{"id":2018,"date":"2014-06-03T13:30:56","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T18:30:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/blog\/?p=2018"},"modified":"2015-02-19T10:02:43","modified_gmt":"2015-02-19T16:02:43","slug":"basics-on-guitar-string-intonation-strings-by-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/basics-on-guitar-string-intonation-strings-by-mail\/","title":{"rendered":"Basics on Guitar String Intonation \u2013 Strings By Mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Basics on Guitar String Intonation \u2013 Strings By Mail<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

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What does it mean when someone says the “intonation” on a guitar is off? What it means is that while a string will be in tune when it’s open, when it’s fretted it will be out of tune. The higher up the neck you go, the more obvious this is. You may hear this more dramatically when you play an open chord, and then play that same chord higher on the neck.<\/p>\n

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\"Basics<\/a>

Basics on Guitar String Intonation<\/p><\/div>\n

If you wanted to test your guitar to find out whether the intonation is good or not, all you need to do is have a tuner available, play an open string, and then play that string at the 12th fret. When the string is in tune when its open and it’s in tune when it is fretted, you’ve got good intonation.<\/p>\n

Intonation is set or determined by the relationship of the nut to the 12th fret, and the 12th fret to the saddle. These proportions of the lengths of the string must be essentially equal, with slight adjustments know as compensation that vary according to string tension and material as well as action and scale length. The result is a slightly longer saddle half of the string’s length. A good luthier or an experienced player can make an adjustment at the saddle area to fix the intonation if it is off.<\/p>\n

A key point that many people are not aware of is that if you change the tensions, materials, or gauges on your strings, your intonation will very likely need to be reset if it’s going to be totally accurate. So as you experiment to find the correct gauge, tension, or material of your strings, be aware that after you\u2019ve settled on what you like the best you may need to take the guitar in to a good luthier and have it adjusted for that tension, gauge, or material, unless you are prepared to make this adjustment yourself. If you decide later on to change the string gauges, materials, or tensions again, you should check the intonation to see if you need to have it readjusted for your guitar to sound its best.<\/p>\n

Another factor to keep in mind is that even a good string will deteriorate over time and eventually your intonation will go bad. So you do need to keep good and fresh strings on your guitars, and you do need to set them up correctly. If you have any other questions, please get in touch with us!<\/p>\n

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You can see the full video demonstration here:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=uaJzeD5OkeE<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Basics on Guitar String Intonation \u2013 Strings By Mail   What does it mean when someone says the “intonation” on a guitar is off? What it means is that while a string will be in tune when it’s open, when it’s fretted it will be out of tune. The higher up the neck you go, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guitar-tips-tricks"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018"}],"version-history":[{"count":31,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2264,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018\/revisions\/2264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stringsbymail.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}