Stingray 5 and tuning ungodly low. Opinions and advice needed.

[willhaven]

Ok, so I'm a guitarist who just set up his own little apartment studio. I just got an SR5 Saturday and I'm wondering how I'm going to adapt the tuning to match up with my guitars.

I tune my guitars to dropped C: CGCFAD. I got a 5 string because I wanted to have the ability to throw in that occasional brown note when you least expect it.

I'm thinking of tuning the high 4 strings to match the guitar CGCF... now, I don't know if the low string would be able to handle being tuned to G, or if A would pretty much be bottoming out already.

I know I'm going to need heavier strings, going to have to tweak my intonation and the action. But, before I even go that far, would anyone advise against tuning the low B string to low G? Anyone done extreme tuning that low before?

GCGCF or ACGCF? Neither and just tune up to CGCFA?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Pic from the pic thread.
http://www.ernieball.com/forums/showpost.php?p=96894&postcount=300

 

[bovinehost]

I gotta tell you....I'm not even sure you're speaking English!



I have enough trouble with regular tuning, so I'll leave this to the youngsters.

 

[Psychicpet]

I gotta tell you....I'm not even sure you're speaking English!



I have enough trouble with regular tuning, so I'll leave this to the youngsters.

lmao

if ya really want to get nutty, i've seen a player or two drill a hole behind the 'B' string saddle and have the 'B' go through the body adding a bit of length and possibly allowing you to go way down low .

 

[Big Poppa]

please dont do what psych said. play the bass as supplied....you cant get a string fat enough to vibrate at tension to a g below b.....

 

[bovinehost]

I mentioned in another thread that I could count on one hand the number of times I've hit a low B and not thought, "Uh oh, that was a bad idea."

But G below B?

I do believe I'll have a Ketel Two.

 

[Big Poppa]

g below b is the last ditch homeopathic remedy for blocked bowel syndrome. start with some quinine water ingest through the nostrils.......chew on some prunes chase with metamusil...... wait until the neighbors leave for work....plug into jacks prized peavey (oxymoron...you know that in sweden they pronounce peavey pee wee) use all four fingers press down on the low g wih all of your might hold down....g sharp ;g sharp a flat, a flat, g sharp...what is it who cares? no pain no gain........fight the rumble...you can do it ........think of baseball ........baja tacos...bad oysters its getting touchy.....you start getting the feeling of climbing the rope in seventh grade....2/3 terror one third...you know. let it rip.....clean up and realize that a low b if fine for most guys.....

 

[bovinehost]

plug into jacks prized peavey

Oh, you scoff, but let me tell you, that Peavey (or, okay "pee wee" if we must) saved me on many nights at the now infamous "Make My Day Lounge" in San Antonio.

I wish, Sterling, that you could have been there. It was....surreal. Let me see if I can somehow give you a taste of it.

That is one of the best bassists I've ever known, Mister Ray Duke, playing my Bongo when I first got it. He was scared of it - he's a working stiff and tends to play more mundane instruments (Stingrays, Fenders, Xeroxes) because he doesn't want to scare anyone. He now admits that he'd gladly take that black sapphire mofo off my hands if it ever came to that (it won't).

Anyway, here's the quote from that night:

"It was just a regular old Sunday night jam....then, suddenly, things began to get interesting and I don't mean that in any positive way. I mean it in a "Make My Day" way. Some really ugly nasty crippled up guy had made his way in through the door. He was using a walker, poor thing, but he was just, well, icky. Dirty, I mean.

During a break, he had repeatedly insisted that Ray play "I Love This Bar". Ray made vaguely soothing noises at him until he went away. Well, suddenly, without warning, Old Dirty Guy stumbles over the monitor and onto the stage, insisting he can sing some Elvis. Mike and Ray agree that they can play some Elvis.....and the guy grabs a mike and barks, and I do mean like a dog, only a dog with no range or sense of time or feel, "Well itsa one for the money...." And they're off.

He forgets half the words to "Blue Suede Shoes" but makes up for this by barking the same verse over and over again, mostly. Ah, the hat, the pencil behind his ear, the look on his face that says "Squeal like a pig." It's quite a package, only enhanced by his barking. I was laughing so hard I could barely get photos taken."


I absolutely LOVED this place. It was like going to outer space.

 

[Psychicpet]

please dont do what psych said. play the bass as supplied....you cant get a string fat enough to vibrate at tension to a g below b.....

easy now BP, the player in question that did this is a bit of a "dude" and the bass he did it to was a 35" scale Mike Lull J copy so it wasn't one of my slack jawed local yocal friends tearin' up a Squire
I'm sure he did get a proper luthier to do the job but hey, options man, options

 

[SteveB]

g below b

Methinks that g below b is best left for some newfangled set of Taurus pedals...

