Intonation issue.

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Hodge69

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Recently, I've pulled my Goldstar apart to clean and service it. It got cleaned and polished, chrome shined, truss rod/neck relief adjusted (that's a pain in the *** on its own, having to take the flippin neck off), new strings and a final set up.
For as long as I remember, I've had trouble with the intonation on the 6th string. The saddle has had to be adjusted so far forward that it actually hits the tremolo pivot screw. Even a guitar shop, a few years ago, had trouble with it.
Anyway, I've been racking my brains tonight and decided to look up how to do it on YouTube. Jeesh, the crap that's on there! Some even doing one string while the others weren't up to pitch!!!!!
I nearly gave up, but saw an American guy telling you to lower the pickups while you intonate. He got some spiteful comments telling him it doesn't make any difference, but I gave it a go.
HEY, PRESTO - SORTED.
I lowered the pickups right down and intonated perfectly. The saddle is in a much more 'normal' position.
I then raised the pickups and noticed the intonation gets very inaccurate again.
Lesson - set your pickup height correctly. I now am using a tuner to set the pickup height.
Hope this helps someone with the same issue.
 
That is interesting, always hard to get the low E correct, normally have to tune it a bit low to be able to get a decent sounding G chord!
So do you lower the pickups right down, set intonation, then slowly raise the pickups until it starts to effect the note?
 
I think the whole intonation issue is a compromise on a Strat.
You either have the guitar in tune perfectly with lower output, or slightly out of tune with the pickups nearer the strings.
I've posted a new topic on this point, with a new video.
 

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