Dallas Marlow
Active member
Hey All,
I know there are quite a few of us on this board that play either Suhr or Anderson guitars that have the Buzz Feiten system installed on them, and if you have ever adjusted strings sizes, changed saddles, or made tremolo adjustments you may need to reset your intonation.
I've been doing quite a bit of work on one of my Suhr guitars, just a pro series S1 that I wanted to change a few things, pickups, saddles to get more to my particular liking, I really didn't like the stock saddles with the Gotoh 510 bridge, they appeared to be cast and not milled, and whether it was my abuse of the tremolo or a possible defect in the saddle it was sometimes binding up already from I guess grooves... the other issue was for whatever reason I didn't have a balanced high E in volume in comparison to the other strings, not sure why this was, maybe I just had a bad run of saddles. Anyway, anyone with a similar issue can contact HipShot and order a set of the Tyler Saddles for the Gotoh 510 and they are perfect replacements and IMHO a LOT more solid in sound and function, more of a direct sound, you do loose some "airy hollow" qualities with these saddles but this was exactly what I was searching for.
Ok on to the meat and potatoes:
For those of you with an Axe-Fx you can program your tuner with these offsets, these settings are -2 CENTS or +1 CENT, not .02 etc., so don't get thrown off by that make sure to use it by the full cent and not the decimal points if the Axe has that setting. For those with out an AxeFx like me, I downloaded a shareware program http://www.katsurashareware.com/piano/piano.html, its got some annoying pop ups and after about 20 min it makes you quit, but if your patient and just click through it's worth it not to pay the $100, I programmed in the offset files for the open strings and for the 12th fret, so what you do is tune the open string to the "open" offset, then after that is perfect in tune "locked" in the strobe tuner, switch to the 12th fret, and see if it's sharp or flat, if the bar is running to the right it's sharp, going to the left it's flat. Here are the needed stretch files for the program, I programmed them all in for only the specific guitar strings. Please make sure to unload all the contents of the shareware download files into your applications folder on mac, and then put these files into the stretch tunings.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1633188/Buzz%20 ... et.stretch
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1633188/Buzz%20 ... en.stretch
Note________Open String Offsets
E___________________0
B__________________+1
G__________________-2
D__________________-2
A__________________-2
E__________________-2
Note__________12th Fret Offsets
E___________________0
B___________________0
G__________________+01
D__________________+01
A___________________0
E___________________0
These settings are specifically for intonation, I don't have the correct way to tune exactly once it is set, but below is an excerpt from Tom Anderson that is how they tune their guitars!
Here's a couple other misc. tips on doing intonation.
Make sure your guitar is setup how you want it, with new, correct gauge strings and your guitar is EXACTLY how you want it before you begin, otherwise your just going to end up having to re-do the intonation over and over, make a tweak, your out, make a tweak your out and on and on.
Make sure your pickups aren't to high, this will absolutely throw off your intonation, I don't agree with the mindset of lowering your pickups all the way to do intonation for two reasons, 1) there is going to be a certain amount of magnetic pull even when set at the appropriate height, and it will make SOME difference in string pull, 2) you will get a louder more accurate signal with pickups at the correct height.
When the note reads sharp, you tighten the screw, aka make the string longer, when your flat you loosen the screw, making the string shorter.
If you want peterson tuners also have built in Buzz Feiten sweetened tunings, however; the base version of the computer program does not, but I believe you can still program the offsets in your self... not 100% but check into it.
Here is a great tip from Anderson Guitar works on how to tune your guitars with Buzz Feiten, assuming it's appropriately set up.
I hope this helps everyone! If you have any questions or thoughts to add please do so!!!!
Dallas
I know there are quite a few of us on this board that play either Suhr or Anderson guitars that have the Buzz Feiten system installed on them, and if you have ever adjusted strings sizes, changed saddles, or made tremolo adjustments you may need to reset your intonation.
I've been doing quite a bit of work on one of my Suhr guitars, just a pro series S1 that I wanted to change a few things, pickups, saddles to get more to my particular liking, I really didn't like the stock saddles with the Gotoh 510 bridge, they appeared to be cast and not milled, and whether it was my abuse of the tremolo or a possible defect in the saddle it was sometimes binding up already from I guess grooves... the other issue was for whatever reason I didn't have a balanced high E in volume in comparison to the other strings, not sure why this was, maybe I just had a bad run of saddles. Anyway, anyone with a similar issue can contact HipShot and order a set of the Tyler Saddles for the Gotoh 510 and they are perfect replacements and IMHO a LOT more solid in sound and function, more of a direct sound, you do loose some "airy hollow" qualities with these saddles but this was exactly what I was searching for.
Ok on to the meat and potatoes:
For those of you with an Axe-Fx you can program your tuner with these offsets, these settings are -2 CENTS or +1 CENT, not .02 etc., so don't get thrown off by that make sure to use it by the full cent and not the decimal points if the Axe has that setting. For those with out an AxeFx like me, I downloaded a shareware program http://www.katsurashareware.com/piano/piano.html, its got some annoying pop ups and after about 20 min it makes you quit, but if your patient and just click through it's worth it not to pay the $100, I programmed in the offset files for the open strings and for the 12th fret, so what you do is tune the open string to the "open" offset, then after that is perfect in tune "locked" in the strobe tuner, switch to the 12th fret, and see if it's sharp or flat, if the bar is running to the right it's sharp, going to the left it's flat. Here are the needed stretch files for the program, I programmed them all in for only the specific guitar strings. Please make sure to unload all the contents of the shareware download files into your applications folder on mac, and then put these files into the stretch tunings.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1633188/Buzz%20 ... et.stretch
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1633188/Buzz%20 ... en.stretch
Note________Open String Offsets
E___________________0
B__________________+1
G__________________-2
D__________________-2
A__________________-2
E__________________-2
Note__________12th Fret Offsets
E___________________0
B___________________0
G__________________+01
D__________________+01
A___________________0
E___________________0
These settings are specifically for intonation, I don't have the correct way to tune exactly once it is set, but below is an excerpt from Tom Anderson that is how they tune their guitars!
Here's a couple other misc. tips on doing intonation.
Make sure your guitar is setup how you want it, with new, correct gauge strings and your guitar is EXACTLY how you want it before you begin, otherwise your just going to end up having to re-do the intonation over and over, make a tweak, your out, make a tweak your out and on and on.
Make sure your pickups aren't to high, this will absolutely throw off your intonation, I don't agree with the mindset of lowering your pickups all the way to do intonation for two reasons, 1) there is going to be a certain amount of magnetic pull even when set at the appropriate height, and it will make SOME difference in string pull, 2) you will get a louder more accurate signal with pickups at the correct height.
When the note reads sharp, you tighten the screw, aka make the string longer, when your flat you loosen the screw, making the string shorter.
If you want peterson tuners also have built in Buzz Feiten sweetened tunings, however; the base version of the computer program does not, but I believe you can still program the offsets in your self... not 100% but check into it.
Here is a great tip from Anderson Guitar works on how to tune your guitars with Buzz Feiten, assuming it's appropriately set up.
I hope this helps everyone! If you have any questions or thoughts to add please do so!!!!
Dallas
