Large pitch drift with EverTune in Drop A

[ShreddingDragon]

I'm having a pitch drift issue with my EverTune in Drop A tuning. The guitar is a VGS Stage One Octagon Pro 8-string, 27 inch scale. Note attacks on the 7th string downtuned to A sound very awkward because the pitch makes a huge jump upwards and then drops, eventually way below the target note. All other strings work either really well or at least at a "no concern" level of drift. The strings are a NYXL 009-080 set. Is the low A too thin, or what could cause this?

On the open low A string, I measured the pitch going from about +8 to -14 cents. Is this normal for EverTune? I made sure the string is in Zone 2 and I tried various points within Zone 2. It's okay for now if the pitch drifts downwards a bit over a long sustain time (like 10 seconds or so), but a big part of the drift happens fast enough to be useless for recording riffs and chord chugs. The problem is the big initial upwards jump at the attack and then going down immediately afterwards - for example, it causes many 8th note patterns to sound very wonky.

The higher up the fretboard I go, the more noticeable the jump becomes. At the 8th fret, the drift is from around +10 to -20 cents. I absolutely can't use power chords around those frets, it sounds disgusting compared to the higher strings. What can I do about this? I can take a short video of this if needed.

 

[CanserDYI]

How close to zone 3 are you keeping the tension? There is a sweet spot between zone 2 and 3 thats a bit finicky to get to sometimes, try messing with your tuning pegs tension slightly.

 

[penguin_316]

Did you bend your strings at the bridge and stretch them when you put them on?

 

[ShreddingDragon]

How close to zone 3 are you keeping the tension? There is a sweet spot between zone 2 and 3 thats a bit finicky to get to sometimes, try messing with your tuning pegs tension slightly.

Right now it's around the mid-point. I tried right on the edge between 1 and 2, and 2 and 3, but no real difference. The higher the tension gets, the lesser the problem seems to be. But I need to tune it up to B to make it sound "not horrible" Even then there's more pitch drift than I'd like, but the A tuning is unusable imo.

Did you bend your strings at the bridge and stretch them when you put them on?

I stretched them a little bit. What do you mean by bending them at the bridge? When I remove strings, I can see there's a bend/turn on all of them at the bridge, but I've never done bending like that manually while putting them on.

 

[CanserDYI]

I should ask does this happen with multiple sets of strings?

 

[ShreddingDragon]

I should ask does this happen with multiple sets of strings?

I haven't downtuned this guitar before. I guess it would just make sense to try a new set of strings, but these ones are fairly new and I have some suspicions about the bridge to begin with.

The bridge has had some weird problems before. I've consulted Herbert Smelik from EverTune about them in the past and he thinks it's possible the bridge was installed wrong, OR that there's something wrong with the backplate/comb. I've taken the guitar to a luthier a few times and he has been helpful, trying to fix some fitting or installation issues with the comb. Not sure what exactly is wrong with it, myself. The bridge has been mostly great for a long time now, and this kind of a tuning issue has never cropped up before.

 

[soldierkahn]

i know this will sound stupid what about your intonation on the 7 string? With an 80 on a 27" scale, are you also using the right saddles for the right tension? The highest i ever had to go for A on my 27" is 70

 

[ShreddingDragon]

i know this will sound stupid what about your intonation on the 7 string? With an 80 on a 27" scale, are you also using the right saddles for the right tension? The highest i ever had to go for A on my 27" is 70

The low B string has the standard saddle that came with the guitar. (For the low F# string I have the newer saddle model that can fit an .080 string, and it is the standard tension one, not the high or low tension ones.)

In B tuning the 7th string intonation is usually pretty good. Right now in A tuning, with the pitch drift on attacks, it's hard to gauge how good the intonation actually is. I tried to fiddle with it but it just sounds out of tune all the time, because the pitch isn't stable. I can't recall if the pitch drift issue was present earlier when I had it in B tuning, but at least it wasn't noticeable enough to alarm me or prevent recordings.

 

[Ross82]

Did you check the spring pack to make sure its not binding on anything?

 

[Ivanickson]

i know this will sound stupid what about your intonation on the 7 string? With an 80 on a 27" scale, are you also using the right saddles for the right tension? The highest i ever had to go for A on my 27" is 70

Hey, did you solve the problem? I have the same now on my 27" 7-string guitar in drop G#. Seems like it depends on a string gauge.