Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi! I'm finishing a bass for my own, and after i planned to do some tests on my other old cheapy bass. I want to do tests, but not to scrap it, when I will have changed the pickups and the electronis, it will be a great bass. Anyway, I'm considering to turn it in a A D G C bass. In fact, my question is this one: If i'm using smaller strings (about .35 to .80), is this will be enough to compense for the higher tension applied on the neck? If not, changing scale to 30'' with a new neck could help?

_________________
Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars

Hi,

theres a document on the dadario site which might be usefull - it gives a formula to calculate tension for a given scale length/ frequency/string weight (amongst other stuff)

heres the link

http://www.daddariostrings.com/Resource ... _chart.pdf

hope that helps

_________________
Richard

Just off the top of my head, I use a six string set from Carvin and the A D G C run .80-.29 so it sounds like you're in pretty close territory, if not just a bit heavy @ .35.
I could stand some reinforcement citation from others, but isn't that piccolo bass tuning? I remember Stanley Clarke using a short scale Alembic for that. I actually use .80-.29 on a short scale fretless hollow-body bass, as well, but don't have the guts to tune it up like that due to its construction. Any higher tuning or heavier strings and I get action issues.

_________________
Anything too stupid to be said is sung. -Voltaire

Thanks for the reply... i found the fonction to calculate string tension, depending on its tuning... So, to get the same tension than a 45-100set on a 34'' scale, you need a around 80-32. I saw on D'addario they have 32,30 and 29... i'll probably go with 80-65-45-30.... Thanks!

_________________
Francis Richer, Montréal
Les Guitares F&M Guitars