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I have a customer complaining about needing to retune when moving a capo to different positions on the neck. Is that not something that just simply happens when using a capo? The only thing I can think that would make my guitar different than any other is that I use marginally taller frets. What says the panel?
Thanks

I've noticed that happen to me if I use a capo that really mashes down the strings against the fretboard, like your run-of-the-mill Kyser. Shubb capoes are nice because you can set them so there's just enough pressure to hold the strings on the fret.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

As we all kne we mostly intonate to equal temperd tuning at full scale of what ever scale we are working with. If you capo at say the fifth fret you have effectivly shortend the scale by 20%. that is sinificant. and if tuned while capo'd even more significant because the compensation to scale length ration is now about 20% out. Most performers will detune E, A, and sometimes D just a tad when capoing past the third to improve termperment.

Thanks!
That makes total sense to me. Hopefully my customer will not thinik I'm just blowing smoke. What I find weird is that her piece of ++++ foreign plywood import crackerbox doesn't bother her in the same way. I'd like to think it's because my delicately crafted etc. etc. guitar displays nuances she's never been able to notice...sigh...

Michael,

An interesting theory but I have a couple of questions:

- capoing at the fifth fret should be the same (ceteris paribus) as fretting this fret with no capo, so wouldn't the fretting lead to the compensation to scale length ratio being out by around 20% as well and the fretted note not intonating properly?

- also as the compensation is an absolute length the compensation proportion of the string length will be increasing as the capo is placed further up the fretboard. This usually leads to the note being flat (although there is the argument that shorter sale lengths need more compensation) whereas most capoing tuning issues are that the notes are sharp and need de-tuning slightly (on the lowest strings)

I suspect the issues have more to do with the original intonation of the lower strings (ie with no capo) and the capo's mechanical operation. If the neck increases in depth as you go up the fretboard, then the pressure applied will effectively increase as you place them further up the fretboard, sharpening the notes slightly.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

The height of the frets will certainly make a difference. So will how close to the fret she places the capo, whether or not she slides it into position or places it squarely on to the strings and whether or not the curve of the capo matches the fingerboard profile - if it doesn't, it'll have to be tighter to get all the strings to sound properly as well as closer to the fret, pulling some strings sharper than others. It could be the capo she's using matches her old guitar's fingerboard profile better, so causes less tuning problems.
Cheers,
Bri

A little while back i was using just a regular spring capo that when i put it on it would slightly bend certain strings which would make it sound pretty out of tune. Since then i bought a standard Dunlop and it works fine. I think it might have had to do with poor grip on the back of the capo causing it to slide out of place when pressure was asserted by the capo clamping action. Particularly on wide necks. Sounds like a bunch of nonsense but it might be a factor i guess.

Be a man and learn to do bar cords which of course you have to do to play the greatest tune of all time - Smoke On The Water......

Seriously that piece of ...... fine imported guitar.... may have a softer neck wood which would contribute to less pressure on the strings as the neck slightly compresses when a capo is installed. I have noticed and an import that I worked on did not need much retuning when capoed. Conversely one of my guitars that we compared it to with a laminated neck and a maple center section did need some slight retuning when capoed.

This is an intersting thread...

I don't have to retune on either my $600 Takamine or $20,000 True guitar when using a capo. The Takamine has a solid mahogany neck with EIR fretboard (low frets though) and my own guitars have a 5 ply laminated neck with ebony fretboard and use StewMac #0148 medium fretwire (I don't take any off from leveling with my neck construction though).

When I set up my intonation here's what I do (this came from a 25 year repair vet in my area). I first set the nut and saddle height than to set the intonation I capo on the 2nd fret and adjust the saddle as needed. This does two things as far as I see it (and what I'm told). First it eliminates the nut and any possible intonation issues there (classic debat on compensating the nut) and second it introduces a bit of string tension which is only there when capoing thus eliminating problems of the guitar needing to be retuned when using a capo. Now I do compensate at the nut a bit, but it's a straight cut of 1/32" off the top of the board (as per Mike Doolin, and others) which only changes the distance from the nut to the first fret. It takes a bit to fine tune the guitar with this set up but everything else seems to work out great with it.

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One thing I would wonder is if she tends to use the capo mostly in one location (e.g. at the 5th fret). If so, it's possible that your guitar has an intonation issue at that fret, even if it intonates well in general. No guitar, however carefully compensated/intonated, produces perfectly on-pitch notes on every string at every fret. Resonant frequencies in the instrument can and do pull notes off pitch, and this will tend to happen more with a more responsive instrument. I suspect this is part of the reason intonation can get a little weird when using a capo - that is, even if the capo works perfectly and is put on correctly (big ifs, I know, especially the latter), it will tend to reveal slight problems in intonation at different frets, because all of a sudden you hear how all six strings intonate together at that fret and they will either sound in tune with each other or not; in normal, un-capoed playing, you don't hear that so much (plus, a good player's fingers can make notes sound more in tune, while the capo is just a stupid piece of hardware [don't get me wrong - no anti-capo snobbery intended - I love capoes and use them a lot]).