 

[AnthonyD]

G below B???

All y'all are in uncharted territory as far as I can tell.

With an aversion to 5-stringers and no experience with drop-tuning, I can't say I've needed to get below a low 'E'...

 

[whamonkey]

If you want to get below a "b" (bad idea.....free country) try using a Boss OC-2 Octave pedal. I think it will track that low. Fret the "g" normally and listen to the abyss, especially when it's set for 2 octaves. Not my cup of tea, but anything to save a Ray' from the drill.........

 

[willhaven]

I tried tuning the low string to G last night... wow... bad decision. It sounded far lower than I expected it to. Even with the proper strings it would probably sound bad.

At a low A, you can still get some sort of definition. That seems to be the bottom floor in terms of what notes are even audible.

Still undecided as to whether I want to to ACGCF or to tune up to CGCFA.

[edit] And just to be clear, I wouldn't modify the bass beyond filing the nut if I had to. Drilling out the bridge and the body for a through-body string ferrule isn't going to happen. I'm enough of a nazi about not modifying my instruments. Hell, I don't even put straplocks on my guitars anymore. I use those black plastic dunlop twisty straplocks instead. I'm not going to be a wood butcher. [/edit]

 

[Psychicpet]

but anything to save a Ray' from the drill.........

oh you guys and your "don't mod" mindset hehehehe JUST KIDDING!! like I posted earlier, everytime I think I want to 'customize' my Bongo I play a gig and it plays/sounds amazing as is from the factory.... but sometimes it is cool to bore out a 350 to be mor elike a 396...........

 

[marleaux-user]

Dropping the B to an A has been done i believe. But G...I dont think even Sloths can hear that low...

 

[0557]

I saw Tlevin with Tim Finn using a stingray 4, He had the E string tuned to a low A.
I sounded great, back in 1990. he also had that silver sparkle fretless ray.

 

[dlloyd]

Ok, so I'm a guitarist who just set up his own little apartment studio. I just got an SR5 Saturday and I'm wondering how I'm going to adapt the tuning to match up with my guitars.

I tune my guitars to dropped C: CGCFAD. I got a 5 string because I wanted to have the ability to throw in that occasional brown note when you least expect it.

I'm thinking of tuning the high 4 strings to match the guitar CGCF... now, I don't know if the low string would be able to handle being tuned to G, or if A would pretty much be bottoming out already.

I know I'm going to need heavier strings, going to have to tweak my intonation and the action. But, before I even go that far, would anyone advise against tuning the low B string to low G? Anyone done extreme tuning that low before?

GCGCF or ACGCF? Neither and just tune up to CGCFA?

Thanks for any help you can provide.

Pic from the pic thread.
http://www.ernieball.com/forums/showpost.php?p=96894&postcount=300

Extended range basses often have a low F#. You can get a .165" or .175" string and it will be nice and tight for a low G.

.130" would do for low C, .095" for the G, .070" for the higher C and .050" for the F

Consider getting a decent luthier to install them for you. The nut will need some work.

The next thing you have to worry about is amplification.

 

[Big Poppa]

tl was an octive pedal

 

[willhaven]

Extended range basses often have a low F#. You can get a .165" or .175" string and it will be nice and tight for a low G.

.130" would do for low C, .095" for the G, .070" for the higher C and .050" for the F

Consider getting a decent luthier to install them for you. The nut will need some work.

The next thing you have to worry about is amplification.

Good post. Thanks for the gauge reccomendations. As a guitarist, I'm used to 11's in E, 13-54's in dropped C. For bass, I have no clue.

I could probably file the nut myself. I've done my Parker fly for the larger strings. I just need to get some good files to do the job with. I no longer have a house full of tools to use since I moved out. Time to invest in some I guess.

Still unsure as to whether I'm going to try A or G though. I should probably experiment more first.

I don't even have a bass amp at the moment. I was planning to track the bass direct. Maybe through a SansAmp box or something. Not sure what I want to do with that yet.

 

[tkarter]

IMHO it is your gig play it and tune it like you like. The EB bass will get you there and perform as no other. It rattles work on your technique. After all no mans land is just that.

If you can't play it standard IMHO then it is really always your own deal as you aren't playing any instrument as produced.

Super low is cool though. I like them really low notes and unlike most flat string players here I have used the open B and it rocks on my SR 5.



tk

 

[bovinehost]

unlike most flat string players here I have used the open B and it rocks on my SR 5

Hey! I'm not saying open B itself didn't work on my bass - I'm saying almost all my notes are mistakes, so a badly placed low B really wakes people up!