What tuning do you use

[wmlusk]

What tuning do you use?

I currently use the following 5ths and variations based on 5ths.

Bass guitar: CGDA

10-string Stick:
Bass | Melody
EADGC-CGDAC

My new Warr will use a 5ths+Min configuration (TG tuning)

D 1st up a M2nd
C 2nd up a m3rd
A 3rd up a 5th
D 4th up a 5th
G 5th up a 5th
C 6th up a 5th
F 7th up a 5th
Bb 8th below low B

[Daniel Schell]

Hello William,

Your tuning
EADGC-CGDAC

On the melody side, Sounds to me crafty-like... Is it not?

My tuning is the mirrored fourths-fourths. There is a detailed tuning page on my site, where a lot of tunings are described and compared.

http://users.skynet.be/clic.music/tunings-tg.html

Please check and we can talk again.

best

Daniel Schell

http://users.skynet.be

[wmlusk]

You are correct about the 'Crafty' tuning. This is sometimes called Trey Gunn or TG tuning, too.

I converted from Deep-Baritone Melody some months back. I have used the Fripp/Guitar craft 5ths based tuning on bass and guitar as well.

I really enjoy the range that 5ths gives you and using the mirrored TG tuning, it really opens up some interesting geometry.

Do you see a similar geometry with mirrored 4ths? What do you see as some advantages and/or disadvantages?

I notice that you show some very light string gauges on your site. Do you find that they make the mirrored tuning 'feel' more even accross the board?

[Daniel Schell]

Hi,

Regarding the reflectivity of motives and patterns on two-region instruments:
If both sides are tuned in a similar way, ie both in fifths or in fourths, then the motives will be of course identical on both sides.

The tuning in fourths allow smoother execution of the melody lines. The tuning in fifths offers more open arpeggios and chords.


Regarding light strings:
I designed our 'sweet fingers' string set so that strings 3 and 4 of the melody, are rather light. this allows a very sensitive rendition of 'tenor' melodies, with bending, vibrato.
As you know I like to play Indian music and imitate a 'vocal' execution.

The other strings of the 'sweet fingers' set are normal. We also have a 'power fingers' set.

See you

[nickbenn]

I've been using a 7-string tuning for the past year and a half, which has (for me, at least) some interesting possibilities:

A-E-B-F#-B-E-A

It begins with the low A (same as the lowest key on the piano), ascends in 5ths for the next three strings, and then ascends in 4ths for the next three. I like the symmetry (in scale and chord fingerings) around the middle string. Also, I agree that having 5ths in the bass has some definite advantages, when doing deep chords and arpeggios; for high chords and arpeggios, I tend to like much tighter note clusters, for which 4ths are better. (I also like the fact that fretting the three middle strings with one finger will always give you a 1-5-8 "power chord" - even though I don't take advantage of this as much as I could.)

Before this, I was using the "Trey Gunn" tuning on a Warr Artist 8 (I had also been playing a Warr Raptor in one of common 5ths/4ths tunings); but try as I might, I could not wrap my head around the last two (minor 3rd & major 2nd) intervals (and I couldn't wrap my small hands successfully around the wide neck of the 12-string). At the same time, I had started tuning my acoustic guitar with a 5ths-to-4ths tuning, C-G-D-G-C-F (for some time before, I was using C-G-D-G-C-D). At some point, the thought occurred to me that I could take the wide arpeggios that I was playing on the acoustic guitar, and move them to my tapping with a similar tuning.

So, I bought a Stick SB7 to explore this tuning (actually, Bb-F-C-G-C-F-Bb - i.e. the tuning above, raised one-half step), and really liked the results. After a few months with it, I asked Jim Wright if Warr could make me a 7-string instrument, and set it up that way. (The fact that Warr was able to do this, and the fact that the resulting Artisan 7 is a lovely - and now my primary - instrument, results in me offering the SB7 for sale in another forum here.)

While waiting for Warr to build the Artisan 7, I decided to drop the tuning down to the A, so that I could extend it to an 8-string instrument (the highest string pitched at D) without worrying about breaking strings. To date, I am still working at getting good on the 7-string version, before I move back to 8 strings.

[Daniel Schell]

Hello Nick Benn

Read your post on your tuning of the 7str.
Usually, as you say, these instruments are tuned all in fourths or all in fifths. Sometimes with upper thirds/seconds like in the crafty tuning.
In fact you create a two-region tuning on a one region instrument. You divide it in fifths for the low region and fourths in the upper. That makes sense and is, in fact, inheriting from the Chapman concept.

Have you read the tuning page on our site. I shall be glad to add your tuning to the existing ones.

Best

[nickbenn]

Where would I find the tuning section, Daniel? (Scratch that - I just found it. :) )

Feel free to add the 7-string tuning I am using. You are definitely right about it creating two regions on a single-region instrument. In fact, I very much like the common 4ths/inverted 5ths tuning of the two-region instruments (after I have made sufficient progress on this instrument, and when I can afford it, I will probably buy a 10- or 11-string TGSS, tuned in 4ths and inverted 5ths), but a 12-string Warr neck was just too wide for me (and the narrower neck of the Grand Stick made the string spacing too tight for my fingers - another reason why I prefer my Artisan 7 to the SB7).