Guitarist nearly always sharp

[Groove Master]

I have recently been playing fretless quite a bit and working on my ear. Last night I played with one of the bands I play with and decided to use my Lightwave (fretted) bass.

The main rhythm guitarist was slightly sharp on almost everything. It was bothering my ear greatly. I stopped him during soundcheck and asked him to check his tuning. He fixed it.

When we got on stage to play, two of the other guitarists said their guitars went sharp and retuned, I checked my bass and was also slightly sharp. I don't think the main guy checked his. He is the singer and has the main rhythm guitar, so he is in my monitor strong.

When we went live, I was struggling. I had to bend most every note sharp to feel like it was correct. Really wished I had chosen to play fretless last night.

Don't know if I am here for recommendations, or just to complain.

Kirk

I think it is a common problem tie to a playing problem from the guitarists. They have smaller strings and they push to hard on the neck, making the strings sharp or even bend the strings while playing chords. Bad technic in general!

 

[Anders Barfod]

Good answers on the thread.
Playing hard, tuning soft is typical error.
Light strings combined with a high nut, sloppy intonation, large high frets.

My band has tuned down to e-flat on bass and guitars without changing string gauge and i can tell that we are overall sharper than before. The initial attack is sharp.

Even Stu hamn tunes to ~439Hz on 34" scale bass with a set of 45-105 strings in standard tuning.
The leadsinger in my band is a Rythmguitar player and plays 10-46 strings in e-flat. He should be playing a set of 11-49 instead in my opinion.

 

[dreamadream99]

Not every electronic tuner is the same. Brands can differ. The solution is to tune all stringed instruments with the same tuner.

 

[jcsk8]

Not every electronic tuner is the same. Brands can differ. The solution is to tune all stringed instruments with the same tuner.

This!

I´ve noticed that smartphones tuners, Boss pedal tuners and vibrating tuners give slight but noticeable different tunings. Also is common to tune my bass and while listening and playing along with some album the pitch is different and I have to fix it by ear.

 

[BassChuck]

Common problem. If a guitar is not set up properly there will be intonation problems. They tune the open string and then play chords halfway up the neck... yea, they'll be out of tune.
Also take your tuner and check keyboards (depending on the keyboard, the intonation might be different for different patches). Changing the intonation on electric keyboards is possible, but not a task one wants to deal with two minutes before the first song. If the keyboard is a couple of cents sharp, then tune the guitars and bass sharp the same distance. The only people who mind are the ones with perfect pitch (tell them to suck it up, then smile and buy them a beer).