If your guitar keeps going out of tune, it is almost always one of five things: strings that are still stretching, too many wraps around the tuning post, the nut pinching the string, a tuner that slips under tension, or a change in temperature and humidity. Work through them in that order and you will find it, usually in under ten minutes. Tuning drift is rarely a mystery and almost never means the guitar is broken.
Below is how each cause shows itself, what it does to your tuning, and how to fix it yourself. There is a short diagnostic at the end that finds the culprit in one pass.
New strings are supposed to go out of tune
A fresh set of guitar strings stretches for the first few days. That is not a fault, it is the string bedding in. Plain strings settle quickly, wound strings take longer because the windings settle over the core.
You can skip most of the waiting. After fitting the strings and tuning to pitch, gently pull each string away from the fretboard about two centimetres at the twelfth fret, let it snap back, and retune. Do that three or four times per string on the first day, and again after the first hour of playing. Stretched properly, a new set holds tuning within a day. Left alone, it can wander for a week.
If a set is still drifting after four or five days of playing, the strings are not the problem. Move to the next cause.
Too many wraps around the tuning post
The string should wrap the post two or three times, no more. A great coil of string around the peg is the most common cause of a guitar that will not stay in tune, because each layer can slide against the one below it.
Two things matter beyond the wrap count: the string should come off the post low, so it pulls down onto the nut, and the first wrap should go over the top of the string’s tail and lock it. A locking wind, sometimes called a luthier’s knot, holds far better than a plain wrap.
If you have just restrung and the tuning is all over the place, check the post before blaming anything else. An old string with a neat two-wrap wind rarely slips: it is nearly always a fresh string wound badly.
The nut is pinching the string and you can hear a ping
A nut slot that grips the string is one of the classic causes, and it has a signature sound: a small ping or tick as you tune up, usually on the G and B strings. What happens is the string binds in the slot, then jumps, which changes the tension behind the nut and puts you out of tune. Bend a note and the same thing happens in reverse, which is why that string goes flat after a bend but stays put if you never bend.
The temporary fix is lubrication. A scrape of pencil graphite in the slot, or a best rated nut lubricant, is usually enough to free it. If the slot is cut too tight or has a burr, it needs a nut file, which is a job for a tech or a patient afternoon with the right tool.
Slipping tuners and loose machine heads
Machine heads do wear, but they are blamed far more often than they fail. Test them before replacing anything. Tune the string to pitch, then turn the tuning key slowly and watch the post. If the key turns and the post does not follow, the machine head is slipping and a best rated set of replacement tuners is the answer.
Before that, check the small screw on the end of the tuning key. On many closed-gear tuners a loose screw lets the button slip on the shaft, and a quarter turn with a screwdriver solves it. On vintage open-gear tuners, the plate screws work loose over the years and the whole unit can shift.
One more cause hiding in the same place: a string that is not tight against the post, or that was cut before being locked, will creep under tension. If the string slides at the post, it is not a tuner fault at all.
Temperature and humidity move the wood
Wood moves with its surroundings, and the strings sit on the wood. A guitar that lives near a radiator in winter or a window in summer will drift, and it will drift in a pattern: flat as the room cools, sharp as it warms, with the low strings moving most.
Two common versions of this catch people out. The first is a guitar that has just arrived in the post. Give it a day to settle at room temperature before judging the tuning at all. The second is a guitar brought in from a cold car. Let the case come to room temperature before opening it, and it will hold tuning much better.
The fix is environmental, not mechanical. Keep the guitar out of direct sun and away from radiators, and hold the room around 40 to 60 percent humidity. A cheap hygrometer tells you where you are. If your acoustic is drifting every winter, a sound-hole humidifier in the case will steady it.
Tremolo bridges, springs and dive bombs
Guitars with a floating tremolo are the hardest to keep in tune, and the reason is mechanical. The strings pull one way, the springs pull the other, and anything that upsets that balance shifts every string at once.
A few practical rules. When you change strings, change them one at a time so the balance never changes completely. Stretch each string as you fit it. If you use the bar heavily, tune, stretch and repeat until it settles. If the bridge sits off the body and you rarely use the bar, adding a tremolo spring or tightening the claw will steady the whole system. Setting up a floating bridge to return to pitch is its own skill, and it is where a professional setup earns its money.
