Pics of your favourite axe!

@Caelumamittendum 773 wrote:

I really only ever use my Schecter. It’s pretty crap though. Can’t get it to intonate correctly. Had a great repair shop/music shop take a look at it, but didn’t really help much. So hopefully one day I can buy myself another guitar. Gotta save some money for it first…

What exactly is your intonation problems? General, or specific strings (low B?)
What tuning do you use, and what scale length is the guitar? Looks like a 25.5″?

@Richard Lundmark 790 wrote:

What exactly is your intonation problems? General, or specific strings (low B?)
What tuning do you use, and what scale length is the guitar? Looks like a 25.5″?

Well, mainly overall, but mostly the low B really, but also G. High B and high E are the only ones without any real major problems.

Generally it’s not really over all…but I have to tune all my strings down about 1/5 to have frets above 1st to 4th intonate correctly. Then ofcourse 1st to 4th doesn’t.

I think it started once I started rehearsing with my band in that rehearsing room me and my dad made. I think there was a somewhat high temperature difference between here, at home, and then in the rehearsal room. I’ve heard that could cause something like that?

But well, yeah, Low B is the worst – so bad that I never use it.

@Richard Lundmark 886 wrote:

Well, temperature does affect most guitars. What happens is that wood swell of contract and thus affect neck bow. ANother problem with 7-string floyd rose guitars is that sometimes the posts (the large bolts on which the knife edges are suspended) are not perfectly positioned. A thicker string needs a longer string length to intonate correctly. Most 7 string guitars are just a compensated version of a 6-string guitar.

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Posts are fine – I recently bought a brand new Floyd Rose system. It’s an old guitar anyways, and the floyd rose was very old. I could have just changed the posts, I know, but at the times my solution seemed best.

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If you’ve seen for example Conklin guitars that have fanned frets on the 8 string guitars, this is a solution that gives the lower strings a different (longer) scale length and thus that guitar will intonate much better.
It’s like a bass guitar. You know how those have longer necks? That’s because if you want a thicker string to be tuned that low and intonate correctly, you need a longer scale length.

Yeah, I’ve seen that, and now seen it again. Then again, that doesn’t help me. Haha.

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TO begin with. the guitar is untempered in its tuning, which means it will never intonate perfectly.
For example, if you tune your guitar to an open A, and have the C# be perfectly in tune, all other chords will be slightly off. Thus, the best way to tune a guitar is from a Asus2 chord, which means you will be tuning the guitar to perfect 4ths and perfect 5ths. That will give you a compensated tuning that makes most chords sound ok (open E will never sound OK though).

Right. In the end it might just be me being paranoid of having an out-of-tune guitar. Most people seem not to notice. At least not those whom I’ve had a couple of jams with lately.

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You also need to intonate 7 string guitar for playing purposes. That is, seeing how you will almost always stay below the 12th fret on the low B string, how the guitar intonates above that isn’t really an issue. Therefore, do not just intonate using the age-old 12th fret harmonic to 12th fret fretted note approach.
Base intonate using that, then check the 5th and 7th fret and see how far off the E and F# are. Intonate according to those. That is, tune the open B, then check the E on the 5th fret. Say that note is too high (which is almost always the case with the B-string, once again due to the shorter than necessary scale length.). Then you should move the saddle away from the neck (thus increasing the scale length).
The problem is since the frets won’t move, you can not get a perfectly intonated longer scale length.

I’ve tried tuning with my friends somewhat expensive auto-tuner, and I’ve tried tuning by ear, by my piano. A lot of different things I’ve tried. However, I don’t use the low B that much, both due to it not intonating correctly, but also just because my playing style really isn’t that “heavy” anymore. Doing the 5th and 7th method sounds as if my guitar is tuned (just tuned using that way.), and the all powerchords from C5 to whatever upwards (say to about 10th fret, A5) sounds alright, but the darn B5, open B and F# on E, sounds very much crap. I think I can live with that.

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The same problem occur when you take a 6string guitar and drop tune it to say a C, intonation will be very off the higher up the neck you go. This is because the guitars frets are positioned to be reasonably intonated in standard E tuning. (basically intonated to perfect 4ths, this is why the major third is always a bit off on guitars). This is also the reason why you have a 7 string guitar tuned to B and intonate pretty well (if you have a good bridge that can move the saddles far enough back), but of you have it tuned to C or C#, it will be much harder to intonate properly.

I see.

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You should also check you neck relief. Put a left hand finger on the first fret (C ) on the low B-string, and in your case the 24th fret (B) on the same string. When you have both these finger pressing down, you should sit with the guitar in playing position, and look at the fretboard from the side, around the 7-9th fret. Here you should have some clearence. Around 1mm is usually fine (perfect neck adjustment depends on string gauge, playing style, radius of the fingerboard and many other factors, so just take this as a rough guide). If the string touches the frets, the neck is to flat and you will have string buzzing as a result, and a lack of sustain. If the gap is very wide (say 2mm or more) you will suffer from high string height and hard playability. But, this will also seriously affect intonation on the upper frets (which most people don’t realize).