The bottom line is, either the capo is bending the strings sharp (for various reasons having to do with the capo itself or the player's skill in putting it on the neck properly), or there's an intonation issue with the guitar, or both. With all due respect, I don't buy Michael's theory, since the whole rhyme and reason for compensation is to make the fretted notes (whether fretted with a finger or a capo) play as in-tune as possible all the way up the neck. If the capo works well and is put on right (again, big ifs, and very often NOT the case), it can only reveal issues with intonation on that guitar.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Like others have posted, my first suspect would be the placement of the capo, and how well its profile matches that of the fretboard. Generally, the closer you place the capo behind the fret, the less of a problem this is as the capo won't press the strings down so far, which causes it to go out of tune. With some tall capos this can make the first position chords a little awkward, and even with slimmer models it can get in the way a little, so my method is to place it at close to the fret as I can, and do a quick (like, 5 seconds) retuning, usually just by tugging a little on some of the strings and you're good to go.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

if you notice I said when re tuned with the capo in position. if tuned open and capoed with the capo in a proper location to not stretch the strings then it is just a freted position. but if tuned with capo in place it will affect the intonation. 20% might more than the actual affect but it can be significant.

if the guitar is made right and the capo fits the neck correctly then intonation issues are so minor that they can be easily lost by 'playing the thing in tune'.
By that I mean sometimes slightly bending a chord until it's in tune.
To me a half-decent player should be very aware of that and play accordingly - its all part of the fun! A bit of vibrato etc, it's all good. I dont let people get too hung up on something that isn't there, the guitar has frets and that causes tiny problems - if thats no use play a violin!

This isn't any kind of cop-out, its just common sense to me

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Michael's got a point there. The point being, as I see it (not sure if this is exactly what Michael meant):

When you have a capo on, say at the 5th fret, and then fret a note at the 8th fret, that string is now being pressed down to the frets in two places. This will cause it to produce a slightly higher pitch than if it were being fretted at the 8th fret without the capo. So, intonation is affected somewhat by the capo. That is, if you get the capo on the 5th fret and the notes are spot-on at ADGCEA (implying a well-intonated guitar and a well-fit capo, properly placed), any notes you now fret at higher frets will not intonate quite as well as they do without the capo. They'll be slightly sharp. So, in theory at least, to get the best possible compensation/intonation with the capo on, the guitar SHOULD be retuned after putting on the capo, making very small adjustments whereby some or all of the open notes ADGCEA (again, just using the 5th fret capo as an example) are made slightly flat in a compromise tuning for the benefit of the fretted notes.

If the guitar normally intonates very well, the capo is a good fit, and the player puts it on properly, so that the capoed "open" strings are in tune, such retuning is probably splitting hairs and not really necessary. As stated, a guitar is not a violin; there's always some dissonance, and it's up to the player to make it sound good. That said, one more general comment: part of making a guitar sound good is using one's ear to to tune it as well as possible, whether it has excellent or not-so-good intonation. I consider the player's skill in tuning the instrument to be the final step in compensation (actually, as it's been said, the FINAL step is in the actual playing). Electronic tuners are never as good as a good ear, and no two guitars will each intonate optimally (each guitar to the best of its own potential) if tuned to exactly the same open string pitches. Stated conversely, every individual guitar, on any given day, needs to be tuned slightly differently, by ear, to intonate as best as it possibly can. Even if you aren't being overly perfectionistic about tuning, approaching tuning with this mindset will make your guitar play more in tune every time you pick it up, turn off the electronic tuner, and tweak it a little by ear (mostly by checking various octaves all over the neck). The vast majority of players, in my observation, could benefit from more ear training and more education in tuning their guitars - myself included, though I've studied music, guitar, and ear training for nearly 30 years.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

exactly

Why?

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Because the string is being stretched, i.e. pulled into higher tension, a little bit more than if it's pressed down to the frets in only one place. Not very much more, mind you, but slightly more nonetheless.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Because a U is slightly longer than a V ?

oops Todd beat me to it.

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The sting is pre stretched by the capo and again by fretting. The same thing happens when you barr chord, but the barred human finger does not have the mechanical advantage that the capo has plus the capos surface is less elastic that the human finger. It has no since of tone or attack it is trying to pull the stings all the way to its fulcrum the human had only wants to push the sting to the fretboard with as little force as needed and the play constancy monitors his fretting technique both knowingly and unknowingly.

Right. The most extreme example would be a string capoed at the 1st fret and then fretted at the 20th.

Edit: a lot of simultaneous posting happening here! This was in response to K.O.'s post about the V and the U, which I took to be a question directed to me.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Not that it really matters, but I just want to correct myself. Depending on how low the nut slots are cut and how much relief there is in the neck, there would generally be the most deflection with a string capoed at about the 5th fret and then fretted on one of the highest frets. To illustrate the point one step further (gotta make sure this horse is really dead!), if you capoed or otherwise fretted a string at multiple points along its length, then it would pretty much follow the curve of the relief, obviously being stretched substantially more than normal, so that the note generated by the highest fret fretted on would be considerably sharp.

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Todd Rose
Ithaca, NY

https://www.dreamingrosesecobnb.com/todds-art-music

https://www.facebook.com/ToddRoseGuitars/

Todd,

To really kill the nag, having the guitar capoed at the fifth fret brings the string closer to the fretboard above this and so requires less pressure to fret the 8th fret than if the capo was off. So it's not a foregone conclusion that the notes fretted above the Capoed 5th fret will be sharper than without the Capo - a lot of ceteris's have to be well and trully paribus

I'm certainly not going to do it but it would be interesting if one of your engineering background builders calculated just how much the "pretension" would sharpen the note fretted on the 8th fret with Capo 5 compared with open and where that sits with what the human ear can hear and discern.

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Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010