5 Reasons Your Guitar will NOT Stay in Tune...and One Guitar That is ALWAYS in Tune!

I only have ONE guitar in my collection that will actually hold tune. Any guesses what it is?
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[DarrellBraunGuitar]

Only one of my guitars will ALWAYS be in tune! Did any of you get it right? let me know!
Enjoy :)

[Krullmatic]

I feel you should've mentioned intonation as well, because that's another scenario where you can tune it up with a tuner perfectly, but of course some chords will be out of tune.

[alexander_winston]

I live in Las Vegas, I have a big collection of guitars and i keep them in a humidified room. When I take one out, it will drop 1/4 step flat within 30 minutes. Put a Floyd Rose or anything else on it and it won’t help one bit. Humidity is the greatest threat to stable tuning.

[ChristopherOrth]

A tip for floating trems... tune them from the inside strings out, not from 6 to 1. So assuming the low E is 6 and the high E is 1, tune the strings, in order, 4 - 3 - 5 - 2 - 6 - 1. You might need to take a couple passes to get it balanced. If you tune 6 - 5 - 4 - 3 - 2- 1 you could be in a situation where it just shifts the trem in one direction consistently until things are really out of whack. This is also how I change the strings, fwiw. I pull them off and replace them one at a time, in that order, and bring the new string up to tune each time. This keeps the trem stable in the position you want it during the string change.

[Firedog]

I bought my ESP Eclipse 2 with an Evertune. I’ve had it for 2 years. It absolutely stays in tune-just like you said. In fact, I bought it on your recommendation. I have saved a ton of time NOT tuning my guitar! 😀

[Ben_the_Ignorant]

String trees: deburr and polish their underside, and oil it.
All guitars: tune a string, press the part of the string between the nut and the tuner, make a bend, retune if needed. You need to do it two or three times at most for each string, theiy will be stabilized for a longer time.

[brianlebrun]

# 6 reason why it won't stay in tune....weather. I'm in sw Florida and I play outdoors often. I'm in the middle of doing 4 straight gigs outside (hot as hell too). My #1 is a G&L Comanche and it's super stabile but not necessarily outside. My #2 is Les Paul. I bring both to every gig. Very stabile and the intonation on both is spot on but outside....I find myself retuning during the first song. Then it calms down until a break comes. 15 minutes later when the break is over I have to tune again all from being in an environment without A/C.

[bobmays]

Great video Darrell! Finger pressure was an eye opener for me!

[JamesDierken]

Most of the time in my case, tuning instability stems from the nut. I found widening the slots ever so slightly and putting in a liberal amount of graphite or nut product seems to work pretty well. Filing the slots on a downwards angle to the headstock side to reduce contact area with the string may also work as well.

Just as a side note I've always instinctively tuned my B string just a couple cents flat for chords to sound more in tune, a tip for beginners if you find that your cowboy chords (especially D chords) don't sound right.

[lucs]

All great points! I would also add too many windings on tuning pegs, especially for newer players, which increases the chances of the guitar going out of tune when bending.

[jimcoppa]

Your channel is very educational thank you I enjoy your videos

[joermnyc]

Big Bends Nut Sauce in the nut slots and saddle slots, no matter if it’s hard tail or not. Strings need to move freely, so they will settle back to pitch.

[Gene_Cali]

Thanks Darrell, this was very enjoyable and informative. I have a Squire Bullet strat that I abuse daily and it holds tune rather well. I blocked the trem. Love that Gretsch! 🔥🎸

[CraigFlowersMusic]

A big part of the problem I never see anyone talk about, is tuning by ringing out rather than tuning to the pluck. That transient may be sharp compared to when it gently rings out, but the transient is what you hear. If you play super soft to tune, then play a song less softly than gentle, it WILL be sharp. Especially the G string since it's the worst offender at being sharp on the transient.

[ronpatterson]

I have a gretsch streamliner with a bigsby, at first when i got it it was horrible to stay in tune. I took your advice in one of your older videos about grafite and wow it fixed the problem, now it rarely goes out of tune now!

[snapfinger]

All your points are well taken with intonation being the most important. Even the most expensive guitars are imperfect & require tempered tuning.

[robertiboy]

Great video Darrell. Nope, didn’t guess the Gretsch as being always in tune. The truss rod tip was excellent, never thought of that. And BTW you were mentioned on Todays That Pedal Show (TPS) Video on Mick’s Strat Vlog about the Strat trem system set up issues.

[robraaiii]

I would’ve mentioned, if you’re going to “tighten up” the truss rod. DON’T think of it like a nut/bolt that you would turn til tight. Think more of fractions of a turn. Just until there is enough tension on the rod not to move freely. 🤘

[michaelelliott]

I just got my String Butler installed Today. I seen it from one of your videos. Got in in the mail an on the guitar right away. Thank you sir.

[norseman]

Good video! Every so often it’s good to hear a refresher of the basics. It’s easy to forget that in most cases, the best solution is the easiest solution.