Locking guitar tuners

[kitekrazy1]

On 10/5/2025 at 3:15 AM, Xoo said:

The SE isn't that high end (funnily enough, I much prefer how it plays to a high end PRS I tried!).  I do think my knotting may be sub-optimal in some cases, but I don't think it's awful on all the strings!

I have a much older SE with a wide fat.  The 1st generation I guess they call it.

I do suck a changing strings.  

[Xoo]

12 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

Has your environment changed?   If humidity / temperature changes are more extreme or more frequent than before the problem began, it could cause issues if they happen long enough or extreme enough, if the wood isn't sealed against them well enough.   A long time ago I had a crappy old acoustic nylon string that used to be my younger sister's, and it held a tune ok, when we were kids in north texas farm country in  a little pink house with a swamp cooler.  After we moved to the desert here, it started to change and had problems, and after a few years it was impossible to tune, you'd start on one string and by the time you got the last one done it had lost the tune on the first one, and no amount of working with it would tune it.   Not like we knew anything about guitars, or how ot store or use htem, etc., so it could probably have been prevented, but....

The environment hasn't changed, but it's not in an ideal environment (if that makes sense - it's been this way for years).  So that may be a factor.

Also what might be a factor is my inability to actually look closely - I can "remember" restringing and it being OK, but when I looked at the G string last night (no sniggers at the back, please), it's truly awfully wound.  So that's probably my problem.  Don't I feel stupid?

Seriously, I appreciate the replies here and I've learned a lot (including the luthier's knot, which I'd actually been doing by chance, just not very well!).

[mettelus]

3 hours ago, Xoo said:

I can "remember" restringing and it being OK, but when I looked at the G string last night (no sniggers at the back, please), it's truly awfully wound.

The unwound strings in particular (the ones you say are de-tuning) have less friction to each other on the post wraps, so I have always wrapped at least 4 turns on those strings. The purpose of the kink in the "luthier's knot" is to provide additional friction against the string being unwound (from slippage) on the post. Even when changing strings I loosen them just enough so I can "unwrap" them fully by pulling vertically at the post, then a slight tug will unbend that kink and pull it out with ease. The more wraps, the more friction... BB King was notorious for wrapping the entire string on posts.  It is the same principle with ropes, especially things like rappelling... without a wrap of rope behind you to add friction, there is no way on earth you can control your body weight with one hand for five minutes with any degree of control. Even ascending ropes, a wrap is commonly used on one leg so you can pinch the rope on top of that foot with the free foot with very little force to rest your arms (even people with little upper body strength can do this method). People zooming up a rope with just upper body strength like the Man in Black at the Cliffs of Insanity is not common at all, but no one messes with the Man in Black (it's inconceivable)!!!

Then again (back to the OP), locking tuners are a means to keep the string from slipping on the post... the "King Kong" version of the "luthier's knot" kink, so fewer wraps are needed and string changes are quicker. If you change strings often and don't have a string winder, locking tuners will certainly pay for themselves with the timed saved.

[Xoo]

The B and the E are the ones that stay in tune most though.  G is worst (but badly wound - my bad for not checking  and making an assumption) but the low E and A aren't amazing (IMHO).

[Amberwolf]

On my six string Ibanez bass, the two low strings are the hardest to get tuned in the first place, and lose their tune first.   At least they don't drag the rest of the thing out of tune, but it's annoying. 

 

I don't really worry about it and havent' done much to try to fix it because I don't use the guitar much (any of the non-virtual stuff these days), and when I do it's just one string at a time (cuz I can't actually play; I build chords where I use them by combining different recordings at different times.) but this thread has good ideas for trying out next time I get annoyed enough by it.  

[Xoo]

Of course, after all this "threat" of locking tuners and restringing and the like, it has stayed in tune near perfectly for the last couple of days 🙂

[Glenn Stanton]

7 hours ago, Xoo said:

Of course, after all this "threat" of locking tuners and restringing and the like, it has stayed in tune near perfectly for the last couple of days 🙂

same thing happens when i'm near someone's computer they claim is not working properly... 😉 

[Amberwolf]

The technician effect.

 

Which does not work on the technician's own systems.

 

Edited October 10 by Amberwolf

[Glenn Stanton]

18 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

The technician effect.  Which does not work on the technician's own systems.

no, my machines also start working correctly once i've interrupted whatever i'm in the middle of working on, and then don't reappear for some random time later... 😈

[Jim Roseberry]

Get the PRS SE locking tuners that @Chaps pointed out.

Those are drop-in replacements that work well.

 

I've owned a lot of PRS guitars.

Though I love much about them, the nut is typically pretty thick.

That makes it all the more likely that strings get bound up in the nut.

Even with PRS Private Stock guitars (with their vintage style tremolo), I've had issues with strings binding in the nut.

ie:  When you first pick-up the guitar...  press down on the tremolo arm... and you'll likely hear the strings "ping".

That means strings are getting caught in the nut. 

That's likely the reason the guitar isn't staying in tune.

If this is the case, locking tuners won't solve this issue.

Take the guitar to a trusted/skilled luthier... and have them file the nut so all strings slide smoothly without getting bound.

