Tuning problem on a new 360V64 12 string

[boompiday]

I just received a new 360V64 12 string from a mail/internet order company. The guitar is beautiful and stays in tune well. My problem is with the low E and A string. They sound fine played open, but as I play up the neck the notes are very sharp and sound terrible. Their higher octave neighbors sound fine. I've heard that sometimes you have to tune down some strings to keep in tune. But, when I do this and play open cords the guitar sounds terrible. What do I do? Tune down the E and A and live with it? Return the guitar from where I bought it. Send it to Rickenbacker. Or, can my local guitar tech do something about this? Thanks in advance for any help.

[justonwo]

Lots of people have this problem with Rick 12's. In fact, this is the subject of many heated debates on this forum. Had the same problem with my 620/12. You need to adjust the intonation. Since your low E and A are sharp when fretted, you need to lengthen the string by pulling the saddle away from the nut. Check out some of the posts on this forum regarding intonation for further details. Incidentally, since your string pairs lie on the same saddle, you will never get your guitar to sound perfect (different gauge strings require different string lengths. Note that the lighter gauge strings have a shorter length). I believe Gary Smith had intonation issues with his 360v64 and eventually settled on a 12 saddle bridge. At any rate, take some time to groom through previous posts. This will help explain a lot.

[markthemd]

This can of worms is open once more .

This is two issues ;

1- setup

a) truss rods
b) nut slot depth and spacing
c) fret level and crown
d) saddle notches and curvature matching the fretboard radius
e) bridge height
f) string type and gauge
g) installation of strings on the tuners and how you wrap them on

2-intonation

a) string age
b) string gauge
c) string type (flat,compression wound,round wound,and material used to make it and the size of the wrap of the outside wire on the wound strings
d) depth of nut slots
e) truss rod /neck relief
f) bridge saddle radius
g) bridge height (the higher the bridge the more difficult to do this )
h) the fret condition and the crown of the top of the frets
i)the placement of the bridge and how much compensation was added to the scale length
j) the amount of play/travel in the mechanism of the bridge

[rickplayer]

It is my understanding from Rickenbacker corporate that this is how it is supposed to sound.