I have been playing guitar for 15 years and only recently started using graphite on the nut. It's ok, but not life-changing... I've accepted that constantly tuning my guitars is going to be a part of playing guitar. I *HATE* new strings because of the inherent tuning instability. I usually string the guitar up with them a few steps below standard tuning, just enough tension to be able to put some strain on them, and then I stretch the *%$! out of them by pulling them straight out away from the neck starting at the middle of the neck and then working down toward the bridge, back across the middle, and up to the nut. I probably make seven or eight passes on each string. When I get done the strings are super floppy loose and nowhere near the tension they were at when I started. Metal strings are bound to stretch and contract with even mild temperature fluctuations, so things like a floyd rose locking tremolo or other "in tune" tremolo systems are just gimmicks.
Of my 4 electric guitars, the strat and jazzmaster have the factory tremolos, the telecaster was retrofitted with a bixby which was later removed because it was worthless due to the constant retuning after any use of the bar at all. The fourth guitar, my VW First Act, is a true solid tail, and really is more fun to play due to the lessened tuning foibles. All in all though, even acoustic guitars and hard tail electrics are going to require constant tuning and retuning because of the stretch put on the strings by playing, and the fluctuations in string temperature caused by the heat of your fingers on the strings.
It's better to invest your money in a good tuner that's easy to use and precise (I like the Stimmung tuning approach because the tempering is ideal for open string guitar chords, search for the Stimmung tuners on iTunes App Store if you have an iDevice. They're easy to use, VERY precise, and give you a guitar that sounds great on an open G chord, a C chord, an open E chord, or even a Bb barre chord rooted on the 6th fret. Most tuners will put the open strings precisely on the frequency mathematically calculated for the required note. While this sounds fine, Bach discovered a LONG time ago that notes perfectly in tune will sound sometimes sound off pitch when playing in combination with other notes. Tempering is a way to try to tune that instrument to be as close as possible to the "ideal" mathematical pitches without causing the dissonances which make the chords sound unpleasant. So by getting "pretty close" to those ideal pitches, but tuning around the discrepancies found in some of the more popular chords, you get the best of both worlds. A guitar that sounds in tune with any other instrument tuned to A=440 but is tempered in a way that doesn't cause weird tuning problems (think about how often an open G string sounds out of tune with a chord but checks out perfectly on the tuner... MADDENING! This method fixes that to the point that it's ALMOST undetectable)
Anyway, I'm a bit obsessed with tuning and can't play a guitar for more than a few seconds if I get the warbling dissonance of being out of tune... It just makes it sound like the person playing doesn't know how to play the right notes, even if they are. If I hear someone playing out of tune I'm assuming they know nothing about their instrument or music even if they're far more technically skilled than me.
patrickgeekhack
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Exalted Elder