Note this isn't an issue limited to PRS guitars.  Gibson Les Pauls (and similar) often have this issue on the G string.  (No jokes please 🤪)

 

[mettelus]

Jim makes a good point. In addition, some nuts are slotted to a preferred string gauge, so anything bigger can get pinched if the slots are too deep and you are using a bigger gauge. TUSQ XL nuts are one of the best replacements out there (they have teflon in them) and IIRC are designed to accept 9-11 string sets. StewMac sells them a little cheaper, but not sure about the shipping comparison. If you get outside their intended gauge range (the TUSQ site has a lot of info), a luthier may be needed to open the slots on them.

[Starship Krupa]

On 10/7/2025 at 6:44 AM, Xoo said:

G is worst

G is always the worst. On all of my guitars, which cover acoustics, solid body fixed bridge, solid body with vibrato, and hollow body electric, 3-on-a-side and 6-on-a-side, the G is the one that's most likely to go out of tune. Also, when tuning, it's the most difficult to dial in.

Why? I've given it some thought. What about the G string might cause this?

First, in the case of the light strings I (and most guitarists, since the late 1960's) use, the G string is the fattest plain string. If I'm correct, that means that it has more tension than its neighbors the B and E strings.

Second, it's close to the center of the fretboard and in the middle of the guitar's range. That means that when strumming and playing chords, it will nearly always be strummed or plucked. While there are some chords that omit the low E and A as well as some that omit the high E, whatever cowboy chord you play will involve using the G string. It gets fretted more and struck more than any other string except maybe the B. And when strumming downward, it will be hit before the B and therefore be hit with more force.

Third, and probably least significant, is that on 3-on-a-side headstocks, there's more G string above the nut, therefore more to stretch, more to have tension above the nut. The D string also shares this.

On 10/9/2025 at 2:45 AM, Xoo said:

it has stayed in tune near perfectly for the last couple of days

This is of course a known phenomenon, and while it seems like magic or the universe's perversity, I think that this too can be explained. I had to deal with the "technician effect" all the time when I had my amp servicing business. People would show up and the amp would magically have healed itself and they'd be WAY bummed and angry until I picked up a drum stick and started tapping the butt end of it against various areas of the cabinet. Bingo.

A couple of days ago, I was having trouble with routing MIDI from MTuner. I'm the biggest MeldaMoonie on this forum, and I've written tutorials on how to set up MVocoder, etc. But I could NOT for the life of me get MTuner to appear as a possible input to a Sonar MIDI track. So I put the question to the forum, including the "facts" that I had enabled MIDI output for the plug-in both in Sonar and in itself, yada yada.

Immediately after posting, I decided to go back through one more time and double/triple check the steps I said that I had taken. Poof! I had it working within 5 minutes of posting. Magic? Nah, writing it all out helped me to calm down and sort my thoughts and focus.

You've been concentrating your efforts on solving this issue, and something or other you did has helped, even if temporarily.

Another trick that's so obvious that people wouldn't mention it is: always tune UP to a note, never down. This ensures that whatever leftover tensions from binding in the nut or whatever will result in the string going slightly higher in pitch if they are released. It's not ideal, but the idea is that strings tend to go out of tune in the direction of flat, so at least these two forces will somewhat cancel each other.

Only one of my guitars has locking tuners, and it's one that someone gave me. It isn't any different from my other Strat-alikes when it comes to tuning stability.

[OutrageProductions]

@Starship Krupa I believe that you have landed upon a perfect basis for a Masters Thesis in either mechanical engineering, music, or acoustics.

[Xoo]

9 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

It's not ideal, but the idea is that strings tend to go out of tune in the direction of flat, so at least these two forces will somewhat cancel each other.

Just to be perverse, this guitar always (almost always) detunes sharp...  But I agree about the tuning up (especially on violins!).

[Starship Krupa]

3 hours ago, Xoo said:

this guitar always (almost always) detunes sharp

Well, that's a clue right there.

Do you use the whammy? Is it set up to float?

Going out of tune sharp is often due to binding at the nut, so the advice about nut care is pertinent.

As far as whammies go, if it's set up to float, it's a nice idea to hit the holes in the inertia block where the springs attach and the claw at the other end of the springs with lube every so often.

[Xoo]

No whammy at all (floating or traditional).

[T Boog]

Just thought I'd post this for the whammy users here. I personally deck my tremolo but Carl's advice for a floating setup(w/ angled claw) makes a lot of sense and he always seems to be in tune. (He's a killer player too)

 

[mettelus]

Nice video. I have to delve into that a bit when I get a chance. I have a guitar with a Floyd knock-off but the guitar itself never thrilled me much so I never looked into tweaking anything on it (yet)... just a wall ornament for now. My main has a Kahler clone in it (no claw) and I rarely even put the bar in it; that one floats but I axle greased the hinge pin decades ago now and never had issues with it. But... the IYV I just got with the Wilkinson seems to be fine but I definitely like him targeting steps with that claw angle so that is something to fiddle with for sure in the near future.

Side note: I ran the crap out of the IYV this past weekend and the PUPs are perfectly fine (and different enough that the switch shifts tones). I need to update that thread at some point, but when I do finally do a string change I am going to Brasso the logo off those PUPs and keep them. The first song that came to mind for me to stress test that tremolo was the intro to Giant's I'm A Believer... even though that song has gotten air time, the intro (first 1:15 on it) is rarely included, and is one of my favorite intros.

 

Edited 1 hour ago by mettelus