Adjusting Intonation

Today, I want to take a few moments to go over the simple procedure of adjusting the intonation on a tune-o-matic style bridge. Most people pay $50 to $100 bucks to get some dude at their local music store to do this simple but tedious task. My question is why? If you have a good tuner and a small flat head screw driver, you can achieve the same if not better results at no cost to yourself except time. Let's assume that your guitar is set up the way that you want it as far as string height, pick-up height, truss rod ect... If not, don't worry, we will have posts on these subjects as well. Guru 2 has already posted about set ups, so check that out as well.

Now, let's get a list of what you are going to need to do this simple task.

• A decent tuner - I have a couple of strobe tuners that I love. These are the most accurate and the most expensive. I have done set ups with boss tu-12 tuners and had decent results. This is about as cheap of a tuner as I am comfortable using and I like the fact that it has a dial that idicates how sharp or flat a particular note may be. If you want to fork over serious money for a strobe, have at it, but unless you are doing set ups for a living, I don't really see the need for it.



• Small Flat Head Screw Driver - This is what you will use to adjust the screws behind each one of the saddles on the bridge itself. If you don't have a screw driver, go to Home Depot and spend $5 bucks on one.



• Guitar Cable - You will use this to plug into the tuner from your guitar. Not too complicated on this one

Alright, lets get started. First of all plug your guitar into the tuner and tune the guitar to standard tuning (440). I hope that if you play guitar that you know how to tune a guitar as well, but if you don't it's from low to high ( E,A,D,G,B,E ). make sure that your guitar is in tune before you start checking for intonation issues. Now that the guitar is in tune, you can begin to check the intonation at the twelvth fret. To do this, simply press the string down at the twelvth fret and look at the tuner to see which way the dial is going. Flat is usually left and sharp is usually right. To make the adjustments, you will simply use the little flat head screw driver and turn the screws on the back side of the tun-o-matic. When you make the adjustments to the screws on the back side, you will notice that you will see the tuner changing pitch either flat or sharp depending on which way you are turning the screw. The idea is to get the open string and the fretted 12th fret to be the same pitch. This is why it is important to check your tuning after each adjustment that you make. This is important, I know that it sounds tedious, but it will yield the best results. You repeat this process on each string and remember to double check the tuning each time. One more thing that I like to do is to take a q-tip and put a little bit of oil on the tip and lube up each one of the saddles before you get going on this. It will keep the strings from binding up on you while adjusting the saddles on the tune-o-matic. With the oil, a little bit goes a long way. If you get done and look like you have been in a body building contest, you have gone too far with the oil.

Now, does this sound that complicated. This is usually something that you would pay $50 bucks to get done. I personally think that is crazy! Good luck, and please comment with any questions and either myself or Guru 2 will be happy to assist. We are still working on some pictures for the blog as well as a new web site that will revolutionize guitar repair forever. As good as I am with guitars, I am pretty slow when it comes to photo shop and editing pictures, but don't worry, they are on the way.

I want to take this opportunity to thank Jimbagodonuts for the photos. You are a true credit to the world of photography.

**If you have any questions about the tips in this blog, or would like to see a post about something we haven't covered, please email us at: guitarguruguys@gmail.com