Fixing the intonation on a classical (spanish) guitar
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- Опубліковано 23 лют 2019
- I addressed the issue that the bridge on my Yamaha spanish guitar has tilted forward a millimetre or 2 in its 50 year history. L-shaped saddle time!
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The most intelligent discussion of intonation I've ever heard. Thanks!
it's pretty straightforward, not like you have to do geometry or physics equations.
The phenomenon where the strings take time to settle in after being untensioned and then retensioned is due to what is called anelastic recovery. Nylon is a viscoelastic material - it stretches under tension due to a combination of elasticity and creep. Nylon has logarithmic creep, so its rate falls with time until it becomes negligible and the string remains in tune. When you untension the string, the elastic component of its stretch immediately recovers and over time, a significant fraction of the creep also recovers. Hence, when you retension the string, it will start to creep again and go out of tune. The longer you leave a string untensioned for, the greater the anelastic recovery - if you immediately retension a string, the effect is smaller than if you leave it for a few hours.
My classical guitar maker intones both the nut and the saddle so that each string is very slightly further back or forward on both the nut and saddle. He made me a classical and a flamenco guitar and each tunes and plays more in tune than any other nylon string I have ever played. It is such a pleasure to play up and downt he fingerboard and have the notes all sound in tune.
Nylon strings take time to stabilise due to the anchoring needing to bed in at both the tuning machine and the bridge anchor points. The 'knots' are slipping slightly after being disturbed. You can reduce the stabilisation time in two ways.
1: At the bridge, link the ends of one strings under its neighbour. This has two effects; it prevents the end of the string 'buzzing' on the soundboard and prevents the string from slipping as much as the knot tightens. At the back of the bridge I anchor the E under the A, the A under the D, the D under the G, the G under the D, and the B under the G, and the E under the B. It's a bit fiddly at first, but the effect both looks good (neat and tidy) and adds stability to the anchoring.
2: At the tuning machine, pass the string over the top of the barrel of the anchor point and up through the hole from the bottom. Then pass the end over the string and back through the hole. Now pull it tight. The string will self anchor and usually does not slip at all. You will likely need to cut the string much shorter than before and need fewer winds to hold the string. The fewer winds you can get away with, the more stable the anchoring. I rarely have more than two winds on the wound strings and three on the solid strings.
One other thing. I have found the composite G string in the D'Addario EJ45C set to be especially good at both smoothing the transition from the wound D to the solid G string and compensating for the effect of the relative thickness of the G string.
You need another thimbs up for that👍
Susan! Your my hero. I have been reading a lot of (very complex and incomprehensible) texts about guitar issues which you explain so simply. Thanks.
So good seeing someone get creative and try different techniques on the spot on the fly as a repairman myself for 10 years it made my day seeing this video so many great ideas and tricks total brain candy learned alot and made me smile to see a great repair done well I'll be useing these ideas in future thank you Soo much your are fantastic keep it up
There was so much good information in this video, I absolutely enjoyed this! As an amateur luthier it's videos like this that really help improve my skills.
Wow! Incredible demonstration. Still always looking forward to the guitar build videos, but wow!
I know this is an old video but I've found it fascinating and very informative! Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and experience. I am by no means an accomplished musician but I enjoy playing both classical and acoustic guitars: I believe this is by far the best video on intonation I've ever come across. You did a wonderful job explaining what needs to be done and, crucially, why. An instant subscribe for me!
Wonderful video Susan. You have a talent for explaining things.
Thanks for the explanation of intonation! Good thorough explanation of what you were doing.
Very clear explanation. Great craftsmanship in troubleshooting and execution
Excellent! Intonation issues make so much more sense now that I know about the 'nul zone' - finally, after over forty years of playing! Thank you. You are a great teacher.
Very nice work. And very thorough explanation.
Thank you!
I've been repairing and setting up guitars for decades and there was loads of stuff in this video that I didn't know! Excellent!
I love watching antifa get their asses kicked
Very interesting demonstration. I'm sure it will come in handy in future for my own guitars. Thanks.
I learned so much! Thank you, Susan.
I learned a lot Susan. Thanks a million!!!
Congrats! Fantastic work!
I LOVE LOVE LOVE your disc sander
Nice to see you and your work again
A brilliant display of competence!
