what seems to be the problem here?

[littleredguitars2]

1. guitar is in tune
2. guitar is intonated
3. put on a capo at 2nd fret and guitar is out of tune.

only thing i can think of is the neck not being straight. any thoughts?

[Dave Sloven]

You mean twisted, or bowed?  Bowed would just entail a truss rod adjustment and unless the rod is broken is easily fixed. If it's twisted that sounds like new neck time.   Can you see the problem by eye?

With all weird tuning issues my first thought now is 'is the wah switched on?'  One time a friend had been playing my guitar and left the wah switched on.  The next time I played it I started with the tuner before switching the amp on and while five of the strings could be tuned as per normal the low E kept swinging wildly between tunings.  I thought there was a problem with the tuning peg and took the string off before realizing that the wah was on.  I felt pretty silly after that

[Guitarteach]

The nut could be cut a bit too high. Had this problem due to this in the past with an acoustic. Or the capo simply may have too much pressure. Is it adjustable?

If it can also sound out of tune with some hard pressed open chords, it could be combo of high cut nut and high frets.

I have a 345 in need of a thorough setup to fix a similar issue.

[Twinfan]

Try putting the capo at an angle rather than parallel to the frets - the treble side nearer to the higher fret, the bass side nearer to the lower fret.  This changes the pressure on the strings and stops the bass strings being too sharp (which was always my issue).

[Tellboy]

I agree with Twinfan. I use a Shubb and find that getting the right pressure setting and angle is critical. Also it works better on my guitars which have a neck radius which matches it closely - on my Fenders the inner strings have a lot of pressure on them whilst the outer ones are just being pushed down.

[MrBump]

Couple of questions:

• Has it only just started?
• Define out of tune...

[jpfamps]

I assume you have checked the intonation at the 12th fret.

Basically it's out of tune because the guitar doesn't play in tune at all the frets.

Try fretting notes on the guitar and checking the tuning.

Getting a capo with the correct radius will help, but realistically you need to retune the guitar after application of a capo if you want to ensure you are in tune (unless of course you are Johnny 'Guitar' Watson!!).