How to find your cause in ten minutes
Work through this and you will know which of the above you are dealing with. A best rated clip-on tuner makes it quicker, because you are measuring the drift rather than guessing at it.
First, tune the guitar to pitch and play for two minutes as you normally would. Check the tuning again and note which strings moved and in which direction.
If the strings that moved are the ones you bend most, suspect the nut. If every string moved flat together, suspect temperature drift. If one string moved a lot and the rest did not, suspect that string’s wind at the post.
Next, listen while you tune up. A ping means the nut is gripping. No ping, but the string goes flat after a bend, still points at the nut.
Then check the winds at the post. Two to three wraps, coming off low, first wrap locked over the tail. If it looks like a bird’s nest, there is your answer.
Finally, check each machine head for play, and the screw on each tuning key. If the post follows the key and the winds are neat and the string still slips, that is when a new set of tuners or a trip to a tech is worth it.
When it is the guitar, not you
If you have checked all of the above and the tuning still wanders, the guitar probably needs a setup rather than a repair. A worn nut, a truss rod that needs adjusting, or action that is too high will all pull the tuning around, and none of them is expensive to fix.
It is also worth separating tuning from intonation, because the two get confused constantly. Tuning is whether the open string is at pitch. Intonation is whether the guitar is still in tune as you move up the neck. If your open strings are spot on but the twelfth fret sounds wrong, that is an intonation problem, not a tuning one, and it is set at the bridge saddles.
If you are deciding whether to fix, keep, or move a guitar on, it helps to know what it is actually worth first. You can check that on our compare guitars page.
The quick answers
Stretch new strings, and stretch them properly. Keep two to three wraps at the post, locked on the first turn. Put graphite or nut lubricant in the slots. Check the screws on the tuners. Keep the guitar away from radiators and let it settle after a journey. That list covers the overwhelming majority of tuning problems, and none of it costs much.
If the guitar is old, has never had a setup, and still drifts after all of that, book it in for a technician’s look at the nut and the neck.
Tuning stability by guitar type
The same problem behaves differently depending on what you play, and knowing which camp you are in saves a lot of wasted effort.
**Steel-string acoustics** drift most with the seasons. The body is big, the top is thin, and it moves with humidity more than any electric. If an acoustic goes out of tune in the same way every October, that is the wood, not the hardware.
**Solid-body electrics** with a fixed bridge are the most stable guitars made. If a hardtail Strat or a Les Paul is going out of tune, it is almost always the nut, the winds at the post, or a string that was never stretched.
**Guitars with a floating tremolo** are the opposite. The system is balanced on springs, so anything that changes one string changes all six. They can be made stable, but they need the right setup and a routine at every string change.
**Classical and nylon-string guitars** are more stable than steel string in humidity terms, because nylon moves less with moisture. What they suffer from is a slow stretch over the first fortnight of a new set, and tuning pegs that are friction-fit rather than geared, which slip when they are worn.
**Bass guitars** have the same causes as everything else, with one twist: the long scale means a small amount of stretch translates into a bigger pitch change, so new strings take longer to settle and the stretch routine matters more.
What keeps a guitar from going out of tune
Strip away the causes and stability comes down to four things.
**Friction, or the lack of it.** Every point where the string touches the guitar is a chance for it to bind: the nut slots, the bridge saddles, the string trees on a Strat, and the tuning posts. A guitar with smooth contact points at the right angles holds tuning. A guitar with a tight nut slot or a burred saddle does not.
**Neat winds at the post.** Two to three wraps, locked on the first turn, coming off the post low. This one habit fixes more tuning complaints than any product on the market.
**Stable tension.** Strings under consistent tension stay put. Strings that are slackened and retightened constantly, or that live on a guitar with a tremolo that never returns to the same place, drift.
**A stable environment.** Wood that is not moving is wood that holds pitch. Forty to sixty percent humidity and a spot away from radiators and windows does more for tuning than most upgrades.
Tuning stability when you travel or gig
Guitars move, and each move is a small shock to the tuning.
If you take a guitar out in the cold, let the case come up to room temperature before you open it. Opening a cold case in a warm room fogs the guitar and shifts the tuning immediately. Twenty minutes of patience saves a re-tune and, in the worst cases, finish checking.
When you carry a guitar in a gig bag, loosen nothing. A guitar at pitch in a padded bag is fine. What damages tuning on the road is the neck being knocked, which is a case problem, not a tuning one.
