New Sterling StingRay RAY4 Intonation Issue

[yesandno]

Whew, haven't been on this forum, in a dogs lifetime.

Arrived yesterday. Bass is very nice and feels good playing-wise. Problem is that the A string won't intonate. Saddle is all the way forward towards the neck, the screw as far as it'll go lest it come off and it's still flat at the twelfth fret. The E string saddle shouldn't be that far forward either imo, and while I got it intonated, it's screw is almost as far as it'll go.

Generally, the bridge saddles on an intonated guitar will have the low E saddle furthest back, with the subsequent A & D saddles progressively further up towards the neck.

On this new bass, the D and G strings are intonated, but where the D's saddle is, The E & A saddles theoretically should be further back from where The D saddle is and not pushed all the way forward past it.

While I'm a guitarist (own a Luke and Morse sigs), I got this bass to mess around with and for recording purposes. I do already have another bass I've owned since the 80's.

While I've rarely, if ever, come across a bad set of strings, I'm hoping this is the problem. As I read elsewhere while looking up an answer to this, someone said that, in my case, that string would be defying the laws of physics and it's a bad string. Another person said that, while they may be new or new looking, strings that come on a new instrument can very well be bad.

Any one else come across this intonation issue? Was it due to bad string(s)? BTW, what gauge set comes with this bass?.

 

[gluvhand]

New bass? Used? Compensated nut? Witness points set? New strings? Old?

 

[yesandno]

New bass? Used? Compensated nut? Witness points set? New strings? Old?

New as in factory fresh. would assume they put new strings on. Compensated nut on a $300+ Sterling Sub?

What is this 'witness' thing? Saw that word used in some bass forums. Never heard that in reference to setting up guitars.

It's a guitar. Its got a nut. Like every of the twenty guitars I own since forever and 99.9999% of every one in existence. I intonate all and every one, no problems..... until this bass.

Rockland county eh. Was just in Westchester visiting girlfriend. I was Queens and Long Island until 7 years ago.

 

[gluvhand]

New as in factory fresh. would assume they put new strings on. Compensated nut on a $300+ Sterling Sub?

What is this 'witness' thing? Saw that word used in some bass forums. Never heard that in reference to setting up guitars.

It's a guitar. Its got a nut. Like every of the twenty guitars I own since forever and 99.9999% of every one in existence. I intonate all and every one, no problems..... until this bass.

Rockland county eh. Was just in Westchester visiting girlfriend. I was Queens and Long Island until 7 years ago.

I left Queens about 25 years ago.

I was just spit ballin' with the nut but the witness points are real. After setting the relief and action, try setting the intonation but don't forget to push down on the the strings on both sides of the saddles and both sides of the nut. You may have gotten away without doing this on guitars because of the smaller gauges but with bass strings it's essential.

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

Bad strings or witness points.

 

[yesandno]

Thanks fellas. Buying new strings of course. Hope that fixes it.

'witness points'. such an odd name for such a proceedure.

 

[Rod Trussbroken]

Thanks fellas. Buying new strings of course. Hope that fixes it.

'witness points'. such an odd name for such a proceedure.

Trust me. I'm a lawyer

 

[yesandno]

I just pressed both sides of the strings across the nut and saddles. Made not a whiff of difference.

Action and neck relief out of the box is to my liking... that being slight relief. This A string has got to be whacked. I'd have to unscrew the saddle it would need to go another inch further towards the neck to get in the ballpark. lol

 

[Golem]

I just pressed both sides of the strings across the nut and saddles. Made not a whiff of difference.

Action and neck relief out of the box is to my liking... that being slight relief. This A string has got to be whacked. I'd have to unscrew the saddle it would need to go another inch further towards the neck to get in the ballpark. lol

Since you know where the E and A saddles would normally sit, hopefully you moved the saddles way back before bending in the witness points. Then you check the intonation and if you hafta advance the saddles a bit, the kinks are harmlessly BEHIND the saddles.

OTOH if you created the witness points with the saddles all the way to the tips of the screws, now you have kinks in the speaking length of the string, which is not so good but is a good excuse to get new strings which you most likely needed anywho.

FWIW, I would never move saddles far forward to such unlikely locations. I would put them approximately where they usually belong, bend the witness points, and just play it. Ill tune to the correct pitch at the 5th fret, ignoring any error at the open string and 12th fret.

The intonation is going to change as the strings break in, so when theyre broken in you can try again to improve the intonation. Either you will find joy or you will buy better strings. Que sera sera.

I play some (fretted) basses with non adjustable saddles. No hey problemo ! I just tune at the 5th fret and play. You can set your saddles by your eyeballs and do the same.
.

 

[yesandno]

Since you know where the E and A saddles would normally sit, hopefully you moved the saddles way back before bending in the witness points. Then you check the intonation and if you hafta advance the saddles a bit, the kinks are harmlessly BEHIND the saddles.

OTOH if you created the witness points with the saddles all the way to the tips of the screws, now you have kinks in the speaking length of the string, which is not so good but is a good excuse to get new strings which you most likely needed anywho.

FWIW, I would never move saddles far forward to such unlikely locations. I would put them approximately where they usually belong, bend the witness points, and just play it. Ill tune to the correct pitch at the 5th fret, ignoring any error at the open string and 12th fret.

The intonation is going to change as the strings break in, so when theyre broken in you can try again to improve the intonation. Either you will find joy or you will buy better strings. Que sera sera.

I play some (fretted) basses with non adjustable saddles. No hey problemo ! I just tune at the 5th fret and play. You can set your saddles by your eyeballs and do the same.
.

Thanks for all the advice. Good to now know in future.

When I intonate my guitars I'm always tweaking as new strings start settling in. Then I may need to make really fine micro adjustments so chords will sound in tune everywhere on the neck. I've never had a new guitar intonated correct from the factory or by a tech/luthier setup. Most because time is money and they're all gonna do more or less a one pass on the strobe and that's it. I keep tweaking as much as necessary till I'm satisfied.

 

[Golem]

Thanks for all the advice. Good to now know in future.

When I intonate my guitars I'm always tweaking as new strings start settling in. Then I may need to make really fine micro adjustments so chords will sound in tune everywhere on the neck. I've never had a new guitar intonated correct from the factory or by a tech/luthier setup. Most because time is money and they're all gonna do more or less a one pass on the strobe and that's it. I keep tweaking as much as necessary till I'm satisfied.

I gave up tweaking when I gave up frets.

Of course I also gave up tweaking when I got the bass pictured in the previous post. There may be other, now forgotten, reasons I gave up tweaking. Anywho, I highly recommend it !

 

[yesandno]

I gave up tweaking when I gave up frets.

Of course I also gave up tweaking when I got the bass pictured in the previous post. There may be other, now forgotten, reasons I gave up tweaking. Avywho, I highly recommend it !

Ah yes, heh.

Reminds me, I did have a Squier fretless bought in the early 00's iirc. Was nice for my messing about with. Only issue was a bad dead spot on the G string up about the 7th fret. Once tried that thing of using a clip placed somewhere on the headstock to try an eliminate the offending resonant frequency of the wood. But all that did was move the dead spot somewhere else.

Unfortunately it got beat up enough to render it unplayable in a moving accident. I see they still make a Squier Jazz fretless @ $449.

I'm happy to report that having just finished putting on a new set of strings, my issue appears to have been corrected. Yay!

 

[nhbassguitar]

A few years back I set up a Strat for a guy, using the new strings he gave me. Couldn't get one of the strings to intonate, exact same symptoms as the OP's SR. Turns out that particular string in the set was 100% ok, just the wrong gauge.