Les Paul Studio...tuning....

guitarzero

Hey folks

Bought a Les Paul about a year ago and have endured the fact that it doesnt stay/sound in tune fully. Apparently this a notorious trademark of Les Paul. The middle G string goes quite easily and when pressed (especially G sharp) its blatantly out of tune, as does the Top E string once pressed. I've been thinking of switching to a Strat, they seem better made and reliable. Any suggestions? Thanks.

Havermeyer

Have you tried getting it intonated?

guitarzero

Not too sure about intonation 2bh, if you could give some directions that would be cool man...

Havermeyer

http://www.wikihow.com/Set-Your-Guitar%27s-Intonation

That website seems to explain it quite well.

damonjewel

intonation is quite simple. Get yourself a tuner and play the string open. tune the string to its correct pitch, now fret the 12th and play the string, check your tuner is the string showing its pitch exactly? If it is sharp then the bridge saddle has to be adjusted towards the end of the guitar. If it is flat adjust the saddle towards the neck.

Make small adjustments, and retune the open string afterwards and try again. Its a trial and error process but you will eventually get there. The idea is that your open strings are correctly pitched and when playing the notes on the 12th fret its exactly at EADGBE too.

balducci

Not to sound smart but are you puttin the strings on properly? you need to have a few winds around the tuning peg. are you stretching the strings after putting them on? you need to play for a few minutes to warm your strings up and then tune it, this helps keep em in tune too.

Also, is it a Gibson? there's 100s of manufacturers of LPs and of Strats so I wouldn't go changing your entire guitar over a problem that any good Luthier could easily solve.

bring it back to where you bought it (if it's in warranty) or even if it's not. Any guitar shop assistant will give you a few pointers - well maybe not ANY guitar shop assistant.

Locking tuners are also an idea if you're doing lots of bends.

Here's another good beginning point -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZEm0WOGJQU

PMI

Go with the intonation 1st.... and then just get used to tuning up after maybe 2 songs at most

PeterIanStaker

Get it set up and repalce the stock tuners with Grovers. Those yellow key ones on the LP's are crap. Even the better Epi's have grovers now, I used to have an Epi SG with grovers that came on it stock.

damonjewel

PeterIanStaker wrote: »

Get it set up and repalce the stock tuners with Grovers. Those yellow key ones on the LP's are crap. Even the better Epi's have grovers now, I used to have an Epi SG with grovers that came on it stock.

I have fit a set of grover locking tuners on 2 guitars now and they are brilliant.

Demeyes

Get your guitar setup properly before you move onto something else. A good setup sorting out your intonation will make it more in tune all over the neck. Also you might want to put some lubricant like vaseline or graphite on the nut in the string channel so it doesn't get caught going through, this happens a lot on poorly slotted nuts.

Grolschevik

guitarzero wrote: »

Apparently this a notorious trademark of Les Paul.

Mine stays in tune for weeks at a time...

stephenshields2

Demeyes wrote: »

Get your guitar setup properly before you move onto something else. A good setup sorting out your intonation will make it more in tune all over the neck. Also you might want to put some lubricant like vaseline or graphite on the nut in the string channel so it doesn't get caught going through, this happens a lot on poorly slotted nuts.

This is almost certainly the cause of your anguish, sir.

Pencil lead all the way, I swear by it!