Tuning issue with electric guitar

[Arthur Sweeney]

Hi all.

I have a Cort Special Series SP-3 electric guitar,

which is basically a copy of a Stratocaster.

I have an issue with tuning. I have a very good Korg electronic/digital

tuner, and when I tune the guitar, string by string, it looks

great (tunes well), but when I play the chords, it does not sound

like it is tuned properly. I use this tuner for my Martin DXM acoustic

guitar the same way, and the guitar sounds perfectly in tune when

I play chords. So, why wouldn't this be the case when I use it for

my electric guitar? Is it because the intonation is off? Or is it

basically because I have a cheap electric guitar? A local guitar shop

charges $50 for a full set-up on electric guitars. Is it worth it to get

a $50 set-up on a $100 guitar? Thanks in advance for answering all

my questions!

 

[Ned Knepp]

You're here trying to learn. What's not worthy about that?

Ned

[Paul Verticchio]

+1 0n what Ned says.

You are ABSOLUTELY worthy.

Even if you're not currently "confident" with your abilities, you have an obvious desire to learn. Feed that desire.

Although it's just a guess on my part; no member of this board was born with a natural ability to work on guitars. We all had to learn somewhere and this board is a superb learning tool. Building skills just takes a bit of time.

I sincerely encourage you to.....what the heck......be encouraged(:

May you have the very best of luck and my personal wish for you to stay connected and curious(: (:

Paul

[Arthur Sweeney]

Thank you Paul, and Ned.

[Mark A. Kane]

Another tip: lower the pickups away from the strings while setting the intonation. You'll get a cleaner standing waveform by reducing the pull exerted by the pickup magnets. If the pickups are too close, you will often hear/see sharpness. You can test this by RAISING the pickups and listening and looking at your tuner.

When the intonation is set, raise the pickups to your liking, but not too close as to cause the above.

[Tom Krebs]

Another note: Some Strat style bridges need to have the spring behind the saddle of the Low E cut down, removed, or replaced with a shorter one to gain a little extra intonation room. That may solve your problem?

[Grahame Myers]

Tom
Good call :-)

Grahame

[Ned Knepp]

Arthur,
I do this stuff for fun and don't have nearly the experience of a lot of the other people here. What I DO know has taken me years to learn including a lot of reading both on line and from books. I have a small but very helpful collection of books dedicated to Luthier and Guitars. Some are how-to and some are informational. All have been helpful.

The first decent guitar my brother and I ever got our hands on was a Gibson J-45 that obviously needed a bridge and saddle. We had already been working on our old cheap guitars ( because we couldn't afford to pay someone else to do it) but we finally realized that we just weren't up to some of this. We had a repairman fix it and found that it was a good thing because he fixed a lot of thing we would have missed. (bridge plate, loose brace...) . In the end, it was worth every penny and we finally had good guitar to play. NOW I would be comfortable doing those thing and I would know to look for internal issues as well as what was obvious. It all just takes time and care and persistence.