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A Friend of mine bought a Seagul S6 for his daughter who is just learning to play the guitar, he brought it to me at the weekend and asked me take a look at it as it was playing out of tune (He has a very good ear as he used to play violin proffesionally). Anyway I checked the inotation and sure enough it was slightly off, on examination the saddle is compensated away from the center of the saddle on all but two strings, and the two strings that had the saddle peaked in the centre were spot on. Looking at the saddle it looks almost as if it was manufactured to have the peaks either central or to one side or the other, and not as if it were fine adjusted.

Anyway to cut the story shorter I took it out and made a new saddle and whoever fitted the bridge got it very well positioned as with the whole saddle peaked to the centre suddenly the innotation was spot on. So in reality the compensation was harming the innotation not helping it, just wondered if anyone had come across this ?

Yup. I quit "intonating" my saddles a few years ago, for that reason. The "intonated" ones may have seemed better when checking individual strings, but as a whole, the guitars plays in tune much better with the untouched saddle....

I've heard so many times for sales reps at music stores that guitar players expect to see the B string set back and if it's not there must be something wrong with the guitar.

On my first guitar, I took a long time to try and set up the intonation as best I could and funny enough, the break point was mostly on the center of the saddle. I showed my guitar to a friend, very good player and at the time a sales rep at a local music store. First thing he pointed out was that the saddle was "wrong" it should be set back at the B string he said. I said "is it out of tune?" he played it for a while more ans said no. But, it's expected that the saddle is set back so it has to be wrong.

Good Greff.

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I had a guy at a store tell me the same thing - the B wasnt back far enough, yet it plays fine. I still intonate the saddle, hopefully geting as close as I can - but that doenst mean the B will go back - it goes where it needs to go.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Hesh

The guitar was brand new. If you saw the original saddle it looks as though it was cut that way on a machine, it is just too uniform to have ever been right.

Rod

I suspect you are on the money it is done from the point of view thats what people tend to expect to see.

On the setup for my own I do setup with some fine adjustment, but I try to understand the players requirements, but I have had requests especially from the better players I build for to ship with a plain saddle, as they prefer to experiment with strings, and make any fine adjustment themselves if needed. I am getting pretty accurate results with my distances that I use, always within 5 cents per string and usually within 3 cents, so am inclined to take Marios approach and stop compensating all together.
RussellR38915.688125

   I sure am glad to see this thread - I have never had to set the B string back on any of the guitars I've made and I was beginning to think I was crazy. From the very first one, I just crowned the saddle and the intonation was very close, with only very slight adjustment needed for a couple of strings.

                    Paul