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Tag: tuning

  • Why Your Stratocaster Sounds Better in E Flat

    Why Your Stratocaster Sounds Better in E Flat

    I’ve recently been trying to get my Rondo SX Stratocaster copy to sound and play better.

    I bought it because it definitely has “mojo” (if you play guitar, you know what I mean), but there were a few issues as well.

    After a lot of fiddling and a bit of fixing, I finally had it playing pretty decently. But it wasn’t until I lowered the tuning by a half-step — from E standard to E-flat standard — that the guitar felt and performed at its best.

    And it turns out, I’m not the only one to have noticed this. It’s a common observation that Stratocasters just work better in E-flat tuning.

    But why?

    While in my opinion there is always a bit of mystery when it comes to why any guitar plays or feels well, I’ve identified four reasons why I think tuning down makes so much sense when playing a Strat.

    (Note: To tune a guitar to E-flat, tune each string, starting with the lowest in pitch and ending with the highest, to the following notes: Eb-Ab-Db-Gb-Bb-Eb. The video below shows you how.)

    Tutorial for tuning a guitar to E-flat standard.

    Easier to fret and bend notes

    A Stratocaster and a Les Paul are two very different beasts. But for the purposes of our discussion, one of the main differences is scale length.

    If you don’t know, “scale length” refers to the distance between the nut and the bridge. It’s the total length of the vibrating portion of the string. A Strat has a 25.5” scale length, but a Les Paul is shorter at 24.75”.

    The upshot of this difference is you have to have more tension on Strat strings to bring them up to pitch than Les Paul strings. And when you have more tension on a string, it’s harder both to fret and bend notes. (If you don’t believe me, try playing a mandolin sometime; its strings are extremely taut. You’ll think rats were chewing on your fingertips by the time you’re done!)

    So what’s the solution? Reducing the tension by tuning each string down. If you have a Strat, try it and you’ll see it becomes much easier to play tuned down.

    Richer, deeper tones

    Another major difference between a Strat and a Les Paul is the pickup configuration. Many Strats have three single-coil pickups, while most Les Pauls feature two humbuckers.

    Single coils are great for particular sounds, but they can suffer from sounding a little thin. Down-tuning your Strat can help. Not only do the strings physically play a lower sound, but they vibrate more, too, resulting in a better tone with a little more low end.

    Now, will this make your Strat sound like it’s got a couple of Burstbuckers in it? Well, probably not, but it is likely going to be enough of a difference that you can notice it.

    Easier to sing over

    For most of its history, the guitar has (unfortunately) been a male-dominated instrument. And, of course, men tend to have a lower vocal range. This can be problematic when trying to sing over chords in standard tuning.

    Tuning your guitar down a semitone can help.

    Maybe (like me) you can’t hit a high E, but you can just manage a D sharp. Or for gigging or touring musicians, singing night after night can wear down your voice, and taking things down a half-step can save you some of that wear and tear.

    This could very well be one of the reasons Jimi Hendrix tuned down to E-flat. And often with live concerts, you’ll notice songs are up to a full step lower than the album version. Jon Bon Jovi is a great example — he just can’t sing those high notes anymore like he did in the 1980s.

    Tradition

    There’s one more reason why tuning a Strat down a half-step is a thing, especially in rock and blues music. Simply put, we do it because our heroes did it!

    A lot of the guitar greats of the past tuned down for some or all of their songs. The list includes Jimi Hendrix, SRV, Eric Johnson, Jeff Beck, Doyle Bramhall, and more.

    Unfortunately, we don’t always know why they chose to do this. Maybe they discovered (like I did) that it just sounded better. Maybe it better fit their vocal range. Maybe their heroes tuned down so they dutifully followed suit.

    Whatever the reasons, E-flat tuning is here to stay.

    So what do you think? Do you tune your Strat (or any other guitar) to E-flat standard? If so, why? What are the benefits and drawbacks?

    And if not, give it a try and see what you think. Let us know the results in the comments.

  • What Are Locking Tuners, and Why Should You Care?

    What Are Locking Tuners, and Why Should You Care?

    Fun fact: I played guitar for several decades before I got serious about learning the intricacies of the instrument.

    A good case in point is locking tuners. I was oblivious to them for many, many years until a friend gifted me a set for doing some work on his guitar.

    If you are a normal guitarist like I was, you may not exactly know what locking tuners are either. If so, don’t fear! We’re going to talk about them today, explain what they are, and discuss why you might choose to use them (or not).

    What are locking tuners?

    Locking tuners are pretty much exactly what they sound like: tuning machines on the headstock of your guitar that lock the string into place. This is in contrast to traditional tuning machines, which require you to wrap the guitar string around the post to create enough friction to keep the strings from slipping.

    Locking tuners on a Fender guitar headstock.
    An example of locking tuners. Note the dials used to screw down the posts. (Photo by Freebird from Madrid, Spain, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

    It seems like every manufacturer has their own “special” type of locking tuner, but they all basically rely on a post or clamp to bite into and secure the string. The mechanism usually moves into place via turning a screw.