At a gig, tune once and then leave it alone between songs. Constant small corrections at volume, with the guitar warming from stage lights and your own body heat, chase the tuning around the room. Tune at the start, check halfway, and accept that a hot stage will pull things slightly. If you play a set in a cold hall, expect to tune up twice, because the strings contract as they cool.
For players who gig regularly, a spare set of strings and a clip-on tuner in the case is the whole kit. Breaking a string mid-set is the only tuning problem you cannot fix in the moment, and the fix is always a fresh string you brought with you.
When to stop troubleshooting and book a setup
There is a point where the answer is not another trick, it is a professional setup. That point arrives when the causes above have all been ruled out and the guitar still will not hold.
Book it in if the nut slots are worn or cut too deep, if the frets have flat spots that make notes buzz and choke, if the neck relief is out so the action has drifted, or if the bridge saddles are notched and catching strings. A setup covers the truss rod, the action height, the intonation and the nut, and it is the single best money you can spend on a guitar that feels wrong.
In the UK, a basic setup typically runs from around £40 to £70 at an independent shop, and rather more if nut work or fret levelling is needed. Ask for a quote before leaving the guitar, and get the intonation checked as part of it. If your guitar has never had one, that is very likely the root of the tuning trouble you have been fighting.
Storing and moving a guitar so it keeps its tuning
Where a guitar lives between playing sessions decides how much it drifts.
Keep it out of direct sun. A guitar in a sunny window can heat up far more than you would guess, and both the tuning and the glue holding the bridge are affected.
Keep it off radiators and away from heaters. Dry heat pulls moisture out of the wood, the top sinks, and the neck moves. Winter in a centrally heated room is the season tuning problems are made.
Keep it at a steady humidity rather than a perfect one. Forty to sixty percent is the target. A guitar that swings between 30 and 70 percent all week will move more than one that sits at 45.
If you store a guitar for months, slack the strings by about a tone and keep it in its case with a humidifier. If you play daily, leave it at pitch on a stand or wall hanger in a stable room. Both of those are right, and both are far better than leaving a guitar at pitch against a radiator.
A short list of tuning myths
**”Locking tuners fix tuning.”** They help, mainly by cutting down the number of winds, but a badly cut nut will still drag a locking tuner out of tune just as fast.
**”Heavier strings stay in tune better.”** Heavier strings feel different and can take more aggressive playing, but they stretch just the same when new. Stability comes from how they are fitted.
**”You should detune a guitar you are not playing this week.”** Not for a week, no. Only for long storage of a month or more. Slackening strings and retuning repeatedly is worse for the neck than leaving them at pitch.
**”A guitar going out of tune means it is cheap.”** Budget guitars often arrive with a badly cut nut and a poor setup, which is what makes them feel unstable. The same guitar set up properly usually holds tuning as well as anything.
Recommended gear
A clip-on tuner is the cheapest upgrade to your tuning stability, because you stop guessing. Clip-on guitar tuners on Amazon start around the price of a set of strings.
Fresh strings settle faster than old ones that have been stretched, dulled and left on too long. Acoustic strings and electric strings both stop wandering within a day when they are fitted and stretched properly.
A dedicated nut lubricant sorts out the ping in seconds, though a pencil does the same job in a pinch.
Why does my guitar go out of tune when I bend?
The string is binding in the nut slot. Bending pulls extra string through the slot, and when the note returns the string does not slide back evenly, so it comes back flat. The fix is lubricant in the slot, then a file if the slot is too tight.
Why does my guitar go out of tune overnight?
Usually temperature and humidity. A room that cools overnight shrinks the wood slightly and slackens the strings, so the guitar reads flat in the morning. If it happens in summer near a window or winter near a radiator, that is almost certainly it.
Why do new strings go out of tune so much?
Because they are still stretching. Wound strings take the longest as the windings settle over the core. Stretch each string by hand three or four times when you fit it, retune, and play for an hour, and the drift stops within a day instead of a week.
Should I leave my guitar tuned to pitch?
Yes, at concert pitch for a guitar you play regularly. It keeps the neck under its designed load and means the guitar is ready to play. Only slack the strings if the guitar is going into storage for a month or more.
Why does only one string go out of tune?
That points at that string’s own path rather than the guitar as a whole. Check the wind at its tuning post first, then the nut slot it passes through. Single-string drift is nearly always one of those two things.
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