When holding down c (1) and b (24) on low B there’s a gap of just about 1 mm. So the relief seems fine.

The saddle of the low B at the bridge can’t get further back. The guy at the repair shop also told me this ages ago, and told me that he couldn’t get the low B to intonate correctly. I’m not too sure about what the “posts” are. Don’t know the danish term for that anyways.

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So, to sum up.
1.) Intonate using not only 12th to 12th but also 5th to 17th, and 7th to 19th fret (the double checking is for the soloing strings mostly, don’t bother with the low B).

Checked and double checked. Still the problem with B5, as mentioned earlier on. Having it tuned as I have now, there are no noticable problems about 5-7th fret.

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2.) check neck bow and adjust the truss rod accordingly.

I’ve never been too sure about the neck bow thing. I remember having got an answer some time back from someone else, but: how is it supposed to be?
When watching from the bridge or from the head of the guitar it has a slight bow away from the guitar, if you know what I mean?

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3.) Check the bridge, do the posts lean? Do the seem okey? Can you move the saddles far enough back?

As said earlier on, I can’t move the saddle on low B further back. Low E may be moved a little further back. Same goes for A. All other have plenty of “room”, except G which is pretty much like A. All these things I usually leave to the more experienced dudes at the repair shop (whenever I get there, which isn’t very often.).

The whole bridge is floats exactly as it should with the body of the guitar. Horizontally. (Does that make sense?). I’ve been told that it is as it should be, anyway. However, looking at it now. The posts seem to lean very, very, very slightly towards the fretboard.

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FInally, there are alternatives to have slightly better intonation. One is the Buzz Feiten approach, which means t have a upper saddle that is compensated, where each string has a different distance from the saddle as a contact point. ESP’s newer guitars have this (not Buzz Feiten but the same idea), as do Flaxwood guitars (same here, their own patent).

Would that help and is it even something that can be applied to my guitar, and is it something that I /maybe) should/could do?

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Teh only REAL alternative to have perfect true temperament on a guitar, means altering the way the frets are positioned so that each and every note on the guitar is intonated perfectly (sort of like on a piano which has true temperament). There are some Swedish guys that has invented this, and guys like Steve Vai is using it on all his guitars now. With this system every chord you will ever take will be in tune, which is just nto possible on a regular guitar (it’s a physical impossibility).

http://www.truetemperament.com/ is the adress if you want to check that out.

Hah, the guitars at the side looks awesome!

@Caelumamittendum 838 wrote:

Well, mainly overall, but mostly the low B really, but also G. High B and high E are the only ones without any real major problems.

Generally it’s not really over all…but I have to tune all my strings down about 1/5 to have frets above 1st to 4th intonate correctly. Then ofcourse 1st to 4th doesn’t.

I think it started once I started rehearsing with my band in that rehearsing room me and my dad made. I think there was a somewhat high temperature difference between here, at home, and then in the rehearsal room. I’ve heard that could cause something like that?

But well, yeah, Low B is the worst – so bad that I never use it.

Richard seemed to cover it all. there are so many things to take into consideration when a guitar is working properly. somting id check into is a hard shell case for the guitar if its going to be going from one temp. to another. it will slow down the rate of change so the guitar as time to settle.

@InFlames 933 wrote:

Richard seemed to cover it all. there are so many things to take into consideration when a guitar is working properly. somting id check into is a hard shell case for the guitar if its going to be going from one temp. to another. it will slow down the rate of change so the guitar as time to settle.

It’s not really going from one temperature to another anymore, as I’m only playing at home, but it is something I kinda regret not having bought many years ago. I only have a couple of…what do you call those…gigbags?

@Alex 946 wrote:

Intonating Floyd Roses is something I never had the patience for. ALso, is that a D-sonic 7 in the Schecter?

Yes, it’s a D-Sonic 7 and Air Norton 7. 🙂

@Sean Conklin 998 wrote:

Rick, can’t wait to see the Flaxwood!

And that lighting behind your guitars is awesome, looks like you took those at sunrise?

Same here Sean! I’ll keep you guys updated on it.

Its a little halogen lamp actually. seems to work well for those kind of pics. My cam is not so good tho.

@Trev 1006 wrote:

@Sean Conklin 998 wrote:

Rick, can’t wait to see the Flaxwood!/QUOTE]

+1 on that.

You must be pretty excited – they look like great guitars!

Hey Trev

Yeah very excited about receiving my endorsement model. Just finished up sorting the specs for it
actually. I think its gonna be a long wait :p

Your Suhr looks gorgeous man! How long have you had it?