For my daughter who plays acoustic and also has a cheap electric she’s taking to school for ‘Northmead’s Got Talent’ tomorrow

She’s asked me to tune it and I can’t. I know how, we have a clip on tuner, I’ve tuned it from a web app, no issues.

But when i compare the tuned guitar to using the old method of tuning bottom E and then doing A by tuning to the 5th fret – that doesn’t quite match the A that the tuner gives us.

Why?? It sounds in tune on open string but not quite on chords.

I’m guessing your ears aren’t as accurate as a tuner

Try tuning a drum kit 😉

if you trust your ears to be pitch perfect then perhaps the guitar is warped on the neck or some such

IMHO old strings or crap guitars never quite sound right

I always notice it on the G string personally ..i know its the right note but it still sounds sort of flat

Do you know about harmonics? I use the guitar tuner to tune the harmonics on 12th fret to the correct pitch & find it works better.

Electric guitars strings can be bent out of tune when playing chords, I’d just tune it with the tuner on the open strings or on the 12th fret harmonics.

intonation gubbed most likely.

intonation gubbed most likely.

that. some guitars also sound better if tweaked a bit for one chord or other but most likely the strings are a bit high so when you fret the note it pulls that string out of tune a bit too much. Just adjust it so it is the least bad with the chords your daughter is playing if possible

aye, strings too high is one thing that can cause intonation problems(they need to be quite high though), the other aspect is string length, each string needs to be the correct length, that’s why you have those screws on the saddles of the guitar to move them back and forth. (If you don’t have them you’d need a custom bridge.)

Normal guitar setup involves 3 basic aspects(there are more, but these are the important bits): Putting a bit of relief in the guitar neck; Setting the string height; Properly tuning the string length. (you do use an actual tuner, and tune the 12th fret on each string, bit of a heid*** especially on a floating trem).

All easy enough if you’ve spent 6 months pissing about with yer guitar setup learning how to do it! 😆

There’s an app for that.

So see what the tuner gives on the 12th fret. It should be the same note as open but an octave higher . If the note on the 12th is too high you need to increase the length of string (on the elelectric you will be able to with a screw).

Once you’ve got the same note on open and 12th try on the fifth fret. The E string will be A (don’t press too hard on the string). If it isn’t right then the nut is in the wrong place and the nut slot needs moving slightly or a special nut making up.

Double post

Tune it using an app or a digital tuner, but you’ll almost always need to fine tune it by ear to get it perfect.

Edit, I use a combination of tuning by ear, and harmonic tuning, and there’s always a slight compromise.

Tuning digitally never really works that well.

mattyfez – Member
Tune it using an app or a digital tuner, but you’ll almost always need to fine tune it by ear to get it perfect.

It’d trust a good tuner over someones ear. Mind you not all tuners are equal though. Some will be accurate by percentages of a cent, some will be 5 or 10 cents out.

Your ear is likely to struggle below 5cents accuracy.

It’s trust a good tuner over someones ear. Mind you not all tuners are equal though.

If she’s playing solo then the guitar just needs to be in tune with itself, that’s where digital tuners become useless and you do it manually by ear and harmonics, and reach a balance.

Then play some major chords, E, a, c.. D is a good one they should all ring sweet, REM’s riff for ‘every body hurts’ is a good test to see. Or hear, even!

mattyfez – Member
It’s trust a good tuner over someones ear. Mind you not all tuners are equal though.
If she’s playing solo then the guitar just needs to be in tune with itself, that’s where digital tuners become useless and you do it manually by ear and harmonics, and reach a balance.

that’s where good intonation comes into play, but aye i know what you mean. It’s all in the fingers in the end up. The very nature of how hard you depress the strings or bend etc means intonation is variable on an instrument like a guitar anyhow, no matter how good it’s tuned or setup. It’s all very personal.

Yeah agree Particularly with acoustic, I can ‘blindly’ tune mine with digital reference tones, then if I finger pick a chord, it’s slightly out of whack.

So I fine tune it by ear. It’s the only way to be sure.

Referring back to the original post, with an acoustic guitar there’s always going to be a bit of variance to compensate for. Playing major chords should ring like a bell.

You can much about with it as much as you like but I’d be doing what Edukator says.

Once that’s done you can start compromising!

Assuming it’s the electric that’s causing the issues.

Cheers all, got way too complex and past my skill level. Have tuned so by ear it sounds ok, I did get to grade 7 myself so I do have an ear, and any slight off will be nothing compared to the odd duff note.

She’s just played it through and it sounds OK on the chords she uses. Well, I say OK, there’s one major issue which might make some on here happy at least.

In the name of entertainment, Coldplay will be murdered after morning break by a scratch Northmead band, my daughter on guitar, Matthew on drums, Mrs Evans on piano* and maybe a year 4 on vocals if he overcomes his last minute nerves.

* school piano, so it has that strange sound only ever heard in school pianos / cockney barrel of larf knees-ups.

Haha.

Interesting thread though. I’ve always found I have to lower the B slightly from where it should in theory be. I try to get the major third G/B sounding ok and then check the octave with third fret on B to the D string. Doesn’t seem possible on mine to get both perfect, but if I get those two sounding ok then it plays alright.