Dudes!!!
I'm horrified at some of the suggestions this morning!!! LOL!!! Crappy as my playing is at the moment......... Autotune???
Why not just get one of these:
View attachment 94539
Regards,
Dale.
Too funny!!! LOL!!!Well if someone is so disturbed by the fact that guitar is never in perfect pitch. So using the Autotune might help or it could turn you into Cher of guitar playing.
It makes no sense if you bend a lot.
Locking nuts and lubricated nuts can help guitars stay the way you tune them, and an intonated nut can help a lot down in the cowboy chord area. But that isn't the root of the problem.
Western intonation is tempered, so certain intervals won't ever be perfectly in tune. This is true even on a piano, but various mechanical aspects of the guitar make it worse for some chords/intervals than others. And the problem isn't 100% the same from one guitar to another.
It is possible to tune a piano to "just intonation" which will play perfectly in tune - but only in one chosen key. As soon as you modulate, it all goes sideways. This is why we use tempered intonation: it's a compromise to be able to play in all keys and still be close to in tune. Close, but not perfect.
Another element in this is personal playing style. Some guys play harder than others, and I think certain players with a lot of experience and very good pitch may have evolved a style which compensates for certain chord formations that have natural pitch shortcomings.
Context is also a factor; if a song has a raunchy sound, being a little bit out in certain spots doesn't grate on the ear. Same with a dense arrangement. But in a very sparse and pure arrangement, a little dissonance is far more noticeable.
Finally there's perception. We tend to be especially analytical about our own playing, both technique and sound. I can hear a slight out-of-tuneness on certain chords in my own playing, especially when I'm playnig by myself. With a band not so much, yet I can still pick it out if I listen closely. Yet I seldom notice it on the same chords in any of my favorite classic rock recordings. Of course, standards were lower in the old days and there are spots where a guitar was obviously not tuned well. But that is noticeable throughout, not just on certain problematic chords. So it's not related to the issue I'm talking about.
Oddly enough that's the one thing you do NOT see him doing in that video!!! LOL!!!Tell that to Vai.
The G# in an open-position E chord always sounds out of tune to me.
Dudes!!!
I'm horrified at some of the suggestions this morning!!! LOL!!! Crappy as my playing is at the moment......... Autotune???
Why not just get one of these:
View attachment 94539
Regards,
Dale.
Hello.
I certainly didn't mean to derail the OP's thread with this True Temperament stuff but apparently there's a little interest shown in it.
Here (below) is a comment that I copied off of a YouTube video of Steve Vai on True Temperament frets (video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uehDWQNActA). There's loads of other info. on this stuff floating around the Internet but this chap, whoever he is, kinda nails it layman's terms. And there's some other pretty good comments on the video if you scroll down the YouTube page a bit.
Not for me i.e. too much of a traditionalist (still bugs me even to have to detune to cover my favorite artist!!! LOL!!!).
And I have tuning problems on my own that True Temperament sure ain't gonna solve i.e. more often than not my lower E string is out of tune on the initial attack and it bugs the living hell out of me. But it's because I dig in and play hard (I THINK that's the reason anyway) and I constantly have to remind myself to "ease up a little" and "gently does it". Funny thing is that it's only the lower E string (and on all three of my guitars so it cannot be the guitars because they're all different). Dunno if there's a fix for this. I've tried heavier gauge strings, more springs in the FR trem., nothing. Technique I guess???
Regards,
Dale.
The G# in an open-position E chord always sounds out of tune to me.
Seriously? So it's not just me??
Never had a trained ear to begin with, but even as a kid literally on page 2 or 3 of some teach-yourself book... my first thought, "what the hell, Em chord sounds just fine, so what's wrong with this E-major picture?"
Didnt even know what the heck a major chord was or how it's supposed to sound vs. a minor chord, just that adding that one finger made everything sound wrong. I figured I just thought major chords sounded obnoxious by definition lol.
Musta been 20 years I still think E major fretted by the nut sounds jarring
And guitars that are close to dead on sounds horrible for other reasons...
Our ears do not really like total in tune.....!
I cannot comment as I don't know enough about it. This being said: logically speaking I can understand those patterns. What I mean to say is: I would imagine that the guitar is tuned to concert pitch (open strings) and then each note on each string is checked and the fret is bent in such a way that each note is in perfect pitch when fretted. Dunno. Guessing I guess. But it would explain "rando zags" not??? Actually be quite interested in how it's done. I mean: it surely cannot be done by hand i.e. as we all know you can be out of tune just by applying the slightest different amount of pressure. Who knows. Maybe they use my "special" method for doing this!!! LOL!!! I capo the twelfth fret when setting intonation. It eliminates any variances in pressure (I have a tendency to "agree" the note with the tuner by applying more or less pressure when doing it by hand!!! LOL!!!). Maybe something "mechanical" like this anyway.The guy you're quoting is either confused or shamelessly shilling.
Compensation for string gauge wouldn't result in vastly different shapes on neighboring frets. There'd be a clear gradual pattern, not rando zags going every which way.
PS as to your 6th string problems, adjust gauge to give you similar lbs tension on #6 as the rest. And maybe just maybe look into new toplocks for your Floyd nut, 6th string can gouge the hell out of it and make it loose
But for me , the open E chord sounds the best on an acoustic