Learned something new today

[IdealWay]

This may be rather elementary, but it's new to me!

Intonation is directly affected by string mass, which means that the oil and crud that accumulates on your strings will prohibit your bass from being totally intonated.

Just thought I'd share

[Pilgrim]

Hmmmm... if it's not mass within the vibrating area of the string, I'd take that info with a grain of salt. But I've been wrong once before.

[mulchor]

hmm... gonna have to quit eating buffalo wings whilst playing

Thanks for the headsup!

[Meatrus]

I would go for a guess that this isnt true. When people refer to string mass they are talking string gauge, not weight. If there are chunks of crap sticking out the side of your strings, you have a bigger problem than intonation. Added to the facts that you wont hear intonation differences that small, and you could alter your intonation to accommodate this.

[JTE]

Pilgrim and Meatrus- Nope, the assumption we make when we set intonation is that the string is vibrating evenly along its entire speaking length. Dirt, finger funk, nicotine, sweat, etc cause the string to vibrate unevenly. That combied with metal fatigue are what make strings go "dead".

John

[lug]

Intonation is mostly determined by the strings flexability at the witness point. A big thick string over a saddle will vibrate a bit farther away from the end of the saddle than a thin string. This is why tapered strings and non-tapered string had such intonation differences at the saddle.