“Why You Shouldn’t Ask AI For Tuning Help!”
Here’s some (not-so) great advice from AI on how to fix your tuning problems:
“Tuning Stability Tricks—Why Your Guitar Won’t Stay in Tune”
Struggling to stay in tune even after new strings? It might not be your tuning pegs.
🎯 Common tuning culprits:
✅ Poor string winding technique
✅ Nut friction (a dab of graphite helps!)
✅ Old or worn tuners
That advice (above) fails to even mention the top three reasons for tuning stability problems, gives the wrong solution for one and..oh shoot – let’s just jump into the details!
Winding Technique
Poor winding technique can add to your tuning problems, but only slightly. It’s best to wind most popular tuning pegs with three tight winds for wound strings – every wind goes beneath the peg hole where your string begins, and the string end pointing away from the fretboard with a sharp 90 degree bend.
Same for solid strings, but with four winds. Overlaps are a no-no!
Nut Friction
I have to fight off a chuckle when I hear S-Style or T-Style owners, anyone with string trees, fret over “nut friction” when those trees (unless they’re the new USA Fender style with round arms), offer many times more friction than any guitar nut ever could.
Bone and modern plastic nuts don’t offer enough friction to impede tuning, IF they are cut correctly. But here’s the thing: That IF is huge! Because most guitar techs are not properly trained in filing and installing guitar nuts.
Among the many little things a tech has to do to properly cut the nut is to angle all slots inline with the strings’ path to the tuner posts AND to slightly round the back edge of each nut slot.
If the nut is properly cut, you won’t need to slop goo all over your nut.
Tuners
If I’d obliged every customer who came into our shop wanting new tuner keys because his current ones “won’t hold tune”, I could afford to be writing this from my motorhome in the Appalachians right now!
String tension alone is likely enough to immediately close the gap between teeth in “worn tuners”.
Even cheap tuner keys have 14:1 gear ratio, which has proven to be enough to prevent strings from unwinding.
And “no”, even locking tuners aren’t likely to solve your tuning problems unless your string winding technique was really, really weird!
Locking tuners allow for faster string changes, and that’s about it.
The #1 Guitar Tuning Problem
You are NOT going to like this. Why not? Because YOU are the #1 guitar tuning problem! WAIT! Before you click back to those cat videos, let me explain..
You’ve been stretching your new strings exactly the way they show on YouTube, so what could be wrong?
If you’ve been told to pull each string at the 12th fret and give it a bit of a tug and you’re “done” – well, that’s your problem right there.
Proper string stretching technique is using the thumbs of both hands and opposing fingers, to give a stretch with the force of about a double-bend, all along the string from saddle to nut.
Do that for each string, then retune and repeat. Keep repeating until some strings no longer need to be retuned. Continue on the other strings until none need to be retuned.
That generally takes me about three or four cycles on solid strings and five or six on wound strings.
Let your guitar sit an hour or two afterward and it will probably be sharp. De-tune then tune back up to pitch and you’re “good to go”!
Want an in-person example? Bring your guitar in and we’ll show you how to stretch your strings. Or, just have us do your re-strings – just $15 for most instruments.
Intonation Tuning Problems
Once your open strings are all ringing in tune, you can often find that your fretted notes are off. The length of each string must be adjusted to give the proper notes at each fret. This is generally done by adjusting each saddle forward or back.
Nut Slots
Another issue that can cause intonation problems is high nut slots. If your nut slots are too high, you’ll pull an excessive amount of string when fretting notes – especially up in what we call the “cowboy frets” – the first five or so frets from the nut.
Get FREE Help
Just bring your guitar in – no appointment needed – and we’ll check it over and show you what we’re finding. We’ll make recommendations and you can decide whether to do the work yourself or have our 5-Star guitar techs do it for you.
We’ll give your guitar a FREE, full tuning stability check and setup at Hank’s Guitar Shop in Clearwater—so you can play with confidence and stay in tune all set long.
#StayInTune #GuitarSetupTips #ClearwaterGuitarShop 🎶🔧
