only4 Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Just put new strings on my P bass and found the D string was acting funny when tuning. It was sitting in tune but then would suddenly go sharp and when I was retuning there was a lag, I checked the nut slot which was ok so moved onto the string tree which also seemed fine. I now have discovered that the taper on the string sits exactly on the edge of the string tree and is acting as a slight resistance point. I’ve filed a small radius on the string tree which seems to have sorted this out but have never seen this before. Has anyone else ever had this? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigRedX Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Yes. Constant problem on a Squier VMJ Fretless. One of many issues that eventually led me to sell the bass a replace it with something a lot better. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulThePlug Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Try a different style string tree? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
only4 Posted February 26 Author Share Posted February 26 3 minutes ago, PaulThePlug said: Try a different style string tree? Yes, that’s my next move. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeEvans Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Is the string tree really necessary? For a bass with good, straight alignment between strings above and below the nut, what would happen if you just took the string tree off? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 22 minutes ago, JoeEvans said: Is the string tree really necessary? For a bass with good, straight alignment between strings above and below the nut, what would happen if you just took the string tree off? Yes - in 4 in line tuner headstocks which are flat (as in not angled), the break angle over the nut is insufficient for the D and G strings and you'll get rattles and other noise artifacts. The string tree is there to create a sufficient break angle over the nut in those cases. With enough wraps down the E and A tuners it's supposed to generate sufficient angle. But hey, Leo got it right first time, right? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_S Posted February 26 Share Posted February 26 Yeah, I’ve had that happen before. Also had one with two grooves for the strings to run in, which gripped the thicker of the strings tight at the same taper point since the groove was only wide enough for its thinnest section. Took a bit of strength to get the string out, but it was an easy enough fix - just turned the top of the retainer through 90 degrees so the grooves were parallel to the nut and no longer involved with the strings. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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