Intoning your electric guitar.

It is very difficult to explain using text only, the in's and outs of basic guitar setup. One has to provide some kind of visual presentation, diagrams and what not. Look at mine. 

Cool hey? I made it using MS paint. Now I should explain it a little using someone else's picture.

The text on that image is very small indeed. Still, this article is only about intoning your guitar so that it is in tune all the way up the fretboard. Setting the intonation is probably the simplest part of an electric guitar setup, but I have found that many guitarists have no idea how it's done. In this article I will try to clear it up for you. 


To intone your electric guitar you need:
- A good, well-fitting screwdriver, flat or phillips depending on the screws used in the bridge. (Sometimes, as is the case with a solid tailed PRS one would need an appropriately sized hexagonal key. I am not going into that today though.)
- An accurate tuner. (I use a Peterson Strobostomp for it's accuracy, but that's possibly a little over-kill. The Peterson Strobostomp is accurate to 0.1%, which not even a talking dog could verify.)
- A little patience.

I have blown up just the two labels because they are the parts (or rather, the set of parts) that we are concerned with now. The bridge is a block to which is mounted a set of saddles. The saddles come in sets of three (as is the case with most Telecasters) and sets of six. A set of six saddles for a Statocaster type guitar looks like this.

Gibson type guitars generally come with Tunomatic bridges. They look like this.

Take note of the screws entering the Strat typre saddles from the page top and the screws entering the tunomatic going into the page. Strat type saddles are usually mounted with phillips head screws while tunomatics are usually mounted with flat head screws. 


The idea behind intoning a guitar string is simple. The note at the 12th fret fretted should be the same note as that string played open but one octave up from it. 

That is because the 12th fret should be pretty much at the mid-point of the string. 


Step 1.
Play the open string. Ensure that it is in tune.


Step 2.
Play the 12th fret note of the same string. Do not press too hard as this will cause slight deviation in the pitch. While the note is ringing, have a look at your tuner. What does it say?


If the note is flat, it simply means that the string is too long from the saddle to the nut. To correct this, one need only adjust this length by manipulating the screws at the bridge. The note is flat and therefore, the string needs to be shortened. Turn the screw (carefully now, don't damage the head!) the correct way to bring the saddle forward toward the nut. Do this a little bit at a time. Once you have moved the saddle, you will need to  repeat steps on and two. 


It should be clear then that, should you find the note at fret12 to be sharp, you need to lengthen the string, turning the screw to draw the saddle back and away from the nut. 


Keep repeating the steps until the string is perfectly in tune, and then move on to the next, and then the next, until you've done all of them. 


Voila! 


It is a rare occurrence, but now and again a guitar's bridge might be set in the wrong place by the guitar maker. This doesn't only happen with inexpensive guitars. I have found such mistakes to have been made on Custom Shop Gibson guitars valued at 40 to 50 thousand Rands. If you simply can't get your guitar in tune, this may be the case, but as I said, this rarely happens. Try changing the string first. If the problem persists, ask a Luthier for help. 




If you found this all very confusing, please let me know. I'd love to make it as simple to follow as possible.


Metal dudes.