This video is the best explanation I've found! I did find another very helpful one but it was long and complicated. Thanks.
Interesting video! Thank you for sharing and explaining about the saddle tilt
that is the kind of work that i was ever looked for from a Luthier what *really* aim the perfection.
thank you for share a bit of your hard, surgical and engineering work, what most will not even notice but they will want to play on it dosen't know why
GOOD! please more.
You are amazing!!!! Loved this video!!! ❤️
This was impressive, I must say. Such a technical and scientific approach!
Great lesson. Thank you
The best explanation of nylon vs steel string compensation I have heard! Well done!
Best explanation on any topic ever achieved.
🙏♥️🎸
OMG, I nearly fainted when I saw your guitar. We have one exactly like it purchased in 1977 or so which makes it about 45 years old, nearly the same as yours. I’ve been having problems with an odd “buzzing” (not exactly fret rattle) on the G and D strings, the neck isn’t bowed and string height off the fretboard is fine. None of the repair shops can find anything wrong but it drives me crazy. Anyway, sorry to ramble, thank you so much for the informative video. I love our guitar which has gotten mellower with age, it was so nice to see it pop up on UA-cam!
I have been unable to get upstairs to my workshop due to my having Parkinsons, with the result that my latest guitar has not been finished and is highly unlikely to be now that I am looking at my final demise, so I was wondering if you would like to finish it for me. As I said in an earlier message it is an experimental guitar with the front grain radiating from the bridge being made up of 30 triangular pieces of cedar reinforced with a piece of cedar going from the sound hole to the lower bout with two struts either side of the soundhole strengthening the top. Hoping to hear from you in the not too distant future from Barry Dycret, the guitar maker.
This was a very informative video. Thank you.
That was a very good explanation and demonstration - thank you very much! :)
What a great explanation of intonation! Thank you Susan. I've fixed intonation problems on ukuleles a number of times like this but made the saddle by laminating two pieces of bone together with CA glue which is much easier than making from one piece of bone. Gluing surfaces need to be well prepped to get a clean join but if done well, it's hard to see the join . I haven't noticed any loss in tone - the additional saddle mass probably has more impact.
Thank you for the video, i took your advise. I worked on a L shape saddle to my 31 year old classic guitar, it has now a better intonation.
Thanks for this explanation. I had often wondered why there was an adjustment on the G string of my bridge and not elsewhere on my nylon string guitar. Now I know.
Hi Susan,
What a great video. I really learned a lot from this ☺️ And great to see hou you work that bone 🦴
Lot’s of greetings, Dennis 🇳🇱
Having spent the last three years since retirement learning to build electric guitars, including winding my own pups, I recently bought a made in Romania Montana Spanish acoustic hybrid to learn on, inexpensive $43 shipped.. It has a flat fingerbord and is 43 mm at the nut. I have done a fret replace (flat fingerboard so much easier than radius) cut a new bone nut and saddle to replace plastic. I was wondering about intonation on acoustic guitars (Spanish style and other), wow now I understand so much more. I loved to see the struggles, I share these experiences with you and now you with me, genius. I am on a limited budget, so I have to improvise my own tools and strategies to do the work. I am now a fan and a subscriber. I hope to be building an acoustic soon. I will be watching. Thanks.
Wow, lots of work, but you have really enlightened all of us🤗🤗
thank you for doing this film it's great to know some one care about this
1st, Cudos to you making your own saddle from a large piece of bone. 2nd, like many others, your explanation of intonation, compensation and dead zone- something I never heard discussed before, is about the best I've heard. You've probably saved my short scale steel string from being slammed against the wall. The B string is always sharp on the 12th (well they all are but B most noticeably) and I've shaved 2 compensated saddles but it's still there driving me crazy. Didn't think of using a thicker saddle with a slight overlap. That would do it. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Excellent explanation!
