Tuning

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Sandman2000

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I play the guitar, but not that often.So I don't know everything.But I have one question.What's tunning up one step and tunning down one step.Is there a big difference in sound. Does it cater to any type of music.Or is just something that guitarist do to get a certain sound.Please help.I want to know.
 
Ive never heard of tuning up a step but Im sure some do it...anyway, standard tuning is tuned to a-440....if you tune all of your stings down a half step (Eb Ab Db Gb Bb Eb), then you are tuned down a half step, made common by lots of rock bands...gives a beefier sound, especially when playing with distortion..another plus is if you recorded a song in standard tuning, say in the key of E, and you tune down a half step for live shows, it helps the singer hit the higher notes....
 
NEVER EVER TUNE A GUITAR UP

You could cause significant damage to the neck!Tuning down is ok and lots of guys (Stevie Ray ) did that.
Most non-standard tunings involve tuning down.If you do a lot of alternate tuning,you probably already know how it affects your neck straightness and how you have to readjust your truss rod.
G tuning or "Spanish " as the bluesmen call it will give you too much relief unless you tighten the neck a couple quarter turns.
Speaking of alternate tunings,the great John Fahey died yesterday.He recorded on Takoma records and was "discovered" by Leo Kotke."Poor Boy, Long Way From Home" from the album "Blind Joe Death" is his most familiar cut.In high school,I spent nearly a month learning the right hand complex finger-picking pattern in a song "In Christ ,There Is No East Or West" that Leo covered on Greenhouse.God bless John Fahey.

Tom
 
Good point....if you play in a tuning other than the one your guitars intonation was set up for, it will throw the intonation off a bit.....
 
I may be way off base, tension wise, but I think you probably COULD tune up, on a guitar like a fender bolt-on (strat or tele). Guys like SRV tuned down a half-step, but Stevie was reputed to have used string gauges as high as .013 or .014 on top. Seems to me that that might make for a heck of a lot of string tension on the neck. Now say you were to take a set of .008's and tune those puppies UP a step to F#. I don't know how the resulting tension would compare (or WHY you would want to do it anyway), but it seems like it might be possible with a little set up work to make it fly without guitar damage. Not that I am recommending this to anyone, just that it seems within the realm of possibility.

Maybe I'll try it on one of my mongrels......or on the shorter scale practice guitar...or try it at rehearsal and give the bass player fits as he tries to follow me.

peace.
 
I'm not a luthier....

...but I do know that unless the guitar was SPECIFICALLY designed for it, the neck is only designed to handle the tension provided by typical string configurations strung to concert pitch (a-440)...

I have never encountered any pro guitarist who tunes up...

Bruce
 
Bruce,
So what exactly is a typical string configuration? The diference in total tension on a strat scale instrument going from a set of .009's to a set of .012's at the same tuning is 78 pounds. Now if we look at some more tensions of the same gauges at different notes we can see that on a .009 gauge set the low E string is a .042 at 14.8 lbs of tension. On a .012 set the same string is used as an A note (up a PERFECT FOURTH) an comes in at 29.3 lbs of tension. Now if we continue with this comparison and assume an approximate tension difference for the high E string (up a fourth to A) of about 10 lbs, then the total difference in tension for tuning UP a fourth would be around 72 lbs. That is around the same differential as going from a set of 9's to a set of 12's (taking the 9 gauge set up a fourth results in about the same tension as just throwing on some 12's at standard tuning. Of course this doesn't take into account a shorter scale (thus lower tension) instrument, or smaller gauge strings. It seems to me that one would have more to worry about in string breakage because of this, and not neck damage. I believe Johnny Marr of The Smiths tuned his guitar up to get a more chimey sort of sound, although I can't remember how far up he tuned it. Now maybe I need a physics lesson as I am extracting my data from D'Addario string packages and perhaps my line of reasoning is flawed, but it seems that people use gauges from .008's to .013's on the same guitars, with little more than a change in setup. I'm still very curious about all this, so maybe some scientific-minded individual can set me straight if I am in error.

peace,

Kip
 
I don't know, but wouldn't you get a more "chimey" sound by using lighter strings as well? Just a hunch...

It seems to me that the intonation changes slightly with string gauge too. My acoustic seems to prefer .011s instead of .010s (also d'Addario, btw). Easier to tune that way. I MAY be imagening things though.
 
I just recently got a guitar that had been set up for 8's. I run 11's on top and a 58 on the bottom. This created a little problem, but all I had to do was add an extra trem spring (a pretty heavy-duty one) in the back and reintonate. The neck didn't need any adjustement, it intonated really easily, and sounds/plays awesome. That all on a cheap Ibanez neck. Stevie Ray had 14's on top on a standard strat. Tuning up could produce interesting stuff, but really a capo on light guage strings would be much easier, and probably do the exact same thing. I've had high E's beak on me (not my 11's though, when I used to run 9's) just overshooting a little to E. If you do experiment, wacth your eyes (or strecth out the strings before jacking them up a step)!

Jake
 
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