Strings - Thoughts on gauge?

[alterbridgefan]

So, after a year or two, I am still left with no eight stringed instrument of any sort. Sad face. But I've been working on a few projects that are going to need some extra range, and I'm not sure how to get it without buying another guitar.

I've got a nineties maple board American tele I'll be using for my experiments. Basically, I need an instrument that can do guitar and bass, at the same time, and I want to at least get down to a low E. I don't mind filing the nut and adjusting the bridge, so I'm wondering what sort of string gauges I'll want to try and maybe even what tunings. Right now the plan as far as tuning goes is to try E, B, E, A, D, G, and to use a light enough gauge for tapping, but heavy enough to keep the fret buzz under control. 

Specs are:

American string through tele bridge
Maple fretboard
25.5" scale

Thanks in advance!

 

[DavyDave53]

Me thinks you are going to need a longer neck.

 

[alterbridgefan]

Eh

I played a homemade 9 stringer recently with a 26" neck... It wasn't bad. This is really just until I can afford an RG8.

 

[Ace Flibble]

You'll actually find a heavier gauge gives you more trouble with fret buzz as a bigger string simply needs more space to move in. Though really, there's no reason to have buzz with any gauge. Similarly there should be no issue tapping with any gauge. That's all just in the set up.

Which brings me to the important point; use whatever gauge feels most comfortable under your fingers and set the guitar up to match. Scale is irrelevant, as is the type of guitar and the tuning you will use. The only thing that matters is you use what feels most comfortable for you. Some people call .009 strings light, so I don't know what they'd do if they played one of Billy Gibbons' guitars with .007 strings. Some people think a .52 string is a heavy bottom string, so god knows what they would make of the .60 I use. Some people say you can't tune lower than C# on 25.5" scale guitar, so I'm sure they'd have a field day with my 24" scale 7-string tuned to A.

That said, as a starting point you should take a look at Fender Bass VI guitars and the strings that are sold for them. They're tuned down a whole step, so there's that bassy low E you're looking for. They're normally 30" scale, or close to that, and generally the rule to keep the feel of a string the same when tuning low is to add or remove half a string size for every half inch you lose or add to the scale length and add/remove half a string size for every half step you lower or raise the tuning. So, for example, if you like the feel of a .050 string tuned to E on 25.5" scale and you were moving to Eb on 25" scale, you'd move up to a .051 string to keep the same feel (.0005 for the drop in scale, .0005 for the drop in tuning). However, for wound strings, once you move more than about three full steps in tuning, you need to begin shifting by a whole size for each half step.
To take that example and move it to your needs, if you're tuning the lowest string a whole octave down to a new lower E, but keeping the same scale length, and your current string is, for sake of argument, a .050 string, you'd end up with a .059 string; .0005 per half step for the first three full steps and then .001 per half step after that, since that string would undoubtably be a wound string.
Bear in mind that technical tension is different to how the string actually feels; a .050 string tuned to E has the same tension as a .056 string tuned down just one step to D, but they will not feel the same because of the way the string stretches and moves when you're playing. This is why, especially with the wound strings, you have to ramp things up a bit after so many steps and why picking strings based on mathematical tension isn't the right way to go about it.

 

[swarfrat]

A bigger string is CAPABLE of more travel. There's nothing that says you can't simply use it through the same wimpy dynamic range a wimpy string can tolerate. It just has gobs more dynamic range available than light strings. I'm at a quandary, I like my strings to stay PUT unless I really meant to bend them, but I also like the timbre of a string that's not too fat in relation to its scale length. In practice this is the limit on how heavy I play. A plain 21 G-string just sounds horribly wonky.

 

[alterbridgefan]

Thanks to both of you!

I went with DR drop tunes, 65-13... The unwound ones are absolute crap, but the rest are great... Got some ernie balls I'm trying on the other 3 strings.

Also, I'll be picking up an eight string very soon, so that's fun. The new Ibanez RG8 in walnut flat stain, I'll be going with the standard Ernie Ball eight string set at first, with a good setup it should be perfect... I plan to put ionizers in it too, so that's cool.

I appreciate the advice!

 

[Strat Avenger]

Heavier strings buzz less because there is more tension on them, so they're not flopping around as much. That's why people use heavier strings with drop tunings.

For standard and half-step down, I use 009-046 on electric. THe reason I don't use 009-042 is because I am heavy-handed with my rhythm playing, so I prefer the extra tension. I think heavy-gauge strings are ridiculous unless you are using drop-tunings. They are uncomfortable (downright painful & fatiguing) to play on, and there's no reason you should have to fight the damn thing when you're playing guitar.