Great, thanks a lot for this video! Nylon strings take longer to settle because of the shape memory of the material (same as steel strings but they are much more rigid than nylon so it takes much less time). A good cheat to make it faster is 1) stretch each string on all the length (sadly I can’t show how it’s done here but I’m sure there are some videos) and then 2) tune the strings about 1.5 semitones higher, let it sit for few minutes and then do it again with the strings (usually the bass strings) that dropped all the way below the correct tuning - just 1 semitone is enough then. Repeat few more times but brand new strings will settle within like 15-20 minutes this way. I remember during studies at the conservatoire we couldn’t possibly have time to wait any longer, and actually we’re even dropping the tension of bass strings intentionally (big time, till they get floppy, for maybe half an hour) in the morning before a concert to make the strings sound better - if you then tune them up maybe a semitone higher, they just drop right where you want them in few minutes
Thanks, you answered a question I had about nylon vs steel intonation, and you were most through.
0:50 Agustín Barrios. Una Limosna por el Amor de Dios is the intro she is playing here. An absolutely beautiful piece by one of the greatest guitarist who ever existed.
Beautiful!
Thank you! I always scroll down to the comments section when I hear a song I like but don't know the name of hoping some legend like yourself will be there to name the song. There never actually is though 😂. Much appreciated.
Wonderful job, Susan. I realize the skills you demonstrate in this online class far exceed my technical abilities, however, I'll explain what I did about 10 years ago to fix the intonation issues with my very cheap classical guitar. Noticing that my Fender Stratocaster string saddles are configured in a staggered position, I tried to emulate the same paradigm. I proceeded to remove the bone, filled the slot with wood shavings mixed with epoxy and then Dremeled out a new slot with the desired slanted angle. It was an experiment done intuitively that somehow paid off. I'm pretty sure it's not for everybody and only to be tried on a cheap instrument in case things don't go too well. Cheers and thanks for the lesson!
Great video! very clear explanation.
great tutorial about adding an overstep to the saddle.
I have a Classical where the G+B strings needed more saddle at the front (fretboard side). And the Bass 'E' string needed more saddle at the back (side where string goes through bridge).
I did it by having a perfectly 'flat and square' piece of bone (set to the correct saddle slot thickness and depth).
Then, i superglued bone pieces where the saddle needed to be extended (giving it 24hrs to dry). And shaped them as needed.
It worked, with less manufacturing hassles.
But, i think i will try to make the stepped saddle ..just for the challenge :)
Very informative, would have never considered that approach.
Great tutorial!
That was excellent, a thorough and well demonstrated explanation of intonation. Followed by an equally thorough demonstration on how to fix the problem. I was wondering if you fix other players instruments. Thanks
Great stuff!!
Perfect explanation, thank you
I learnt a lot from this video. Thanks
There are two different compensations that can be implemented to improve intonation on a guitar. One is movement of the nut from its theoretical position, closer to the first fret, nut compensation. The other is movement of the saddle from its theoretical position, further from the nut/12th fret, saddle compensation. Both of these have been known for a long time and are not new fads, though nut compensation is still rarely seen in most guitars, and saddle compensation has been used, in one approximation or another, for quite some time.
The two compensations contribute to the overall accuracy of intonation, each contributing differently. Used together, they can considerably improve the intonation of a guitar. Without getting too long-winded, moving the nut closer to the first fret reduces the amount by which the string length needs to be increased at the saddle. That is, the amount of nut compensation is subtracted from the amount of saddle compensation, reducing the amount of saddle compensation required.
In the situation you have described on your guitar, an alternative to simply adding more length to the vibrating string by moving the saddle away from the nut/12th fret is to implement nut compensation. Doing so would likely eliminate the need to use a stepped saddle and would improve the intonation, particularly in the first few frets. One can find extensive discussion of the method in Gore's books.
I am simply amazed!! Subbed and liked!
Thank you very much for very instructive vido. I will try this technique on my C40.
I have a very old martin paylor guitar built in 1919 and it may very well it wasnt originally a steel string guitar with very little angle on the bridge. I had know idea there was a difference. Thank you, you really know your stuff!!
Actually saved this video as it is so helpful!
Amazing job...
Very interesting, thanks
What I ended up doing on mine years ago was filing off the slot completely and replaced it with two pyramid shaped pieces of wood in which I carved out a trough and added a little brass dowel to replace the saddle. Now I have a split movable saddle that I can adjust for intonation at will.
