Downtuning vs Baritone

guitarfishbay

ICBM said:

I’ve successfully tuned a Telecaster to A, but that was with a 75 gauge double-wound bass string for the low A. With a normal string B with a 65 or 70 is about the limit, as guitarfishbay said.

You can get guitar strings really thick these days, I’ve seen up to .105. What happens though is the low string starts sounding very different to the rest of the set, especially on standard scales. Some people like that, I’ve found .065 and thicker is when it really starts getting obvious. The other downside is the really thick strings go dull faster than all the other strings. 

Roland

Right, this is where I’ve got to.

The heaviest set of strings in my local music shop was 12-56. I started by tuning to B, but the guitar sounded dead. Ditto C. At C# the guitar came to life. At this point the cumulative tension is the same as a set of 10-52s tuned EADGBE. I’m not convinced about the tension balance between strings, but it’s a starting point. The current string set is 12 16 24 36 44 56. A better balance, with the same overall tension, would be 13 17 22 36 46 56. I didn’t want to change the strings again until I’d tried the guitar with the band.

We rehearsed last night. The concept works. It confused our bass player, who kept asking what chords I was playing. The guitar needs to be brighter. This is annoying, because I’ve recently changed the tone cap from .22 to .47 to remove some of the top end for normal tuning. One more rehearsal, then I’ll change the wiring and strings ready for a gig next month.

skullfunkerry

Roland said:

Right, this is where I’ve got to.

The heaviest set of strings in my local music shop was 12-56. I started by tuning to B, but the guitar sounded dead. Ditto C. At C# the guitar came to life. At this point the cumulative tension is the same as a set of 10-52s tuned EADGBE. I’m not convinced about the tension balance between strings, but it’s a starting point. The current string set is 12 16 24 36 44 56. A better balance, with the same overall tension, would be 13 17 22 36 46 56. I didn’t want to change the strings again until I’d tried the guitar with the band.

We rehearsed last night. The concept works. It confused our bass player, who kept asking what chords I was playing. The guitar needs to be brighter. This is annoying, because I’ve recently changed the tone cap from .22 to .47 to remove some of the top end for normal tuning. One more rehearsal, then I’ll change the wiring and strings ready for a gig next month.

Funny that you say that about the guitar sounding dead: I had a set of 11s on my Charvel and tuned to drop C and it sounded really dull and 'clangy'. I've switched to 10s and it feels loads better and stays in tune better too. The strings aren't too floppy, I can play chords  without it going sharp.
I've set my Strat up the same and it's improved that too: the Floyd feels smoother and again the running stability is better 

Jetfire

If it's any help, I have a 26.5 scale now tuned to Drop B and it sounds glorious. I prob should change strings and sort the intonation but for some mess about riffing,it's awesome. Not floppy or dead but a loss of top end or brightness is usually fixed via the amp/eq change, but new strings will help too

Roland

skullfunkerry said:

Funny that you say that about the guitar sounding dead: I had a set of 11s on my Charvel and tuned to drop C and it sounded really dull and 'clangy'. I've switched to 10s and it feels loads better and stays in tune better too. The strings aren't too floppy, I can play chords  without it going sharp.

My Parker Fly sounds better with 11-52s. It’s to do with neck stiffness and string tension. I’m going to increase the size of the top two strings to see what that does.