Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

I am sure this has been covered so please bear with me. I own a '94 360-12WB and I want to do the intonation. I have a strobe tuner, but I need direction or a link on how to do this. And, by the way, I do not want to make any alterations or switch out the bridge on my 360 as suggested by some well known dealers. Can anyone out there help me?
Thank you, Joey

Joey,
With new strings, tune all strings to perfect pitches first. After making sure that the 1)neck relief, and 2)string heights are exactly how you like them, you can get on to intonating your guitar. If a fretted note at the 12th fret is sharp compared to the open note or 12th fret harmonic, move the saddle away from the neck. If it's flat, move the saddle towards the neck. Loosen the string in question when you do the "moving". Retune that string and check your progress. Repeat the procedure on all strings and you'll get perfect intonation. Good luck!

Check out these instruction links:

http://mysite.verizon.net/jazz.guitar/guitarsetup.htm#Adjusting%20the%20intonation

http://users.powernet.co.uk/guitars/setup3.htm

http://www.projectguitar.com/tut/tutorial1.htm

Thank you so much. Does a '94 Rickenbacker 12-string have a fully adjustable bridge?

It prob has a standard 6 string bridge. You can only adjust the pairs, but not individual strings.

Cole

Hey Cole,
Thank you for your post. I just picked up on the fact that I do have a "Six Saddle" bridge on my '94 Ric and I have ordered a twelve saddle bridge from Rickenbacker. The strings don't seem to intonate in pairs. I wonder how Roger McGuinn and George Harrison sounded so "In Tune" having the same six saddle bridge that I have?

Tuning is seldom perfect, only relative. We use a tempered scale in Western music, which is not mathematically true, but supposedly sounds "right" to our ears. In the same way, a six-string saddle can be adjusted to sound reasonably good, but theoretically at least, separate string adjustment will always be preferable. My '59 Duo Sonic and a lot of Fenders had 3 saddles for six strings! Vintage Teles and some other Fenders still do.

Lots of Tele players use either compensated saddles or the "Bakersfield mod" to improve the intonation on a 3-saddle bridge.

There are some respected posters on this site who swear by the 6-saddle bridge as an integral component of the quintissential Rick 12-string sound. IMHO, the fact that the two strings in each of the lower four courses are slightly out of tune gives the 12-string a "fatter" sound. It's similar to a technique used on 6-strings by Jimmy Page, among others. For example, slightly bend the 6th string at the 5th fret, and use it to "double" the open A string.

Well put, Adam. "Fatter" sound, indeed.

You know what, Adam? You're right! I just watched a McGuinn DVD and though he tunes up and adjusts his truss rods by "Feel" (Gutsy guy!!!), he does nothing about the intonation even though he has six saddles just l do. But when he is performing a song, you can hear that some of his strings are not in perfect pitch, especially the octive strings like the D, A, and E. And yet, that is the "Rickenbacker" twelve string sound. I'll just keep it as is and when I get the twelve saddle bridge I ordered from Rickenbacker, it will stay in the case.

Joey, a mnemonic for remembering what direction to move the bridge saddle when adjusting the intonation is:

Sharp, too short; flat, too long.

"too short" meaning, of course, that the string needs to be made longer by moving the saddle away from the neck.

Thanks, Gary.