Guitarist tuning issues.

[Honch]

He's a good friend and I thought he would do something about the problem, but he keeps bringing the same crappy guitar and getting bad results from it. I have mentioned to maybe use a different guitar, but then out comes another crappy guitar that has some issue with it.

Look, it seems like this:

1. He couldn't care less if it's in or out of tune. He goes for the poser, and wants guitars that looks cool instead of sounding cool. Period.
2. He uses thin gauges strings 009 or 008 that goes out of tune just by STARING SHARPLY at them.
3. He still is too rudimentary in both playing, and setup. Some cheaper guitars will not be setup ever due to constraints and cutting corners in production, as you said with strings getting caught on the fret sides, which has nothing to do with set up, but poorly made fret filing and levelling. It's mostly when he bends and do whammy bar things.
4. Some guitars, even high end ones, depends on traditional design, wood, and construction principles, and goes out of tune no matter what. Gibson SGs anyone? Tune it up perfectly with a proper accurate strobe tuner and then do this: Do a string bend up at the 12th fret on the B-string or G-string BUT DON'T PLAY THE STRING. Play the low open E string and take a good luck at the tuner. The bending of that other string makes all of the guitars soft wood, and nut be compressed, and it acts just like it had a floating tremolo on!!! It's due to that they make all of the design to weak, and faint, and is prone to headstock breaks, and the wood of the neck. If they only "upped" the dimensions all around with even one millimeter, such things would stay clear. You can do the "neck wiggle" with any SG, and see if anyone stays in the same position after you wiggled it with your hand. I e grabbing the headstock to produce a vibrato. The strings gets caught in the nut, and the lot of the neck doesn't ever go back in the same state, leaving it out of tune. The Les Pauls are much much better at it. Strats, and Teles too with a bolt on neck. You can do this trick on a Strat too, provided that you screw down the bridge tremolo block totally flush with the body so it doesn't react to anything done to the strings. It doesn't behave like that.

I've even seen one - real Gibson SGs, not cheap copy - changing the already tuned up open strings, while tuning up another string. The whole neck and instrument, and nut, reacts like it had a floating tremolo system. One strings increasing in tension is enough to pull the other ones out of tune, regardless of that you've already tuned them up. Which means you can't play a number through live, if the high E-string should snap because it throws everything else out of tune, just like it had a floating tremolo. I've even played MusicMan guitars that does this, can you imagine that?! Some does, some don't.

Now this is on original brands that costs major dough. Think for yourself what happens on cheapskate copies of them where they skimp on even more things.

5. It's not the guitars of his that needs to be changed out. It's him.

Really. I would, regardless of him being a friend. If not, I would jump ship with all other excuses, there is. Nothing to write home about.

 

[Honch]

Instead of changing out nuts and bridges on already cheap guitars, it's more worthwhile to get another more decent guitar. Remember the strings get caught on the fret wire edges!!! That can't be remedied with any nut, changed out bridge, or Sperzel tuners.

 

[NoiseNinja]

Talk Bass is a public forum.

Who are you telling not to post here?

Why are you try to curtail others right to free speech?

Best thing for NN is not to read threads that bother him. Change the channel and move on.

Where in my post do you see I am telling anyone not to post anything here?

What I am saying is that these post makes me wonder, and to me, in my opinion, they are an expression and display of immature behaviour that is much to be compared to displaying your dirty laundry in public.

You on the other hand seems to think that I am not intitled to have this opinion and that I am not in my right to express it honestly and post it!

And according to your own opinion, I guess it would have been best of you to ignore my post, pretend it never happened and just go on with your life, instead of ranting about it.

In other word you seem to be exposing quite some hypocrisy there.

 

[Krakmann]

Salud!

I keep wondering about these posts complaining about band mates.

Why, I LOVE reading about the problems people have with their bandmates.

 

[dxb]

Guitarist needs a good tech to make his junky hipster guitars playable- or to "accidentally" damage them beyond all repair if they can't be brought up to snuff.

 

[Honch]

It's a vein of deep inner stupid, pure and simple.

I play with a guitarist who strangles the neck so hard that the in tune strings sound out of tune. When he goes to retune everything is fine so he gets irked that we're getting on his back on tuning.

Maybe it's not the tuning, it's intonation? Get a real setup, and a real repairman, should know that one can't intonate for another person. That person must be present to see how hard he presses down the strings, and intonate more flat than normal. If that doesn't help use thicker strings. I've seen this happen a lot of times when people "brought up" on acoustic guitars (with thick strings) starts to play a open G major on any electric. Especially if he goes from fretboard with low frets, to high frets or huge frets. They want to feel the fretboard underneath and brings the strings way too sharp. I've met several of these people, and tried to coax them into some woodshedding and honing in that regard. It's the same with camera shooting, you're either in or out of focus. It's the inbetween that works. Overshooting and undershooting the pitch is the same.This is mostly on the first few frets, because it's - really - too narrow for them there so the fingers inadvertently bends down a string just because it could risk touching adjacent fingers... bad conduct, bad habit.

But the most annoying thing, when WATCHING guitarists play out of tune, no matter how well it's set up, or tuned or intonated, is that they undeliberately presses down the strings inside chords. They BEND certain notes, i e vertically not horisontally along the strings length. Within a chord. Just to get a firm grip and so they not slip, and get a clear full note out of it, and not a faint "pfft". I've seen numerous famous guitarists that does this dime a dozen and it beats me. It's basically the same thing, that they are grown up on acoustic, and the muscle memory can't get rid of that bad habit. They start to use thin strings on electric guitar, and goes by how it feels, rather than what it sounds. I e while fingering on acoustic, the force used, and "bend" is not sufficient enough to whach thick gauge strings out of tune, but using the same modus operandi on electric guitar will bend some strings. Same if you happen to dabble on nylon strings, like this, Norways famous shredder, Mads Eriksen, blinding technique but watch when he stays on ordinary chords at the first few frets, just watch the pararell strings and see how "bent" they are. And yet he doesn't hear it. It's a perfect example when gtrds spends too much time on other things, than really playing in tune, no matter that the guitar is perfectly intonated and in tune:

 

[Pirate Captain]

Sort of a "holy crap, his tone is awesome and he's playing a Farfenberg President Camacho!"

