First, Happy New Year to everybody.
Now, for the rest of the story. Last summer, I spent a couple months playing with a singer who had an Ibanez archtop, one of the Artcore series, I think. When I played my X-170, I noticed that there was a little out of tune-ness between the two as I went up the neck, didn't notice it when I played my F-50. So, I figured my bridge had gotten moved a bit. Then, we stopped playing and it slipped my mind until recently, when a thread on the Jazz Forum mentioned using the E-e method of intonation for an archtop. You detune strings 2 through 5 so that the bridge can be moved more easily, and intone the 1 and 6. The rest should then fall into place.
So, tonight, I put it on my workbench (our chest freezer covered in towels) and detuned. First thing I noticed was that the lesser tension on the neck caused the two 'e's' to go up a half step. Retuned to the e's, checked the tuning at the 12th fret harmonic and fretted with a Stroboclip and discovered they were spot on. As i retuned the rest of the strings, I had to keep moving the e's up (not surprisingly), and when I was done, all six were spot on.
I decided that it was the other guitar that needed intonation, but then why didn't I notice the discrepancy when I played my F-50? Maybe just because it was unamplified and not as noticeable, or some other reason? Anyhow, just a few thoughts from my now 3-4 beer new year's mind.
Time to play before too many more...
Brad
Now, for the rest of the story. Last summer, I spent a couple months playing with a singer who had an Ibanez archtop, one of the Artcore series, I think. When I played my X-170, I noticed that there was a little out of tune-ness between the two as I went up the neck, didn't notice it when I played my F-50. So, I figured my bridge had gotten moved a bit. Then, we stopped playing and it slipped my mind until recently, when a thread on the Jazz Forum mentioned using the E-e method of intonation for an archtop. You detune strings 2 through 5 so that the bridge can be moved more easily, and intone the 1 and 6. The rest should then fall into place.
So, tonight, I put it on my workbench (our chest freezer covered in towels) and detuned. First thing I noticed was that the lesser tension on the neck caused the two 'e's' to go up a half step. Retuned to the e's, checked the tuning at the 12th fret harmonic and fretted with a Stroboclip and discovered they were spot on. As i retuned the rest of the strings, I had to keep moving the e's up (not surprisingly), and when I was done, all six were spot on.
I decided that it was the other guitar that needed intonation, but then why didn't I notice the discrepancy when I played my F-50? Maybe just because it was unamplified and not as noticeable, or some other reason? Anyhow, just a few thoughts from my now 3-4 beer new year's mind.
Time to play before too many more...
Brad
!
