Tuning weirdness

Bob-Dubery

This is happening on both my Morgan and my Larrivee. Both guitars are strung with elixir phosphor-bronze 13s.

Both guitars are fine in drop-D

I have a tuning I use for one song. I tune 6th down to C, 5th to G. So (low to high) CGDGBE. I then use a capo at the 2nd fret.

I detune first then fit the capo.

The guitars are in tune to start with.

Once I've slackened off the 6th and 5th I usually find the 1st and more so the 2nd have gone sharp.

Then even when the tuner (Boss TU-80) is showing the guitar is in tune I have problems playing a C chord

C G D G B E
0 0 0 0
1
2

or a D
C G D G B E
0

2 2
3

The 6th string sounds very out of tune. The tuner shows all strings in tune in open positions. It also shows the that 2nd string is in tune and still in tune at the 1st and 3rd frets. The 6th string shows as sharp at the 2nd fret (for the D chord). If I am in standard tuning then the 6th string shows as in tune at the 2nd fret, it is not sharp. Drop the 6th down to C and you get a sharp note at the 2nd fret.

PS: I've seen this tuning used live, with the guitarist, Richard Thompson, tuning down for the song and not seeming to have any problems.

Heath

I had this once with my cort . It was bad strings . But doudt that is the problem here as its with two different guitars , but if they using the same make of strings , maybe they dont likw different tensions

Bob-Dubery

I haven't had new strings on the Larry since I got it. 7th November. And I know that in fact those strings had been fitted a week before I bought the guitar. Plus they'd been off and back on at least once in the McGibbon workshop.

Fitted a new set. The intonation problem is now gone. The guitar went a little out of tune, but the strings had been on about 10 minutes and it didn't go out as badly.

Strings on the Morgan are the same age.

So there you go.

Doh!

Fingerpicker

I use this tuning quite often and have the same problem.
I think that it is because you take so much tension out of the 6th string from E to C that the string flattens totally onto the fretboard. This may sharpen it a bit.
The strings that have more tension may just be clamped so that they are below the level of the fret but not flat on the fretboard.

I usually end up tuning in octaves pluck the two Gs together, and the C (6th string) with the 2nd string 1st fret and get out of it that way. Its a real bugger.

Dillon

Your other strings will definitely be sharper if you tune down the 5th and 6th, even if you just drop to D. This is due the fact that there is less tension being transfered to the neck from the strings and the neck is bowing backwards causing the other strings to sharpen their pitch. Basically, tuning down one or two strings has the same effect as tightening your truss rod.
It's the reverse of putting new strings on, you tune 1st to E and then go through the rest (if you're using an electronic tuner) and by the time you get back to 1st again; it's waaay flat? How come? Did the strings stretch? Well, yes if you're playing a nylon string, maybe they'll stop stretching in 2 weeks ?, but with a steel string the amount of stretch is negligible. The reason it's flat is because the neck has been tensioned by the other strings and thus has bowed forward, hopefully not too much if your truss rod is set correctly!
Sorry, if I'm stating the obvious here... :-[

Regarding the use of your electronic tuner for CGDGBE and it's still out: Hmmm, the only reason I could see for that is old strings. 7th of November you say? Wow, haven't tried Elixirs yet, but I change strings at least once a month, sometimes more often.

Bob-Dubery

Dillon wrote: Your other strings will definitely be sharper if you tune down the 5th and 6th, even if you just drop to D. This is due the fact that there is less tension being transfered to the neck from the strings and the neck is bowing backwards causing the other strings to sharpen their pitch. Basically, tuning down one or two strings has the same effect as tightening your truss rod.

Yeah. I'd figured something like that might be going on.

Only thing is, as said, I've seen Richard Thompson use just one guitar for a whole show and tune down to CGDGBE and back up again (he also used, that I recognised, drop D, standard and DADGAD). So I know it can be done.

