I've noticed lately that I'm having a hard time intonating my low E string on my TV Twenty guitar. It has a cheap hardtail strat type bridge on it, and I can get all the other strings intonated except the low E.
I'm using a standard 9-42 gauge. The .042 string was too sharp-- and I can't really move the saddle back any further to compensate. Since I hit the low E pretty hard anyway, I decided to put an .048 low E on it from a set of 11's, but I kept all the other strings the standard 9 gauge. I'm much closer to being intonated correctly with this .048 than I was w/ the .042--- the .048 is only a hair sharp.
I tried some 10-46's on the guitar last night, but it totally changed the feel (and the .046 was still sharp like the .042 was), so I went back to my 9-42's w/ the .048 low E string and it feels better.
Would new saddles help me intonate this guitar better? The fact that the intonation screws are a little long isn't helping any--when the saddle is back far enough to properly intonate the string, the intonation screw on some of the saddles tends to block the string as it comes up through the body and into the saddle hole. Since it's a cheaper import guitar, the bridge mounting holes & string holes may have been drilled a little closer to the neck than they should be, which may explain why some of the saddles need to be back all the way to intonate the string correctly.
I realize that I should probably just take it to a tech and pay the $40 to have it set up properly and save myself the headache. Some combination of saddle height, truss rod tweak and intonation screw adjustment would probably solve the problem, and I'd rather have a pro figure that out, but I thought I'd ask the question here first.
I'm using a standard 9-42 gauge. The .042 string was too sharp-- and I can't really move the saddle back any further to compensate. Since I hit the low E pretty hard anyway, I decided to put an .048 low E on it from a set of 11's, but I kept all the other strings the standard 9 gauge. I'm much closer to being intonated correctly with this .048 than I was w/ the .042--- the .048 is only a hair sharp.
I tried some 10-46's on the guitar last night, but it totally changed the feel (and the .046 was still sharp like the .042 was), so I went back to my 9-42's w/ the .048 low E string and it feels better.
Would new saddles help me intonate this guitar better? The fact that the intonation screws are a little long isn't helping any--when the saddle is back far enough to properly intonate the string, the intonation screw on some of the saddles tends to block the string as it comes up through the body and into the saddle hole. Since it's a cheaper import guitar, the bridge mounting holes & string holes may have been drilled a little closer to the neck than they should be, which may explain why some of the saddles need to be back all the way to intonate the string correctly.
I realize that I should probably just take it to a tech and pay the $40 to have it set up properly and save myself the headache. Some combination of saddle height, truss rod tweak and intonation screw adjustment would probably solve the problem, and I'd rather have a pro figure that out, but I thought I'd ask the question here first.
