Roto 88s intonation

[seanm]

I have had a set of Roto 88s tapewounds on my P bass for more than a month now. I am gettting intonation problems as they break in. I am hoping for a "dummy, do this" answer before I just give up on them and go back to the LaBellas.

I would like to keep the tapewounds since I love the sound, and I already have a P bass with flats, so this gives me some diversity.

The intonation seems to be getting worse, or maybe I ignored it during the honeymoon period, I am not sure. It is only a problem on the E string. I tune so the open E is bang on. The E at the 12th fret is bang on. The harmonic at the 12th is bang on.

But hitting other notes is a crap shoot. Sometimes they are good, but usually they are bad. I am being very careful to hit right up against the fret. Basically I am starting to cringe just thinking about hitting the E string

I can't understand how sometimes it is good, but usually it is bad. This bass has been very very stable. With the LaBellas (which are higher tension if that matters), I have gone a month without needing to touch the tuning. It just stays bang on.

Now I stupidly broke the nut adding the new strings and got a new nut made. So the nut is new.

[seanm]

Ok, I solved it. You have to use a pretty light touch on the E string or it goes very sharp. Because I was getting frustrated, I was pushing harder on the E string, which was making it work.

In my defense, these strings are lower tension than I am used to on that bass. Although the strings are physically big, 115 E, they are much lower tension than the LaBella 760FS.

There should be a "cooling off" period for intonation posts.