Silly 12-string question

[notCardio]

Wouldn't it be possible to take the extra strings off and play it as a 6 if you wanted to? Or will it screw up the tension on the neck? And if so, would adjusting the truss rod take care of that?

I found an electric 12 that the neck specs are the same as the 6 str. version, and I just wondered.

 

[rory]

Taking the thin strings and putting them on your guitar is nashville tuning. Putting the "thick" strings on your guitar is standard. It won't hurt anything.

 

[ggunn]

Wouldn't it be possible to take the extra strings off and play it as a 6 if you wanted to? Or will it screw up the tension on the neck? And if so, would adjusting the truss rod take care of that?

I found an electric 12 that the neck specs are the same as the 6 str. version, and I just wondered.

I have seen people do that. You may or may not need a truss rod adjustment.

 

[notCardio]

Cool beans.

I actually hate that saying, but I needed the 10 characters.

 

[Anfontan]

I have seen people do that. You may or may not need a truss rod adjustment.

I would say that if you changed to the nashville tuning, there would definitely be a required adjustment. Ggunn is probably correct that just removing the high strings might be debatable on a truss rod adjustment

 

[Light]

Go for it, it will be fine. The only problem with it is you will almost certainly find the neck to be too wide to play comfortably.


Light

"Cowards can never be moral."
M.K. Gandhi

 

[Milnoque]

The string spacing on the fingerboard will be slightly funny. It bothers some people. I don't even notice.

 

[RandyW]

I would guestimate that if you replace a set of 12 light gauge strings
that are tuned to D to Eb you could probably just put a set (6)
medium gauge strings with little to no truss adjustment required.
If your guitar was set for concert pitch you would probably have
release a little pressure off the truss rod.

 

[notCardio]

The neck width specs on the one I'm looking at are exactly the same as on their 6 string model. I'm a little suspicious and will contact them to verify.

Sad to say, I don' even remember what 'concert pitch' means anymore. It sounds familiar. Of course, so does my address and phone number.

 

[Sky Blue Lou]

Concert pitch is A=440 and standard tuning E A D G B E. You can make A = something else or tune differently - same thing really if your A isn't an A anymore but if you've lowered the tuning you're still probably gonna refer to the strings as E A D, etc. regardless of what pitch they really are.

Make sense - did I get that right?


lou

 

[Slowrider]

Go for it, it will be fine. The only problem with it is you will almost certainly find the neck to be too wide to play comfortably.


Light

That depends only on the length of ones fingers.

 

[RandyW]

The neck width specs on the one I'm looking at are exactly the same as on their 6 string model. I'm a little suspicious and will contact them to verify.

Sad to say, I don' even remember what 'concert pitch' means anymore. It sounds familiar. Of course, so does my address and phone number.

I don't think you ever mentioned which make or model 12 string you have.
I currently have 2. The yahama 12 string is basically the same width neck as their 6 string models so it would matter much with that brand.
The Guild is a much wider neck and would be a pain to play with 6 strings.
Actually it is a pain to play with 12 strings it weighs about 1/2 ton with the
dual truss rods and over engineered timber in it, but is sure sounds nice.

I think you would want to put the strings in the lower slot for each pair, then you could actually bend the top "bass" strings any way you wanted since you would extra realestate due to this missing top string. Also because you wouldn't want to have to resize the octave string slots in the event you want to go back to 12 strings some day.