Brand new guitar and it has been tuned when playing chords they sound very low and out of tune even though chords are right what is wrong?

Answer 1

When you say "it has been tuned", you make it sound like it has been tuned only once. You realize that a Guitars go out of tune all the time and have to be retuned, right? If the guitar still sounds out of tune even after proper tuning, then there are a couple things which could be wrong. It could just be a lousy guitar that doesn't have the frets in the right place. In particular, sometimes you run into a guitar where the nut isn't in the right place relative to the frets, so that the open strings aren't in tune relative to the fretted strings. The other potential problem might be your bridge: the intonation might be off. If this is an electric guitar, you probably have individually adjustable saddles to adjust the intonation on every string, so this is a relatively easy problem to fix. You check the intonation by playing a note on the string, and then playing the same note one octave higher, and making sure it sounds like a true octavie. For instance, play each string open (unfingered), and then at the 12th fret (should be marked with a double-dot). The 12th fret note should sound exactly one octave higher than the open string. If it doesn't, you've got an intonation problem and your bridge needs to be adjusted. If it's an electric with an adjustable bridge, then you'll see that the bridge is made of six separate saddles (one for each string), with a screw at the end that can move each saddle forward or backward. Turn the screw to move the saddle forward or backward until the octave is true. If you have an accoustic with an intonation problem, I'm not sure what can be done. Take it back to where you bought it.