Make a video of it please 🙏
Wonderful video
This is the best intonation explanation I've seen. Thanks for showing all the trial and error attempts in finding a good way to shape the saddle. I just went through something similar in creating a shelf like that on a nut in order to intonate that. I used a couple of straight boards with sandpaper held against one of them to create a right angle as a sanding jig, with a spacer so that the nut rode above the vertical board enough to create the shelf. It took forever, and perhaps rigging up something similar with a file would be better. Holding the nut by hand was difficult and laborious. I think I would take a clue from your glueing idea but instead glue directly to a board with some hide glue (for easy reversibility). (BTW how do you feel about nut compensation?)
Interesting. This explains why I get a trained luthier to perform such operations.
very interesting video , enjoyed that
Very cool video!
Good explanation.
She has me building all kinds of cool things
What an amazing video. Full of information and advice. You have a natural presentation style too.
I don’t quite understand the sciencey bits but got the gist.
I’ve been playing guitars for well over 50 years and have had a large range of instruments. I’ve settled mostly on the nylon strung variety. Intonation issues are crazy with nearly every one I’ve had; especially with the third string.
I spend around 30 minutes trying to tune to an equal temperament (whilst playing in every key), every practice session. I then have a pleasurable hour of playing the thing. It all has to be gone through the next time though… I’ve tried many makes of string and all sorts of set up ideas, but the problems are ever present.
It seemed that among instrumentalists, guitarists are probably, through necessity, the most obsessive.
Brilliant way of curing intonation! Well done! ) have you had training on setting up guitars?).. 🎸🎉👍
Very interesting approach with the L-shaped saddle. I wonder if this still transfers the string vibrations as well as the straight saddle. Maybe it would be better to glue a piece of bone in the slot to fill it, and cut a new slot behind the old one? Regardless, thanks for the most enlightening (and well-filmed) discussion!
Well explained. Thanks.
Susan, that was very comprehensive. Thanks for the knowledge sharing.I to have a very old Suzuki classical guitar and I thought id experiment with Dunlop Classical ball end strings. Have you opinion about these?.Seems to me they are going out of tune easily, but hearing you're expert views on string bending, maybe that's reason why this is happening, because I play different genres on this guitar. It's become my quick pick me up play me guitar sitting in a stand instrument
It just makes me smile. Smile because I don’t believe I’ve ever hear someone explain is so well. Even the video still had your trial and errors of showing the challenges of clamping down the saddle while you shaped it. Unheard of! Most just edit that out, which isn’t helpful at all. Thank you for being helpful. I actually feel smarter today.
Nothing but admiration for your knowledge and skill. On a practical theme a small affordable desktop cnc machine would cut a design such as the L bridge in a minute or two,and it would be as designed. Thanks for the video. I learned a lot.
Thanks very much for the video, which I used as a guide to help me solve a similar issue with my old Takamine guitar that I wanted to give to a 10-year old just learning to play, but couldn't until the intonation was fixed. The bridge was too far back and intonation was too flat around the upper frets, so I used a blank bone slab to create an L-shaped saddle to shorten the scale length and sharpen the fretted notes, just like yours (except in reverse).
For future reference, I found a formula to calculate the setback (or setforward) required, and there's no need to measure the length between frets.
SCALE LENGTH / 17.817 = FIRST FRET DISTANCE (FFD)
FFD x INTONATION ERROR (at the 12th fret) = compensation required
(100 cents per semitone, so 1 cent flat/sharp = ± 1% INTONATION ERROR)
Example... for a guitar with a scale length of 650 mm, and a string which is 5 cents sharp at the 12th fret:
650 mm / 17.817 = 36.48201156199136
36.48201156199136 x .05 = 1.824100578099568
setback required: about 1.82 mm
Thanks so much! I am finishing up my first classical guitar, and I have… intonation problems… Your video will help me solve my problem!
There are lots of examples of classical guitars with slanted saddles - Ramirez of course and also Burguet to name a couple of very well known makers, both traditional Spanish made guitars. What I noticed with this lovely video and excellent working on the bone, was that at the end of all that work, the 'g' string was very definitely still quite sharp at the 12th fret.
I was surprised how far back I moved it. There might be another iteration to do. You could argue it’s impossible to hear less than 3 cents
That was brilliant.
Wow thank you for the video
I was hoping that you would play.But that’s okay.I learned a lot.Thank You.
