Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Just brought it home yesterday, and it looks great. But after tuning it with the brand new factory installed strings, the Low E regular string would never get in tune. I would tune it to the other five regular strings, and it would be fine. But by the 5th fret it was way off. So, then I used the opening line of Day Tripper to tune the lower four main strings together and when THEY were in tune the Low E was off at the 12 fret by a mile. WHAT GIVES! I did not change strings, am using the standard RIC ones! And, as we have talked before Mark, I live in Rochester, NY. Any help woud be appreciated!

THis has been gone over and over ....

You need a yardstick or some kind of 25 inch long straight edge.It does not have to be anything fancy.You will but it up against the edge of the nut,
in the middle of the 12th fret put a hash mark on this 'stick' now move the stick so the edge that was up against the nut is now in the center of the 12th fret and the hash mark is over the bridge.

On the treble side you need to add 1/16" This is about where the HIGH E saddle will be

On the bass side you will need to add 5/32",this is about where the LOW E saddle is .

Check this ......if this is NOT what you find then I know what to do for you .

I have photos of where the bridge and the saddles should be ....let me know .

Ben,

Have you gotten your twelve string set-up yet?

My 360/12v64 played fine when I brought it home, but after a few weeks it seemed persnickity. I suspect that the weather change between winter/spring and the adjustment from the music store to my house affected things.

Your guitar should be adjusted so that your strings intonate correctly.

My low E pair needed the bridge saddle to go way back - so far back that I needed to remove the spring between the saddle and the inside/back of the bridge (I just moved it around to the front

When you are in tune at pitch, pluck the harmonic at the twelveth fret, then fret at the twelveth fret. The note should be the same. If the fretted note is sharp - your bridge saddle needs to move towards the tailpiece (making the string LONGER).

I also found that laying the low string into the cut groove and leaving the high string outside of the groove improved the intonation between the low and high string of the pair. (I have a six saddle bridge). I suppose I could fix this by getting new saddles and re-cutting the grooves (they're all a little sloppy IMHO).

I tried that, and could not get the saddles to move towards the neck, where it should be based on the yardstick check. The screw, when turned both directions, either comes out of the bridge base or nothing happens, but the saddle iteslf does not move. I was told to bring it in to the Guitar Shop (House of Guitars) and they would fix it up with new strings, which was supposed to fix it. I was using standard RIC strings. One worker there saud the "Floating bridge" caused the problems. Oh well, I guess I am just confused. Maybe I need to buy a 12 saddle bridge after all, but don't know where to get one and don't want to ruin the monetary investment I made into the CW model.

This weekend, I adjusted my low E saddle.

I completely loosened both low e strings and moved them to the side of the bridge. Then I began fiddling with the adjustment screw. Try applying some finger pressure to the saddle to move it backwards while you are turning the allen wrench. I doubt that there is a problem with the threads as this sounds like a new instrument?

If you can't get the saddle to move, you should not assume that you'll have any more luck attempting to install the bridge by yourself either.

Take the guitar back where you bought it and have them set it up. The "floating bridge" is NOT the problem - professional guitars have used floating bridges forever.

These are great instruments.

The saddles are a trouble-some thing to adjust ,but I have a couple of tricks that I would like to pass along.

I assume that you will end up with a standard pattern when the whole thing is done .This being so ,I adjust ALL the saddles towards the neck .This is AFTER I check for location.

The low E saddle is the worst to adjust as the octave is ahead of it .There is nothing but the base to keep it aligned.All the other saddles have the bottom and the sides to keep them from flopping around.

I went to a tool outlet and bought a wrench that is very long and has a 'T' handle on it .This helps out a lot!
Next ,BEFORE I tune the guitar ,I remove the bridge and move all the saddles closer to the neck .This takes some doing .I do this with the bridge OFF the guitar .

Then I put a drop of oil under the low E string .The oil is a light machine oil (3-in-one)
This helps to lube the base and is easy to clean up with a 'Q-tip'.

Then after I re adjust the notches so the top of the strings is the 10" radius,I then intonate (or as it has been properly pointed out -intone )the standard strings first.
Then I set the paired E and B strings ,then on to the octaves.

When I am done I re-install the truss rod cover/nameplate and final tune.

Changing the bridge to a 12 saddle bridge will NOT ruin your investment.

These are interchangable.No one would ever know or even begin to be able to tell if they were changed.

In the old days (pre 1985) the tooling was not what it is today and bridges were not totally interchangable .Since that time ,no need to worry .And even if it was an older guitar ,you could make it work.

One last thing ,this may help you to understand the low E intonation question.

The standard string needs to be the farthest string away from the neck.This is true on every guitar made.Any maker.

If you will notice the low E octave is a .024 (or there abouts) ...this is about the same size as the standard G string.When you properly intone ,the whole set of strings the low E octave is about the same distance away from the neck as the G standard.

When you try to tune the guitar and the low E is not in tune with itself ,and so you pull the saddle away from the neck ,the octave low E is now getting farther ,and farther out of tune .It becomes flatter as you play up the neck .By the time you get to the octave/12 fret it is really noticable.This is true for all the string pairs that have octaves.

Thank you very much for your info. I will buy a 12 saddle bridge and try to intonate from there. You should really write a book about this stuff!

Not to slight Mark, but there are a boatload of books out that explain guitar set-up as well as the theory of instrument intonation.

Email me and I will send you a photo of a 12 saddle bridge that I installed on a Carl Wilson 12 string .The owner had similar troubles and drove down from Edmonton,Alberta ,Canada to the Seattle area to have me install and set up his guitar.Greg has posted his feelings about what I did for his guitar here in the Forum.

[email protected]

x 12

Obviously Greg Simmons is the owner of that beautiful Carl Wilson 12 string.

Thanks Greg!