Bad saddles

[Beginner Bass]

I was working on the intonation this morning. The wierd thing is, as I pulled the saddle back, it would steadily get flatter, until suddenly it would get sharper. Does anyone else know anything about this? If it helps, I got it used on eBay and looked like it had been thrown in a blender. It looked like the seller might have gotten it secondhand himself.

[MIJ-VI]

Hi Beginner Bass.

Your bass' pickup(s) might be adjusted too close to its strings thus pulling the string harmonics out of tune.

IME pickups should be adjusted parallel with the pick-guard (this helps insure that all the strings will be amplified to the same volume) and close enough to the strings for a good string capture/strong electrical output, yet far enough away to avoid excess magnet damping of the string's vibrations (leading to a loss of sustain and weird out-of-tune harmonics).