My PRS SE Custom 24 goes out of tune constantly. Help?

[James Breeze]

Alright well, as the title says, I have a PRS SE Custom 24. I'm not sure what year it is, but the model has a flat top, so it's a few years old at least.

I mainly play blues guitar, and I've noticed that when doing bends the strings seem to go out of tune all the time. Not doing any crazy Albert King bends, just normal half step or whole step bends. I hear a little *ping* sound, and then the string is out of tune. Or if I bend the B string, often the G string will go out of tune.

I'm not very knowledgeable about setting up guitars, so i thought I'd come here to see what you guys think the problem could be. Someone I know has suggested that maybe it's a problem with the nut.

 

[Chris528]

Sound like it's the nut to me.

 

[chet]

Binding nut perhaps.

 

[andy474x]

What size strings are you using? If anything larger than 9's, and you've not had your but adjusted, it's most definitely the nut.

 

[gush]

The pinging sound is a telltale sign the strings are binding then slipping at the nut. Somebody on here suggested chapstick on the string slots for lube and I think it helps. If my cu24 does go out of tune it's almost always the "G" string. Hope that helps.

 

[sleary]

Big bens nut sauce or pencil shavings in the nut slots should do the trick....

 

[vchizzle]

Big bens nut sauce or pencil shavings in the nut slots should do the trick....

^^^Try this first. Then when you change your strings, see how freely each string slides thru it's nut slot. It's usually the culprit, the string binding in that slot.

 

[maxtuna26]

Yup, it's the nut. Mine had similar binding problems, and then I just ordered a USA nut for mine. Still waiting for it to wing it's way here to me.

 

[HANGAR18]

Ive had that happen on one or more of those thin strings when they weren't locked into the tuner head very well and they would slip.
But for me this was normally when a just bought a guitar and someone else had installed the strings and didn't wrap them the way I do.
I should mention that when I said "locked" above,I didn't mean like when you use locking tuners but rather standard tuning posts.
I'm not sure if all PRS Custom 24's came with locking tuners or not, mine did, so it sounded to me like you might not have locking tuners and the string is slipping at the post.
If you have locking tuners and you are sure the strings are locked in properly, then yes, by all means look at the relationship between the strings you are using and the nut like the others said.