is
not properly compensated. Compensation for intonation means adjusting the string
length to deal with the fact that pitch changes because of stretching the string when
fretting.
Most otherwise well-made guitars can be made to play in tune, applying tested
principles of intonation and special techniques to correct physical errors. The
cost varies, depending on how much needs to be done to the specific guitar. If the
fret spacing is spot-on accurate (or close enough) and no refret is needed for other reasons, and
if the bridge saddle slot is positioned so that I can fit the guitar with a new saddle
that has proper string break-off points, the cost may be as low as $300-350.
In such a case, I would remove some wood from the nut end of the fingerboard (this
is almost always necessary) and make a new compensated nut and saddle.
On the other hand, if the above steps are needed and in addition 10-15 frets are out of
place and the bridge saddle slot position is out of range for correct saddle
compensation, the
cost may run as high as $1,000-$1,200. In such a case, in addition to the above measures I
will need to fill and re-cut fret slots (very time-consuming...but
not nearly as much as replacing the fingerboard), fill and re-slot the bridge
saddle block and refret
the fingerboard. Sadly, most of the guitars that end up in my workshop
for intonation upgrade are in this condition...that's why they play so out
of tune the owner can't stand it any longer! If your guitar is one of
these, perhaps this will comfort you: your guitar is probably in need of refretting anyway because of fret wear
and/or fingerboard unevenness, so you could think of the refretting part as a routine
wear-and-tear repair which would reduce the marginal cost of upgrading your guitar's
intonation.
In any case, each guitar needs to be individually examined to determine what needs to
be done. I can then provide you with a detailed estimate in writing. For
details on how to present your guitar to me for an examination/estimate, go to
Shipping Your Guitar.
For theoretical background on this issue, go to my article on Intonation. |
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