A number of years back I carried out exactly this modification to a classical guitar that had intonation problems, I guess you can describe it as a shelf style saddle.
The idea could have been inspired by the Earvana Nut, however it was something that I just done at the time to solve the problem. I was not aware before or since of anyone else doing this. It would be interesting to know if there is a published source endorsing this sort of modification or whether or not Susan just independently came up with it (like me).
Awesome! You can occasionally get double width saddles on Reverb.
Well done
Amazing! Cheers!!
Answers to a number of things I've always wondered about. Thanks.
Explanation of compensation due to tension over saddle is actually first time I’ve heard that despite looking up a lot on the subject an makes perfect sense. Many thanks. Just making a nylon hybrid guitar and currently put in a 1mm compensation from high to low E on the saddle slot (most nylons just have a straight saddle and pushed back 2mm). Hopefully with careful location of bridge that’ll do for this guitar and I can improve on it if I make more.
Hmmm, Young's Modulus... are you an engineer perchance? I am not a musician, but I have increased my understanding of intonation significantly thanks to this excellent video! Your explanation of the "nul" zone was excellent. I have long wondered why the saddle on a steel string acoustic is angled and thanks to you, now I know. I am getting older now, but every day I try to learn something new. Today, I not only feel I learned something new, I feel I have made a breakthrough in my understanding. It is a very good feeling. You have made my day! Thanks so much!😊
To answer your question at the end, I don't know. But I have noticed that with some guitars with well broken in strings, if you resist the urge to start tuning it first thing when you pick it up, and instead allow it to warm up, the strings automatically tune themselves.
awesome vid!
Players are always chasing perfect intonation. The more you think about it the more of a problem it becomes. Changes in the instrument over the years, the humidity indoors vs. the humidity outdoors, string hardness, and so forth. I’ve sometimes had good luck with wound G strings. I’ll be interested to see your results once the guitar and the strings have had a little Ike to settle. Thanks for the video.
Thanks, great video. Great info, going to get a classical here soon, Lol didnt know you couldnt do bends on them. It will be different from shredding on my steel string. God bless. :)
Thank you for the video. How much contact do you need for the string to the saddle. I am working on my ukulele and I am trying to compensate for the notes all being sharp by 3 cents or more at the 12th fret. Do you generally need a more rounded edge and wider to get good sustain? The intonation is better on my ukulele when I shaped a new bone saddle going from a plastic one with the crown more towards the rear of the Saddle but much narrower than the original. As a result I don't think the sustain is as good on it now as it was with the plastic nut which which had a wider centered crown. Also thank you for explaining that the strings will have to go through a break in cycle again when you loosen them as that kept happening to me as I adjusted the original saddle for action height and the new one. I thought something was wrong with my strings.
Just learned a bunch of stuff i didn’t know that i needed to know.
You have proper tools to work on bone saddles like this?? I don't 😭😃, so I pay someone 😭😭😭 lol. Take care!!! Be safe.
Excellent explanation on achieving proper intonation on a guitar. Very elegant work on saddle compensation with minimal specialty tool use. I was quite impressed. It's nice to see skills and grace in your execution. As an amateur luthier who has just completed my first complete restoration and setup on a 1970 Ariana guitar made in Japan (guitar was tossed into a bin and I rescued her). Ive spent 3 months on lockdown working her back to playable condition and your video was very helpful to me on achieving better intonation on this project. It is very rewarding. Thanks for posting Susan!
Very good idea !!!!!
1:22 The saddle compensation slant is not a steel string vs classical issue.
Virtually every high quality classical guitar will also have a saddle set at a slight angle to produce compensation. If not, then it is generally a reflection of the instrument's price point.
Outstanding video. Having a "luthier" do the work is great, but having to send the guitar to the builder (in my case, Thomas Humphrey RIP) the cost is great. Very good information!! Cheers.
Thank you Susan! Now I understand why the saddle has a notch where the G-string runs over... that notch makes the nut->saddle length of the G-string longer than the other 5 strings by about 1-2mm ie the compensation she talks about. I also notice that the G-string hole in the wood block/tie bar behind the saddle on my guitar is showing signs of stress / enlargement of the hole & lifting of the top "bone" strip ... i wonder if that tie-bar can be replaced without replacing the entire bridge. Can it?