OK... Thompson has a lot more experience than I do and probably has developed quick ways of tuning (bastard didn't even have a clip on tuner with him) and he plays a Lowden which, I've heard, have very stable necks.

It got better intonation-wise after I put fresh strings on. They'll have settled down to night so I can check everything else out.

BTW and FYI the song is 1952 Vincent Black Lightning. Last (and so far only) time I played the song concerned in public I took along two guitars, one pre-tuned and capoed just for this one song. You look a bit precious doing that at an open mic night ?

TomCat

It might also be that the lower tension on the top half of the neck is causing it to slightly bow downwards from the higher tension of the other 4 strings so it looks good on the tuner with the open strings but the intonation goes slightly off......Not sure if the imbalanced string tension is enough to do that but it's just a thought...... :-\

Dillon

X-rated Bob wrote: Last (and so far only) time I played the song concerned in public I took along two guitars, one pre-tuned and capoed just for this one song. You look a bit precious doing that at an open mic night ?

Ha ha, for the first open mic at my wife's shop, I took along the strat AND 2 acoustics (one pre tuned down)! Kinda makes you feel like a rock star... Now if only I could get my wife to hand them to me between songs :-\

Keira-WitherKay

talking about alt tuning ...

i heard this fab story all folk lore of course .......of a guy at an acoustic guitar convetion in states...who picked up some or other guitar on demonstration and played beautifully and pretty soon gathered a crowd of mostly fingerpicker style guitarists.who all were amazed by this guy... then afterwards someone asked ... btw whats that wierd tuning you using ????? and he replied EADGBE

Bob-Dubery

Keira WitherKay wrote: talking about alt tuning ...

i heard this fab story all folk lore of course .......of a guy at an acoustic guitar convetion in states...who picked up some or other guitar on demonstration and played beautifully and pretty soon gathered a crowd of mostly fingerpicker style guitarists.who all were amazed by this guy... then afterwards someone asked ... btw whats that wierd tuning you using ????? and he replied EADGBE

YEah.

But that was 1st to 6th

Bob-Dubery

I got to see Martin Carthy playing in London. His main tuning is CGCDGA - low to high. THat A on the 1st is a tone below the b on the 2nd in regular tuning.

He was retuning all the time. He was playing a Martin 000-18. That has a shorter scale than anything I own.

Bob-Dubery

OK... now the new strings have settled down things are way better.

But some observations....

1) As the 6th string loses tension it reacts less finely to the machine head. IE you get more pitch change for the same movement of the machine head. This can make precise tuning difficult as a small movement means a larger than expected change in pitch.

2) My clip-on tuner is not accurate or doesn't have a fine enough scale. I have checked with my clip-on and the TU-80 together. When the TU-80 is showing slightly flat or sharp, the clip-on shows "in tune".

3) I put the capo on first and THEN tuned down.

4) The 5th string goes down to G. The 6th should go down to C and the 5th of C is G, so I get a G harmonic at the 7th fret and can use that against the 5th string.

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote: Only thing is, as said, I've seen Richard Thompson use just one guitar for a whole show and tune down to CGDGBE and back up again (he also used, that I recognised, drop D, standard and DADGAD). So I know it can be done.

OK... Thompson has a lot more experience than I do and probably has developed quick ways of tuning (bastard didn't even have a clip on tuner with him) and he plays a Lowden which, I've heard, have very stable necks.

Subsequently I have read this on Thompson's web site
"I find when I do a lot of retuning, the unwound strings will sometimes work themselves sharp, and will need tweaking, occasionally during a song. With a lot of retuning in a show, there are always small pitch problems that you just have to live with, and adjust as you go. Guitars are never in tune with themselves anyway!"

So it happens to him too, not just to mere mortals like me. Difference is that by virtue of his rather more considerable experience he is aware of it and knows how to compensate for it (or just lives with it).

Gareth

Maybe this is the origin of vibrato ? ?