Originally Posted by: Carl King

Hey JohnGC,

I'm glad you are messing with this and observing it. It's not really the string guage, although that can have some effect.

Try your same experiment and try every note up the neck one fret at a time, see how the tuning is against the tuner. I'm no expert on why this is, but I always encounter out of tune fretted notes, especially when low on the neck.

I have found that there are sort of "nodes" where notes go in and out of intonation. For instance, open string will be intonated perfectly, then it will go sharp at the first fret until the 5th or 7th or so, where it corrects itself. Then back out again to varying degrees until the 12th where it is dead-on with the tuner again. This particular oddity has something to do with natural string tension, I believe.

It's pretty common as a recording trick to tune certain fretted notes on areas of the neck to avoid these oddities. We've done this many times when filming songs.

There have been some pretty interesting inventions over the years to try to solve intonation "problems" inherent in electric guitar. (Depending on if you consider them problems.) Check out some of this stuff to get deeper into it and maybe get even more confused:

Buzz Feiten Tuning System:[br]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2Yfee69bTk

True Temperament:[br]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8EjCTb88oA

-Carl.

Hi Carl. Thank you for your reply. As per your suggestion I tried every note up the neck one fret at a time and made an interesting discovery. All the notes were in tune no matter how hard I pressed the strings down apart from the 1st and 2nd frets. On these I had to release slight pressure to get the notes spot on as they were slightly sharp. As stated before all open strings are in tune. This has now complicated matters as now I have to play 1st and 2nd frets lighter to have the notes in tune but all other frets with my normal pressure, tricky. I must thank you for the videos, I found both of them extremely interesting. The Buzz Feiten tuning system made good sense. My guitar is a Squier 60s vintage strat and I feel very comfortable with it and it stays in tune very well. It seems strange that only the first 2 frets are a problem. I wonder if I fit some new strings of the same guage and lubricate the nut if that will help. Maybe I am over thinking this and should get on with practising otherwise this will all be in vain. I realy appreciate all the help you guys are giving me, nice to feel I am not on my own. PS. I did see one article saying that if the first 2 frets are playing sharp it could be that the nut slots are to high. If anyone has any thoughts on this it may pay me to get the luthier to check it out.

Cheeers JohnGC