Arrigo Martelli
From:
Italy
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Posted 13 Dec 2021 8:40 am |
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Hello everybody, I'm experiencing a strange tuning issue which I haven't been able to figure out yet. I hope you can help me with it, the guitar is a 2004 Carter S10 which performs otherwise fine.
This is the issue: I tune up the guitar and start playing/practicing. After about 5/10 minutes of playing, the 10th string starts to sound out of tune because it has gone slightly flat, about half a semitone or so. I tune the string, resume playing and all is good. When/if I stop playing and leave the guitar alone, within 5 minutes or so the 10th string's pitch starts to drift and goes sharp, about the same half a semitone or so that I had experienced before.
This is not an erratic behaviour, but happens regularly no matter what.
I tried giving the pull more slack but the problem still happens. Any idea what the culprit could be here? I checked and oiled the nut roller and it seems to spin freely.
I also examined the changer fingers and I didn't find dirt or rust, I lightly oiled the 10th string fingers but it didn't make any difference.
Thanks! |
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Tucker Jackson
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA
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Posted 13 Dec 2021 11:10 am
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Thanks for checking the obvious things first and reporting them. That lets us know what is NOT causing the problem so we can get to the answer faster. To summarize:
* It's probably not overtuned, since you said the pull rod has a little slack.
* It's probably not the nylon nut slipping. If that was the problem, the pitch would remain flat even after you stopped playing. But your pitch is raising back up as the guitar sits.
* It's probably not the roller nut or changer axle, since you lubed those.
I think the problem is that after you play for a while, when you engage that raise, the part of the changer that does a lower is being slightly activated too. This lowers the pitch of the string, because a little string-lowering is being added in along with the raise action.
Here's how to check for that: before you play, press the pedal and watch the changer. The spring for the 10th string should not be stretched.
Once you play for a while and the string goes flat when you hit the pedal, look at the spring again. Is it stretching a little? If so, that's the problem. You either need to put a tiny bit of oil on the rivet (down in the middle of the changer), or tighten the spring. Since springs on Carters seem to last a very long time, I'm guessing you need to oil the tiny rivet that holds together the two scissor pieces on the 10th string. You'll need to remove the spring to be able to even see it and get oil on it.
If the spring is weak, Carters do not have a way to adjust that. You either have to cut off one loop -- or even easier, if you don't have any raise or lower on your 7th string, take that fresh spring off of that and move it over to the 10th string, and put the weak spring on 7. If you have to take off the one on 10 to oil it anyway, you may want to make this trade with 7 at the same time. Maybe one or the other will fix the problem...
Good luck! |
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