What string gauge do I need for D, Drop C and C

[Dušan]

I plan to switch between these tunings

[Huckleberry Duck]

11+. Good luck with intonation!

[Boris the Animal]

For RS, it doesn't matter that much about your gauge. For playing before an audience and having the best sound, you'd probably want to look into thicker strings or hybrids. The real issue is constantly tuning from standard tunings to drop tunings, since it will put a lot of stress on your truss and can eventually lead to your neck bending. My advice would be to have seperate guitars for standard tunings, (standard, eb, drop D), and another for those drop tunings.

For more answers on which gauge on RS, see this previous thread:
https://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=706137

For a guide on Drop Tuning:
http://www.daddario.com/DADDropTuning.Page?sid=99693ffe-9d79-4582-80de-6618f6a5f0ac

[Boris the Animal]

Originally posted by thejohnnewton:

Originally posted by Msyn:

For RS, it doesn't matter that much about your gauge. For playing before an audience and having the best sound, you'd probably want to look into thicker strings or hybrids. The real issue is constantly tuning from standard tunings to drop tunings, since it will put a lot of stress on your truss and can eventually lead to your neck bending.

Huh? It matters in that you'll have to play with a lighter touch the lower you tune if you stay with light strings or you'll tend to go sharp and RS will care about that. You also might get a bit buzzy which your ears may care about.

As to putting stress on your truss rod a lower tuning will actually put less stress on the neck but the neck and truss rod are designed to hold the full stress of the strings tuned up to full pitch anyway. I don't see how this will be any issue.

The reason I mentioned that it doesn't matter so much for RS, is since it's more of an "to each his own" thing. As you can see from the link I provided above, there are quite a few that like to use light strings in Drop Tuning. So they're not having issues with note recognition. For me, my prefrence is the tone of course, since I want it to sound the best. I can also get the notes recognized on RS with light strings in drop tunings, so I haven't found that to so much of an issue for note recognition. So, I'm still agreeing to not use light strings, just my reason for doing so was different.


As for the Truss, yes I agree with you completely. However, if you keep putting pressure on the truss, then taking it off, then on, then off, over time the neck will begin to bend. That's why I mentioned that if you often tune between the standard tunings to drop tunings, it's best to use two guitars. It will take a while before it becomes an issue, but when it does, it's an expensive issue to fix, either by trying to clamp and straighten the neck or buying a new guitar. Feel free to do what you want to do of course. I just try to make suggestions based off of things I've learned or from the mistakes of others so that others won't have that same issue.

[Bull Buchanan]

Originally posted by Msyn:

Originally posted by thejohnnewton:

As for the Truss, yes I agree with you completely. However, if you keep putting pressure on the truss, then taking it off, then on, then off, over time the neck will begin to bend. That's why I mentioned that if you often tune between the standard tunings to drop tunings, it's best to use two guitars. It will take a while before it becomes an issue, but when it does, it's an expensive issue to fix, either by trying to clamp and straighten the neck or buying a new guitar. Feel free to do what you want to do of course. I just try to make suggestions based off of things I've learned or from the mistakes of others so that others won't have that same issue.

Bend how exactly? The neck should already have a bend in the form of relief. That's the truss rod's job. I'm kind of skeptical that you could damage your guiatr by taking pressure off the strings. I would think that worst case your neck would come closer to straight being that at the current truss rod setting, the tension of the strings would not be there to equal everything out.

I think the only way you could get into trouble is by tuning above E if that's where the guitar is set up.

[cRAshbe]

It also depends on the scale length of your guitar when picking strings for drop tunings.

Use this stringtensionpro[stringtensionpro.com] link to plug in your scale length, tuning and string gauge you have now and then change the tuning and string gauges and see what that does to the tension. This helped me a lot when picking out new Bass strings for those really low tuned songs RS was having trouble detecting correctly with standard gauge strings on.

For example if you have a 25.5" scale length guitar and tune down to D Drop C and use 11-52's you'd have roughly the same string tension as you would if you used 10-46's and played in Drop D. If you want the same string tension as you have in standard E then you'll have to go even higher than a 52

If you go too high I imagine you might have to have some work done to the nut to get the proper string height.

Keep in mind though that if you tune back up to Standard E your tension is going to be crazy high so there may be no one string gauge for every situation you find. Good excuse to get another guitar :)

[woof]

Eastwood, By now it is probably obvious, but I am going to throw this out there anyway. If the guitar was not set up for lower tunings, you should make a decision about what strings that you want to use, take it to a luthier and have him set it up for the lower tunings using your strings of choice. There are tutorials on the internet for doing a set up yourself, but if you are new to the guitar, you might want to wait on that.

[Dušan]

Originally posted by saent_anger:

Eastwood, By now it is probably obvious, but I am going to throw this out there anyway. If the guitar was not set up for lower tunings, you should make a decision about what strings that you want to use, take it to a luthier and have him set it up for the lower tunings using your strings of choice. There are tutorials on the internet for doing a set up yourself, but if you are new to the guitar, you might want to wait on that.

I'd rather do it myself. I don't want to give my guitar to someone else. Do you give your wife to someone else to set her up? lol

[BPC]

Another option is to use a pitch shift pedal. I sometimes use by Zoom B2 to play my E standard bass in Eflat and D standard songs when I'm too lazy to swap guitars or retune.. Can sound a bit weird as you hear your E standard strings and the alternative tuning together but just turmn it up to help with that.

[woof]

If you compare my relative knowledge of a guitar and setting it up optimally to that of a good luthier, with that of pleasing my wife and someone with relative expertise in that area, she'd probably be happier with someone else setting her up.

[Huckleberry Duck]

Originally posted by Eastwood:

Do you give your wife to someone else to set her up? lol

Yeah, champ, it's called a "gynecologist."