Intonation problem

[Mr. Air]

I got an intonation problem on my Godin LG. The saddles on the TOM bridge are, for some of the strings, pushed as far back as possible and still the fretted note at the 12th fret is sharp. Is there any chance to solve this problem?

Think I read somewhere that the old 24 fret version of the LG was inclined to having this intonation problem and that's why the new model only has 22 frets. I might be wrong though.

Any help is much appreciated.

[marauder]

Which way round are the saddles?

I've had to reverse them before to give an extra 1-2mm of adjustment.

[Mr. Air]

Which way round are the saddles?

I've had to reverse them before to give an extra 1-2mm of adjustment.

The adjustment screws are pointing backwards away from the neck.

[AndyR]

What about the saddles themselves on the bad strings? For example, I've had to take G saddles out of TOM bridges before and turn them round so that the flat side is facing back like the EAD - that gives you another couple of millimetres travel on that string.

But, if the flat side is the one tight up against the TOM housing... then sounds like you're stuck. Sounds like you need to get someone to look it over maybe.

One thing though - it could be duff strings. Is it just this set/brand of strings? Has it been ok before with other strings? And, I assume this is a new-ish set of strings anyway?

Hope you fix it. Intonation can be an absolute nightmare once you get caught up in "I know how to do it but the bluddy thing won't let me do it..." Over the years I've managed to accept that on all my strats, with the action I want, I can never get the bottom E to intonate properly, the saddle just won't go back far enough. Somehow my playing gets round it, don't know how!

[Mr. Air]

Sadly I think the saddles need to be pushed more than justone to two milimeters. If I remember correctly the problem strings are low E, A and G. The other strings are pushed fairly long back as well.

The strings on the guitar are new so it's not caused by old strings. Maybe I'll just have to live with the off intonation and I think I can manage. I just have to lay off playing octaves high up the fretboard.

[BigB]

The strings on the guitar are new so it's not caused by old strings. /quote]

I once had a nightmarish intonation problem with brand new strings, it happened that one of the strings was just "bad". It's a very rare but still known problem. But it's so rare I seriously doubt you'd have 3 bad strings at once.

[MDV]

You can check teh nut height. If the nut slots are cut shallow (i.e. the strings are sitting high at the nut) then intonation will be a bit sharp. You wont get a hell of a lot out of it though.

This is also assuming that the action is as low as is practicable. If its still quite high when its at its lowest then a fret dress can usually get rid of a lot of the buzzing and give you more wiggle room (even if the frets are unworn; new guitars often need fret dresses because, while the frets are probably damned near perfectly level when put in, when the necks strung up for the first time the stress on it forces some frets out a little bit, and that can go unaddressed for years).

Also, since the problem is high on the neck, try the neck relief - get it as flat as you can. I set relief so that the neck is as close to flat as practicable, and do it by getting it so when shining a light down the edge of the fretboard and looking down it it seems to be flat, and holding down the low E/whatever youre tuned to at 1st and 15th the gap between the E and 7th fret is barely visible, or even invisible, BUT that if I tap the string lightly when held down it makes a clack against the fret, so that I know there is actually a tiny bit of curvature (which is just so that I know that the neck isnt bowing backwards at all - like I said as close to flat as practicable).

So, lower action, fret dress if need be, deepen nut slots if possible to do so (carefull, you cant put material back in them!), level the neck and then see if youre getting better intonation.