Official Luthiers Forum!

Dear Friends,
I am faced with a delima...I have a repair that I canot solve and I am going nuts trying to figure this out.
I was given this guitar to set the action to an acceptable level. All I did was adjust the truss rod a little, lowered the bridge and sadle a little. When all is done the action was much better. As I began to play the guitar all the chords sounded like giberish nonsense.
I just could not make sense of any sound the chord was trying to make. Nothing sounded normal.

since no bridge changes were made to change the scale I am really confused! Can anyone please help me figure this out?
Thanks, walter

I don't know Walter, but I'll bump you back to the top.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

This is probably a stupid question, but you didn't get the strings mixed up did you?  I know you already thought of that.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I would guess the first question to ask is " Was the guitar properly intonated to begin with?"

All the tings you did had small effects on the sting length. To figure out the problem I would first look at the scale length and general saddle compensation to see if they make since. Take the distance from nut to 12th and multiply by 2. This will give you the assumed scale length now check to see what the distance from the 12th to the high E at the front of the saddle is. this distance should be about 1/16" longer than from the 12th to the nut. Now check the 12th to the low E. this should be about 5/32" longer than the 12th to the nut.

Once we know the scale length and that the saddle is in proper compensation we can help further.

Maybe I am going to make myself look stupid here, but intonation should play only a role above the twelfth fret. If you have the guitar tuned properly and play your open cords in the first position they should sound fine, with all do respect to the ability of the guitar! Changing saddle heigth, nut height or truss rod tension should not have an effect on this, as long as the bridge was properly placed in the first place! I mean the bridge on a classical is typically not intonated at all.

I say change the strings first and see what difference that makes before you go messing with a bunch of other things.

Good Luck Walter...by the way, I am still awaiting your address to send you that top my freind!

Shane

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Canada

More specifics would be helpful. Does it have new strings? can you find
particular notes that are sharp or flat? Are the problems in the first positions
or up higher on the neck? What exactly do you mean by gibberish nonsense?
When you say that I think more of sounding like you are playing random
frets together, as opposed to a chord that sounds noticeably out of tune.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.

I'm not sure what the meaning of gibberish means either..

If I were a betting man, I would bet that lowering the action has found a fret that is high, and now that high fret has caused the whole fretboard to sound like trash because it is barely touching the strings somewhere above the 12th fret.

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Reguards,

Ken H

Smash it into a 1000 pieces and sell them as "rough tooth pics" on Ebay for a $1 each. Then buy one that plays in tune.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just kidding...of course

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Dave Bland

remember...

"If it doesn't play in tune...it's just pretty wood"

I was curious as to if the bridge/saddle is in the right place in relation to the scale length in the first place.

I just thought that knowing if the basics scale is set-up correct was the best place to start before going on a goose chase.

I see that Walter has over 800 posts on the forum, so I am assuming by now that he knows to check for high frets, etc??

Walter, what is the height of the strings at the 12th fret? We can start from there....

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Reguards,

Ken H

[QUOTE=WalterK] As I began to play the guitar all the chords sounded like giberish nonsense.
I just could not make sense of any sound the chord was trying to make. Nothing sounded normal.

since no bridge changes were made to change the scale I am really confused! Can anyone please help me figure this out?
Thanks, walter [/QUOTE]


Does the client play in an altered tuning like DADGAD (which you did not notice while performing the adjustments)?

The client does not play in any special tuning but plays all plays every song with the capo in the second fret position...............................
not sure why but he says it feels comfortable.
I believe he likes the action very low and the capo provides that setting.