skabbo
New member
Greetings all - first time posting, so taking the opportunity to say hi to everyone as well 
Earlier this year, I bought the first guitar I've had to save up for since 2004. A 2024 Suhr Modern Plus in Trans Whale Blue Burst.
I absolutely adore the thing. It's both a work of art; unbelievably beautiful, sculpted to hyperbolic perfection with its clay dot inlays, book-matched flamed maple top and chrome-on-black hardware, as well as a being work of utilitarian function. It has the clarity of a piano. The stainless steel frets rolled at the ends without a fraction of a millimeter overlapping the subtly streaked, tight-grained Pau Ferro fingerboard, and the smoothest roasted matte satin Canadian maple neck I've ever laid hands on.
I only have one issue, and it's a fairly minor (and hopefully a fixable) one.
When I do any heavy bending, the E, A, D and G strings go very slightly out of tune, and from everything I've read (aside from the known, global issue of floating tremolos needing a slight tap to return the G string to tune after a big bend), this shouldn't be the case.
Under normal conditions it stays solidly in tune. I can even throw it in the gig bag that it came with, walk across town with it, and it's still in tune when I get there. This solely happens when bending the strings.
I'm using a TC Electronics Polytune in standard needle mode (I was using "pulse" mode before, but switched to needle to see if that was the issue). They claim the tuner is accurate down to 0.1 cents, and this seems to be the case. I'll tune it, then play a riff that involves some full-step bends, generally on the G or B string (though not always), and if I check the tuner again, it usually shows the low E, A, and sometimes D strings being sharp, and occasionally the G being flat. A tap on the tremolo usually returns the G to tune, but the E and A string require about 1/16 of a turn of the tuning key. I should emphasize that it is not far enough out of tune for me to immediately notice. It's only really noticeable if I play a chord, or check the tuner, so it's very minor, but enough to be a nuisance.
I've applied Big Bends Nut Sauce under the strings at the nut (and the nut seems cut really perfectly. It moves completely smoothly as I tune the guitar, without any snags or 'pings' which made me doubt this was the issue, but wanted to rule it out) to no avail.
This happened with the strings that it came with (Ernie Ball 10s), and I'm currently using a set of EB cobalt 9s which have the same issue. Aside from liking how they sound, I thought the 9s might help because they're a bit more slack than the standard 10s, which means the spring holds the bridge much more tightly against the body, making the tremolo bar noticeably stiffer.
The setup is factory aside from some minor intonation adjustment that I did, and in all other ways it seems excellent. I'm utilizing the locking tuners, so there's no excess wraps at the tuning pegs to slip. I'm totally baffled as to what may be causing it, and curious if anyone else has run into something similar. While it's incredibly minor, it feels wrong on such an otherwise flawless instrument.
Edit: Just a small update. It still only does it when bending, but it's not necessarily sharp. It goes out by up to about 20 cents either sharp or flat, and can do so after only a few bends. If I'm not bending the tuning is pretty rock solid. All of my other guitars are fixed-bridge (other than a MIM strat, which I haven't played in a while, and don't recall the tuning stability on). Is this to be expected with a floating bridge? I haven't read about anyone else having quite the same level of tuning strangeness on a Suhr.
Thanks in advance for any replies, whether or not they're a solution,
-Aaron
Earlier this year, I bought the first guitar I've had to save up for since 2004. A 2024 Suhr Modern Plus in Trans Whale Blue Burst.
I absolutely adore the thing. It's both a work of art; unbelievably beautiful, sculpted to hyperbolic perfection with its clay dot inlays, book-matched flamed maple top and chrome-on-black hardware, as well as a being work of utilitarian function. It has the clarity of a piano. The stainless steel frets rolled at the ends without a fraction of a millimeter overlapping the subtly streaked, tight-grained Pau Ferro fingerboard, and the smoothest roasted matte satin Canadian maple neck I've ever laid hands on.
I only have one issue, and it's a fairly minor (and hopefully a fixable) one.
When I do any heavy bending, the E, A, D and G strings go very slightly out of tune, and from everything I've read (aside from the known, global issue of floating tremolos needing a slight tap to return the G string to tune after a big bend), this shouldn't be the case.
Under normal conditions it stays solidly in tune. I can even throw it in the gig bag that it came with, walk across town with it, and it's still in tune when I get there. This solely happens when bending the strings.
I'm using a TC Electronics Polytune in standard needle mode (I was using "pulse" mode before, but switched to needle to see if that was the issue). They claim the tuner is accurate down to 0.1 cents, and this seems to be the case. I'll tune it, then play a riff that involves some full-step bends, generally on the G or B string (though not always), and if I check the tuner again, it usually shows the low E, A, and sometimes D strings being sharp, and occasionally the G being flat. A tap on the tremolo usually returns the G to tune, but the E and A string require about 1/16 of a turn of the tuning key. I should emphasize that it is not far enough out of tune for me to immediately notice. It's only really noticeable if I play a chord, or check the tuner, so it's very minor, but enough to be a nuisance.
I've applied Big Bends Nut Sauce under the strings at the nut (and the nut seems cut really perfectly. It moves completely smoothly as I tune the guitar, without any snags or 'pings' which made me doubt this was the issue, but wanted to rule it out) to no avail.
This happened with the strings that it came with (Ernie Ball 10s), and I'm currently using a set of EB cobalt 9s which have the same issue. Aside from liking how they sound, I thought the 9s might help because they're a bit more slack than the standard 10s, which means the spring holds the bridge much more tightly against the body, making the tremolo bar noticeably stiffer.
The setup is factory aside from some minor intonation adjustment that I did, and in all other ways it seems excellent. I'm utilizing the locking tuners, so there's no excess wraps at the tuning pegs to slip. I'm totally baffled as to what may be causing it, and curious if anyone else has run into something similar. While it's incredibly minor, it feels wrong on such an otherwise flawless instrument.
Edit: Just a small update. It still only does it when bending, but it's not necessarily sharp. It goes out by up to about 20 cents either sharp or flat, and can do so after only a few bends. If I'm not bending the tuning is pretty rock solid. All of my other guitars are fixed-bridge (other than a MIM strat, which I haven't played in a while, and don't recall the tuning stability on). Is this to be expected with a floating bridge? I haven't read about anyone else having quite the same level of tuning strangeness on a Suhr.
Thanks in advance for any replies, whether or not they're a solution,
-Aaron
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