Hamer Explorer lower e string flat ?

[fordnut02]

just noticed the my lower e string on the 19 fret is playing flat , all other string are fine

any ideas ?

Thanks

[GusS]

intonation (move that string's saddle)

[velorush]

What GusS said, but also: did this perhaps come up after a string change? Sometimes you get a bad string.

I'd check the intonation at the 12th fret. If that's okay and you have a chromatic tuner, check the intonation at the frets around it. If it's just that string at that fret, I'd put another E string on there and see what happens.

IMO, very unlikely a Hamer is off in scale.

[fordnut02]

changed the string , set intonation and the e string still plays flat on the 18 19 fret ?

[tobereeno]

move the saddle even further up. To be really accurate, I think there's some sort of oscilloscope tuner?

[Hamer Bass Head]

have you had it setup recently? I'd check that before going crazy with everything else. set your relief, action and then check your intonation.

[BadgerDave]

Not being a smartass here, but do you actually play at the 19th fret on the low E string? In 40 years of playing I never have.

In fact I've never checked the intonation past the 12th fret on a wound string. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone here has checked the intonation high up the neck on their low E. My guess is that the intonation up there is pretty erratic.

[gtone]

Not being a smartass here, but do you actually play at the 19th fret on the low E string? In 40 years of playing I never have.

In fact I've never checked the intonation past the 12th fret on a wound string. I'd be interested in knowing if anyone here has checked the intonation high up the neck on their low E. My guess is that the intonation up there is pretty erratic.

Surprised BCR Greg hasn't yet posted his infamous "intonation's for pussies!" line (must be getting lax in his old age!)

I've never checked intonation past the 12th fret as things can get pretty dicey past that. In fact, you can knock yer brains out trying to get everything set perfectly at the 12th only to find that minor changes in temp, humidity, etc throw things off a couple of cents either way. Due to their design or other considerations, setting intonation on some guitars can and always will be an imprecise science (wraptail Juniors come to mind). Wouldn't worry about it too much, as your fretting fingers either learn to compensate, you learn to live with such small idiosyncracies or otherwise work around them.

BTW, how flat you talkin'?

[murkat]

Fret placing, scale lengths on finger boards are imperfect when comes to intonation.

To achieve perfect intonation pitch you will have to source a fret board that does so

on every fret, note applied.

http://www.truetemperament.com/site/index.php

it's only Rock and Roll

[RobB]

Surprised BCR Greg hasn't yet posted his infamous "intonation's for pussies!" line (must be getting lax in his old age!)

Yeah...pussies who can't play in tune!

Fret placing, scale lengths on finger boards are imperfect when comes to intonation.

It's only Rock and Roll

Agree. I read a long, technical missive on intonation and the guitar's inherent tuning anomalies. An interesting point was that fretted instruments are "out of tune"on many places on the scale length but that deficiency is what gives them (guitars, especially) their characteristic sound. I also remember reading about how Segovia struggled with this problem as he tried in vain to get his guitar in concert pitch with a grand piano as a reference. Eventually, he resigned himself to accepting the mathematic limitations of his classical guitars' string scales and had to adjust his attack/fingering to compensate.

Peterson tuners have a (sort-of) "true-tempeament" feature called "EQU" which is supposed to be used when setting up/intonating guitar bridges. Once you finish intonating, you switch to the "GTR" parameter to get the guitar in final tune. It's not perfect, but, IMO, is a pretty good compromise for overall better intonation.

Buzzy Feiten's system is even better, but I ain't hacking up my fingerboards to make a point. That's just me, though...

Sometimes any tuning problems I have are all on me: being lazy and letting my left hand droop and pulling strings sharp. Like Nigel said, "it's such a fine line between clever and stupid."

[gorch]

There have been bending invented for issues like this on the guitar.

Consider other string instruments that don't have even one fret on the fingerboard. Players feel and hear the note's exact point.

You are lucky the note plays flat. It would be worse if the note would go sharp.