What Is Guitar Intonation And Why Is It Important?
Guitar Intonation
An obvious question? Yes! Worth talking about? Absolutely!
Intonation is the accuracy in which an electric guitar or bass can produce a fretted note and the most important issue with any instrument. Setting the intonation on a guitar is the act of adjusting the length of the strings (by moving the bridge saddles). This will compensate for the thickness of the string and the stretching of a string due to pushing it down to the fret board to produce a note. For our purposes here I will focus only on electric instruments for now.
To adjust the intonation of your guitar or bass guitar, you move the bridge saddles toward or away from the fret board until the 12th fret note and its harmonic are equal in pitch to the same open-string note, which are exactly one octave apart. Accurate intonation is critical to pitch quality. Pitch quality is essential to “in tune” playing.
Poor pitch quality = “out of tune” notes which in turn = poor musical presentation. Wouldn’t you want to present your musical talents in the best way possible? Of course, you do.
A guitar setup
A good guitar setup includes a series of adjustments that leave the guitar playing and sounding its best. Over time, with temperature, humidity and use a guitars adjustments will regress. It should be checked regularly to keep it right.
In the Haywire Custom Shop, we’ll check the usual spots that need adjustment.
First the truss rod to make sure the neck is true and straight. Next, the action or string height, the intonation is adjusted for pitch of each note.
Now, it is not necessary for a guitar player to know this at all. It is essential however that the guitar possess this quality and maintain as close to perfect intonation as possible. Buying on looks alone can be very disappointing. If however, you like an instrument for the looks then great! Realize that you will need to have it worked on to get it playable then that is fine. Ensuring that each string is in tune across the entire fretboard, so that fretted notes sound correctly is needed. This is where a guitar setup comes into play. Get a good setup done.
It’s best to speak to a Luthier or guitar builder previous to any purchase. It’s like to asking a mechanic which car he would recommend before you walk into the show room to select one. You can benefit from his first hand knowledge and experience and not have to go it alone. After all the mechanic knows which cars breakdown.
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