Frustrated!

[N8PPQ]

Dear Possibly Informed Person:

Two years ago my sweet wife granted me my birthday wish: a brand new Ep. Les Paul, blue! (My favorite color.) So.. she's been wondering why I don't play it. Here's why - it sounds horrible.

Every string, once tuned perfectly in the open position, is *way* sharp on the first fret. The second fret is almost as bad. The third, almost as bad as #2, and so on down the neck until perfection is reached at #12. I have perfect intonation at the 12th fret, and the action is fine. I am *not* pushing too hard - this happens with the guitar flat in its case and pressing gently from above. (I bought a good gizmo for accurate tuning - just listening to this guitar was making me dizzy.)

What in the heck is wrong?! I took this back to the store twice and they say it's fine. I've taken it to other guitar shops and they say the same thing. I even had a professional guitar player try it (after his show at 2 am) and he says it's fine. But he was playing lead way up the neck. I play a lot of first position cords and I sound ridiculous.

My guess is that the nut is about 1/16" too far away from the bridge.

Is this just the way these guitars are? I have a Yamaha acoustic and it doesn't do this.

Thanks for any advice.

Dan N8PPQ

[Spudman***]

Boy, I'm stumped. Usually those are made very consistently but I suppose it's possible they had a machine get off calibration and set the frets in the wrong positions or the nut.

When you set the intonation be sure to use the open string and not the harmonic for your first pitch then use the string fretted at the 12th fret for the second pitch. If you have done it this way and the issue still exists I would do a couple of things:

First - I would try compensating a bit with the bridge saddle adjustment. If your lower fret notes are sharp then move the saddle towards the rear of the guitar some and see if the condition equalizes. Do you have old strings on it?

Second - Go to a shop or find someone who has that model guitar and measure the distance in 64ths from the center of the bridge posts to the leading edge of the nut. Then measure from the center of the bridge post to the center of the first fret, second fret and so on to the 7th fret. Be accurate and then compare those measurements to your guitar.

If it is off I'm sure that you can contact Epiphone and they will remedy the situation for you no matter the age of the guitar. If it is indeed a manufacturing error they will make it right.

[markb]

The nut may just be too high or the slots aren't cut deeply enough for the gauge of strings you're using. I think you need to find a good local repair person but your shop should be fixing this under warranty.

Welcome, by the way.

[ZMAN]

Mark's suggestion might be very close to the problem. I have owned several Epi LPs and every one has needed the nut filed. They are plastic and need to be adjusted. My tech does it reglularly on new set ups. Even the Elitist needed a slight adjustment to the bone nut. On Visual inspection do the strings sit on the nut, or are they actually sitting down in the grooves? That might be the first place to start. Maybe get a good tech to check out the nut. Or even intstall a bone nut. Remember they are hard to find. A lot of guys in the stores think they know set ups but most will adjust it to what "they" like. Talk to some Musicians who make their living at it and they will know the good techs.
Also be specific when you take the guitar in. Let them know that it sounds terrible in position 1 and 2. My Epis were all great players after a set up.

[Bilsdragon]

I'm not sure if this matters, but try setting the intonation in the playing position. The weight and neck stress could be different laying in a case. My Elitist LP only needed minor intonation adjustment out of the box. And Zman is correct, the bone nut in my guitar could use some filing. I'm going to try graphite at the next string change before I go the file route. It's not that bad.

[Guitar-Chris]

Every string, once tuned perfectly in the open position, is *way* sharp on the first fret.

Please do a test: Press a string on the third fret (e.g. between the second an third). Then look from the side over the 1st fret and look at the gap between the 1st fret and the pressed string. The pressed string should now have a minimum gap between itself and the 1st string or even touch this string slightly. If it has a greater gap, let's say nearly a milimeter (1/25 inch) or so the saddle is to high.

[aeolian]

I do believe your diagnosis is correct and the problem is with the nut.

Try this and see if it reveals any information. Tune your guitar at the first fret: press down on the first fret of the first string and tune to F, press on the the first fret of the second string and tune to C, etc. Now check tuning at the 12th fret, and see if they are reasonably correct. Then check the tuning for open strings to see how they are. If the tuning is correct at the first fret and it is off with open string then the problem is most likely the nut.

[evenkeel]

I went thru something similar with the Martin 12'er. A friend of mine pointed out the the action was a bit stiff and intonation slightly off. I honestly had not noticed the intonation issue and attributed the stiff action to it being a 12string. The nut was the culprit. I got a set of nut files and was able to fix it. Not a hard fix at all. This friend, a very good and experienced player, told me this is very common, even with the better manufacturers. A bit of research on my part confirmed this. And, once I got it fixed the difference was pretty dramatic.

I would also think slaping a capo on the first fret, taking the nut out of the equation so to speak, would test the "is it the nut" theory.

