What do you do with a string that won't intonate?

[zeegler]

I've had this happen before, and I know that other people have had the same problem. Usually it's the low E or A string that rings flat on the 12th fret so much that you move the saddle as far forward as it will go, and it still won't intonate. Is it a bad string? Is the bridge faulty? Well today I discovered the reason why one of my guitars had the problem. Can you guess what it was?

The Neck pickup.

That's right. After new strings, new bone nut, I was stumped, so I'm looking at the E string trying to figure out what it could be. I look at the neck pickup, and think that it looks rather close to the strings. I wondered if the magnetic field might be messing with the string. I figured I may as well screw it down further, because I don't really use the neck pickup anyway. Sure enough, I plug into my tuner, and suddenly, the 12th fretted note is sharp. I move the saddle back to where I figure it should be, and it's almost dead on. One more tiny adjustment, and it's perfect. I've been stressing over this for a week, and it turned out it was just the pickup. Now I have another reason for liking one hum guitars.

So, if any of you are having a problem intonating your low E or A strings, try getting that neck pickup out of the way, I'll bet it solves the problem.

[guitarsjb]

Thanks zeeg..I have that problem at the moment, I bet that will be the cause..ggrrrrr. *goes to check guitar*

[Nuclear Vampire]

That's really good advice. I've been through the exact same thing.

[zeegler]

Well, I remember a few of us having a conversation in a thread about it. I was having the same problem with a KV4 that I was selling on Ebay. I was so frustrated that I couldn't figure it out. I believe I ended up shipping it without ever finding the problem.

[Model1VH2]

That's good stuff.
Thanks for the tip.

[levantin]

If I had a string that didn't intonate I'd kick it in the nuts and go "respect my authorataah!"

Your way may be more effective though :ROTF:

[KBRR]

Thanks good tip

[j2379]

try capoing the first fret & use the 13th to intonate. MY SG intonated best like that. if I used open strings it always sounded wrong.

[CharvelRocker]

Thanks for the tip zeelger. I had an Ibanez doing this and figured it was the angle of the bridge due to a major repair, but it was the pickup height. thanks!

[Chad]

Interesting. I sold a Hamer USA Standard Custom a few years back because I just couldn't bond with it. One of the problems was that I could never properly intonate the low E. Hard to believe it could have been something that simple. Thanks for the info!

[Bert]

Yup, had that happen. Another time I had a string that wouldn't intonate.... nothing seemed to fix it. Turns out it was the freakin' string! Changed it and it worked fine. I seemed to get a bad batch of Dean Markley strings with this problem ... all the A strings would not intonate, regardless of the guitar I' d try them on. Very strange.