Having problems with stringing. What do you use for a 3 string.

Posted by Carl Robson on June 18, 2010 at 3:20am
Having real problems with stringing.
Want to tune to Open D to make sense of a lot of the tutorials.
But, I can't seem to tune anything other than Open C.

As soon as tuning on any of the 3 strings gets close to tuned they snap.

I've tried strings 2,3,4 and strings 3,4,5 from a conventional acoustic steel set and all have broken, but in Open C it tunes fine. 

Would nylons help? I'm Piezo Pupped so can use either.

Going to need to buy another pack of strings again, might get a set of nylons to try. I'm trying slide as well as fingered.


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Replies

  • Carl Robson June 18, 2010 at 6:06am
    Thanks. Will call into one of the local music shops tomorrow when I'm in town, today I'm dealing with my homebrew cider.

    I've just bottled up batch one to carbonate, with a drop left for me to try still tonight, and I have a little experiment I'm dying to try, fermenting cheap Lidl Iron Brew to see what it produces.

    ChickenboneJohn said:
    OK..D-A-D..that's a variation on dulcimer tuning, with a root, 5th and octave. You could use the 4th, 2nd and 1st strings of a regular set. , The 4th would be usually tuned to a D anyway, the others will be tuned a tone below their designed pitch. By using that 2nd string and trying to bring it to a high D you are trying to tuning it way beyond its designed pitch.

    Using part of a regular 6 string set doesn't always work, the strings will be at different tension to what they are designed for. For D - A - D I'd suggest 035, 018 and 014 as a starting point, As you've got a pretty short scale, you can go a heavier than suggested, but so much is personal taste, and you might want a lower or higher tension in the strings.
  • ChickenboneJohn June 18, 2010 at 5:30am
    OK..D-A-D..that's a variation on dulcimer tuning, with a root, 5th and octave. You could use the 4th, 2nd and 1st strings of a regular set. , The 4th would be usually tuned to a D anyway, the others will be tuned a tone below their designed pitch. By using that 2nd string and trying to bring it to a high D you are trying to tuning it way beyond its designed pitch.

    Using part of a regular 6 string set doesn't always work, the strings will be at different tension to what they are designed for. For D - A - D I'd suggest 035, 018 and 014 as a starting point, As you've got a pretty short scale, you can go a heavier than suggested, but so much is personal taste, and you might want a lower or higher tension in the strings.
  • Carl Robson June 18, 2010 at 4:40am
    Ok, was trying to tune DAD. Was able to tune to CGC ok.
    Scale length(bridge to nut) is 23.75 but I can move that.

    Strings are essentials accoustic professionals (Light).
    ranging from 1st: 0.012 to 6th: 0.053

    I tried using 2nd, 3rd,4th and 3rd, 4th, 5th.
    I could get open C (CGC) ok with 2,3,4 but couldn't tune anything with 3,4,5 before things started to snap.

    I will try again in C, but it didn't sound quite right.
    Neck is fretted with Cocktail sticks.

    ChickenboneJohn said:
    What are you defining "open D" as ..top 3 of regular open D 6 string guitar tuning? That would be Fsharp -A - D (low to high). What's the scale length? -This has a bearing on the tension in the strings (long scale + heavy strings + high tuning = excessive tension and string breakage). Alternatively, do you really need to tune up to D?..just play in C!
    Use the top 3 from a regular set (something like 013, 016, 025) and this will be fine on open D also for open G (G - B - D low to high). Nylon will be way too slack for slide....interesting for playing fretless maybe (like a Godin Gissentar), but with a slide it will sound pretty dull and lifeless.
  • ChickenboneJohn June 18, 2010 at 4:07am
    What are you defining "open D" as ..top 3 of regular open D 6 string guitar tuning? That would be Fsharp -A - D (low to high). What's the scale length? -This has a bearing on the tension in the strings (long scale + heavy strings + high tuning = excessive tension and string breakage). Alternatively, do you really need to tune up to D?..just play in C!

    Use the top 3 from a regular set (something like 013, 016, 025) and this will be fine on open D also for open G (G - B - D low to high). Nylon will be way too slack for slide....interesting for playing fretless maybe (like a Godin Gissentar), but with a slide it will sound pretty dull and lifeless.
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