 

[lbbc]

I had a guitarist who was a tuning freak (for lack of a better word). He had quality gear but was obsessed with tuning between each song. No matter how much I spoke to him, he continued his "habit". On our next gig, I had a friend video our first set and watched it with him at our next rehearsal. Once he saw the amount of downtime between songs, and how people left the dance floor, he changed his tuning to just before each set.

 

[bassstrangler]

Yup, maybe he has brand snobbery.

 

[mapleglo]

The fact that he hates Strats is a deal breaker for me.

Like the Precision bass, Stratocasters are a staple in the industry.

Link Removed

 

[jamro217]

Could be worse. I was in a band with a guy whose guitars would go out tune during songs and he wouldn't tune up afterwards. By the third tune I didn't know what key he was playing in. Next rehearsal (or before the next curtain) explain how amateurish and distracting it is for your paying customers (i.e. the audience).

 

[40Hz]

Music is mainly about how it sounds, not how it looks. And performance isn't exclusively about you and what you want to do.

I'd suggest to your guitarist that people are far more interested in how the band sounds rather than how "cool" his guitar looks. (Besides…the pawnshop/junker guitar schtick has already been done to death ages ago, first by the old punk, and later the grunge bands - so he's not even being original.)

I'd tell him fix it or pack it in. I'm a real bug about playing in tune and avoiding interruptions or "dead air" (as in constantly retuning) once a band takes the stage.

But that's me. YMMV.

I was at an acoustic show awhile back where two of the guitarists must have hastily restrung just before coming out. They were sliding out of tune in every song. And they had to retune between every number. People were starting to fidget about it after the third song. By the fifth number people were starting to leave in droves. As did I.

I doubt they ever got booked back in that place.

 

[karl_em_all]

He needs to get a tuner with a mute and a set up done on his guitars. He'll either do it or he won't but that's what he needs to do.

 

[edencab]

I like crappy guitars...in the right hands and a decent bass player backing you up


I had a similar problem just last weekend...fun outdoor gig...and in fact half an hour before we went on guitar player #1 asked the B/L/git #2 if had a tuner, "Sure" says player #2, "I've got my headstock tuner so no problem".....proceeds to tune with volume up 2-3 times over 6 songs..I finally walked across the stage and told him to turn down the volume while tuning.."oh yah, good idea"...I stopped half way back, turned around and told him to turn it back up, as he was about to start the next song

 

[gln1955]

I keep wondering about these posts complaining about band mates.

If you got an issue with something someone is doing the most obvious, sensible, grown up and mature thing to do would be to go talk with the person in question about it, you know the one the issue concerns, not everyone else.

Posting your problems on a public forum won't solve them!

Also you might not know this, but guitars are more prone to go out of tune than basses, no matter quality.

When that is said it could probably be minimized with some adjustments, and tuning out loud during a show is definitely a no go.

99% of the Band Management forum is complaining about band members. Believe it or not, I've learned a lot from these threads.

If you don't like it, don't come in here. Simple.

 

[Michael Schreiber]

@Twobass You're friends? Talk to him. Convince him with arguments to do something(!) to solve what's annoying, i.e. tuning loudly, and getting out of tune.

However, I wonder why you'd so much focus on his guitar? Let him play whatever guitar he likes.
Even the cheapest guitar can be modded to stay in tune. That's solve one problem, right?
If you don't like his guitar, well, then I'd say, it's not his problem, then
At best, it'd be the whole band's problem to agree on a specific band sound.
But that'd be a different story, IMHO. Just saying.

Don't go too harsh on your band mates. You all have gathered for some reason. Recall what it is you formed a band for, and focus on that, I'd say. Whatever it is: Friendship, fun, money - recall what you all want to commit to, and remind yourselves to focus on that. Chances are, you can solve any problem, since all have the same goal, and no one would feel pis*ed of, when someone mentions what could be improved to reach your common goal.

Good luck and have fun! \m/

 

[Nev375]

I like crappy guitars...in the right hands ....

Well, that's the trick i'nnit?


I was going to say kidnap his guitars and replace the tuners for him, but instead you should kidnap him and replace his hands.

You're going to need a plastic tarp or two...

 

[Honch]

Has anyone been in a situation like this?

This was the original question, sorry about that. My bad. Answer:

No.

 

[Michael Schreiber]

This was the original question, sorry about that. My bad. Answer:

No.

 

[mcnach]

The guitar player in my bad loves to play cool looking cheap guitars that never stay in tune. They also always have issues with strings getting caught on edges of frets etc. I know there are people who hate Strats, and he's one of them. Even the cheap Mexican Strats are for the most part well made.

He's had problems the last 3 shows with one guitar going out of tune after just playing one song. I think it's a bad look tuning after every song and usually he doesn't have it on mute. Has anyone been in a situation like this?

The guy needs to stop prioritise trying to look cool in pictures and ensure he has an instrument that works first. You need a reliable instrument, what he's doing is ridiculous. I love cheap instruments, and I can sympathise with using different things, going for striking looking instruments etc... but I would make sure they can play first. I've passed playing a guitar at a given gig just because the wiring looked a bit suspect and I was not comfortable using it until I made sure the connections were solid.