Re: Help. Godin Freeway Classic won't stay in tune.
Are the strings actually going out of tune, or are the fretted notes not playing in tune, even though the open strings are tuned fine?
If it's the latter, you just need to tune the intonation of each string. It's easy to do, and you can look up how to do it online on a million different Websites.
If it's the former, the number one cause is binding in the nut slots, in which case, you want to clean and possibly lubricate the slots and try again. Then if you still have binding issues, the slots need to be professionally widened. Another common cause would be strings that are wound too many times around the tuner posts. Try to keep the number of winds down to one or two (or less, if you wind the strings in a self locking fashion). Improperly installed or set up hardware could be another problem. For instance, it's very common for a guitar to come out of the factory with tuners that are installed too loosely, or a bridge that has the same problem. Also floating bridges are rarely set up properly from the factory, even on bona-fide Fenders. You can tighten screws and nuts yourself, but for the setup, you might want to go to a pro if you aren't confident tackling it yourself.