A fact of life for guitarists: most of the world's
guitars do not play in tune. Classical guitars
will always need lots of tuning just because of the
vagaries of nylon strings. Many guitarists,
however, expend much more time and effort tuning
their instruments than should be necessary, and they
often blame "bad strings" for their troubles when
the real culprit is the guitar itself.There are a
number of reasons for poor intonation in guitars.
The spacing of the frets may be inaccurate.
(Some of the worst offenders on fret spacing are
individual guitar builders whose work may be
otherwise estimable.) The fingerboard may be
distorted: backbow, or too much forward bow, or a
crook at the 12th fret. The most important
reason why guitars don't play in tune, however, is
that the scale length is not properly compensated.
Compensation for intonation means adjusting the
string length to deal with the fact that pitch
changes because of stretching the string when
fretting.
Most otherwise well-made guitars can be made to
play in tune, applying tested principles of
intonation and special techniques to correct
physical errors. The cost varies,
depending on how much needs to be done to the
specific guitar. If the fret spacing is
spot-on accurate (or close
enough) and no refret is needed for other reasons,
and if the bridge saddle slot is positioned so that
I can fit the guitar with a new saddle that has
proper string break-off points, the cost may be as
low as $300-350.
In such a case, I would remove some wood from the
nut end of the fingerboard (this is almost always
necessary) and make a new compensated nut and
saddle.
On the other hand, if the above steps are needed
and in addition 10-15 frets are out of place and the
bridge saddle slot position is out of range for
correct saddle compensation, the cost may run as
high as $1,200-$1,500.
In such a case, in addition to the above measures I
will need to fill and re-cut fret slots (very
time-consuming...but not nearly
as much as replacing the fingerboard), fill
and re-slot the bridge saddle
block and refret the fingerboard.
Sadly, most of the guitars that end up in my
workshop for intonation upgrade are in this
condition...that's why they play so out of tune the
owner can't stand it any longer! If your guitar is
one of these, perhaps this will comfort you: your
guitar is probably in need of refretting anyway
because of fret wear and/or fingerboard unevenness,
so you could think of the refretting part as a
routine wear-and-tear repair which would reduce the
marginal cost of upgrading your guitar's intonation.
In any case, each guitar needs to be individually
examined to determine what needs to be done. I
can then provide you with a detailed estimate in
writing. For details on how to present your
guitar to me for an examination/estimate, go to
Shipping Your Guitar.
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