[N8PPQ]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I needed to know that my guitar actually was not working right. Without your feedback I might have gone another 2 years still thinking it's just me.

I noticed that if I push my thumbnail on a sting directly above the edge of the nut, the string plays as sharp as the 1st fret does. I changed strings and noticed that they slide easily through the grooves - but it looks like they're riding on the middle of the nut - back away from the neck. I think it's possible that someone filed the grooves by hand, and mistakenly rounded them over the nut.

I'm gonna get it fixed. And I'm really excited about playing a guitar that sounds as good as that one looks.

Thanks again!!

Dan (www.n8ppq.net)

[Guitar-Chris]

I noticed that if I push my thumbnail on a sting directly above the edge of the nut, the string plays as sharp as the 1st fret does. I changed strings and noticed that they slide easily through the grooves - but it looks like they're riding on the middle of the nut - back away from the neck. I think it's possible that someone filed the grooves by hand, and mistakenly rounded them over the nut.

I don't really understand your description?!? Is the groove too small or too big?

[markb]

I don't really understand your description?!? Is the groove too small or too big?

It sounds like the string is not sitting on a clean break point at the front edge of the nut as it should. Mystery tuning problems always seem to come down to a badly cut nut in one way or another. If you still have problems once you've adjusted everything you can with a screwdriver and an allen key it's time to look at that little strip of plastic or whatever sitting on the end of the fingerboard. Factory nut setups are rarely perfect. I thought my Epi LP was pretty good until I took it in for a setup and a change of pickups. The tech "evened up the action" (in his own words) across the nut and levelled a couple of slightly high frets that I hadn't even noticed. It was a much better playing and sounding guitar when I got it back. Faster, smoother, better string to string balance and in tune.

FWIW the nut on my Gibson J45 was cut a little high from the factory. This is not a cheap guitar but better too high than too low and at least the slots had the right profile.

[Guitar-Chris]

It sounds like the string is not sitting on a clean break point at the front edge of the nut as it should.

Ah, thank you. Together with your explanation I understand the one before. I think this makes sense and would be a reason for the described problems.

[N8PPQ]

Thanks to everyone who posted here. And thanks to TheFret for my birthday greetings, which reminded me to get back here. (I'm guilty in not checking in with my solution.)

The nut was actually in the wrong place. (!)

I took my (new) guitar to a quality repair shop about 50 miles away, http://www.hollandrit.com/, and got what the technician called a "custom nut job".



Although under warrantee, I discovered that Gibson does not compensate adequately for required repairs so I had to pay $100 on top of the reimbursement the shop would get from them.

The guitar sounded great after that. However….

I have since discovered that the frets are made of inferior material requiring that they be replaced! Can you imagine!!



This all reminds me of the 1972 Chevy Vega I bought, which helped lead to the "Lemon Laws".

You can see a YouTube video:
http://youtu.be/TFyYcrig6r0

http://youtu.be/TFyYcrig6r0

I'm sure I'm not the only individual having trouble with Epiphone these days. I'd definitely avoid them now, knowing what I do.

Thanks again!

Dan

[Spudman***]

I've never seen anything like that. That fret wear is beyond terrible. If you are a body builder with high anxiety I could understand those grooves. If you aren't, then there is no reason for fret wear that severe. Wow!

[Tig***]

+1
I've never seen fret wear like that before. Something is seriously wrong there.

Welcome back, N8PPQ!!!

[deeaa*]

That's pretty bad fret wear there indeed. But, it's easily corrected, just install new ones. Every hard-working guitar needs new frets now and then - they just wear out in use, no way around that. But they should not be THAT worn even after a decade of regular use. Low grade metal.

When you put in new ones, use hardened frets. Just rip out the old ones carefully and use a plastic hammer to drive in new ones, finish with a dremel or something, give it a nice fret level and polish, that's it. Another 10 years ahead!

It's amazing that even in these CNC-machine days I also have come across some guitars that had the nut in a totally wrong place, just this winter this lower-end LTD / ESP that also had the nut the same amount in the wrong place. I should really work on it some day and relocate the nut...it's a locking one though so it's a tad harder to get it right. But basically it just takes some filing to shorten the fretboard some, fill in old screw holes and moving the nut...that'd probably make the guitar intonate OK but it's still got a really sorry excuse of a Floyd in it and it's heavy as hell plus the pickups are kinda shitty and frets worn...it's circa 300-400 dollars new, so I really don't know if it's worth the time and effort to fix it with so many things wrong in it and you can get a better guitar used for like 150;- or so.

[duhvoodooman***]

I'd stop using those diamond-coated strings if I was you....

Gotta agree with the above posts--I've NEVER seen fret wear like that!

[marnold***]

Looks like they were hit with a chisel. The grooves look incredibly smooth to have been done by roundwound strings. Stainless steel frets will take care of that problem.