    The benefit of locking tuners is really one of efficiency and speed. In fact, they were first used in live settings because guitar techs needed a way to change out broken strings quickly during shows.

    The only benefit of locking tuners is efficiency and speed.

    But that’s not only the main benefit — I would go so far as to say it’s the only benefit. And that’s not a dig; it is a nice upgrade. Switching from traditional to locking tuners makes string changes an absolute breeze. The set I got even clips off the excess string length for you, which is super cool.

    Busting some myths about locking tuners

    There is a pervasive myth on the internet, however, that locking tuners actually contribute to your guitar staying in tune. The claim is that the locking feature prevents string slippage, thus keeping the string at the right tension at all times — unlike regular tuning machines.

    But the reality is this argument is highly suspect. First of all, there are ways to string a guitar with traditional tuners such that the strings don’t slip. Second, no quality tuning machine will slip, traditional or otherwise. I personally think that what often happens is a player replaces a subpar set of tuners with a locking set and notices a difference. But so far as I know, there are no low-end locking tuners on the market, so it becomes a difference in quality rather than design.

    In other words, locking tuners function equally well as, but no better than, other tuners of similar quality. And from my own personal experience, that holds true.

    Locking tuners are not a cure-all for tuning issues!

    It’s also worth noting that your guitar can go out of tune for a whole host of reasons, and tuners are only one piece of the puzzle. An incorrectly cut nut, poor-quality strings, and even heat and humidity changes can all affect tuning stability. Locking tuners are not a cure-all for tuning issues!

    Should you upgrade your guitar to locking tuners?

    Locking tuners can be a nice upgrade to your guitar if you are comfortable dropping 60 to several hundred dollars on a new set. They do make string changes easy. And if you are replacing a lower-quality set, they will probably help with overall tuning stability.

    But they are by no means the only legitimate option, as some guitarists make them seem. Any good-quality tuning machine will work just as well, especially if you know how to use them properly.

    In the end, like so many guitar decisions, there is no one “right” answer. So evaluate the pros and cons, check your budget, and make the best decision for yourself. Good luck!

  • Why Is “Standard” Guitar Tuning, Well, Standard?

    Why Is “Standard” Guitar Tuning, Well, Standard?

    E-A-D-G-B-e.

    While this may be a random assortment of letters to most people, if you play guitar you recognize them at once: standard tuning.

    Almost every guitar you have ever picked up and played has been tuned this way. It’s the tuning we all learned on and the one we all just accept as “normal.”

    But why is this arrangement of notes considered the standard? What makes it better than any other alternative? How did we even come to that decision?

    The answer can be summed up in one word: playability.

    Finding the perfect interval

    Standard tuning for the guitar is based on a series of perfect fourth intervals, with one major third interval mixed in for good measure. This means that the distance in pitch between most adjacent strings is four steps of the major scale (fourth), with one pair that is only three steps apart (third).

    The guitar, of course, is not the only stringed instrument (as much as guitarists want you to think it is). And other instruments in the family have different intervals between strings. The violin and cello, for instance, are both tuned in fifths. So why not guitars?

    It turns out, size matters. The scale length of a violin, for example, is only around 330 mm, compared to a typical guitar scale length of 650 mm. With such a smaller neck, reaching larger intervals on a violin with your fingers is not as challenging as trying the same feat on an acoustic guitar. (If you doubt this, try to play the guitar part on Every Breath You Take. Now imagine every song being this hard.)

    And even though the cello has a longer scale length than even a traditional guitar, it’s still easier to reach extended intervals because it is played vertically. The fact that guitarists must curl their wrist when playing doesn’t allow for comfortably reaching across so many frets.

    To put it simply, using fourths to tune a guitar makes playing the instrument easier to play.

    There’s just one problem…

    So if fourths is the way to go, why not have the intervals be the same between all the strings? Why add in that pesky third between the G and B strings? After all, having the same interval between each string would make moving chords and scales around the fretboard a simple affair, because the same shapes would work everywhere.

    The main issue with this approach is the fact that there are six strings. If you were to tune a guitar to all fourths, you would end up with E-A-D-G-C-f. The problem is evident — the low E string would clash with the high F string. While you could get around this problem with open chords, barre chords would be a nightmare!

    The simplest solution was to change an interval to avoid the discordant E/f combination, which is exactly what happened when players added the third between the G and B strings. This brought the high and low strings back into a much nicer E/e relationship.

    The result of this tuning was an instrument on which a person could play both chords and scales fairly easily, without dissonant notes or too-difficult fingerings.

    Don’t worry, the Italians already figured it out

    From a historical perspective, standard tuning actually dates back hundreds of years, although it probably wasn’t called by that name at the time. In the 16th century, the Italian folk guitar, or chitarra battente, had five courses (a course is a set of strings, like what’s on a modern 12-string guitar) and was tuned A-D-G-B-E.

    A chitarra battente, a 16th-century Italian folk guitar.
    A chitarra battente, a 16th-century Italian folk guitar (Photo by Dani4P at it.wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

    When six-string guitars came around two hundred years later, they simply added a low E string and kept the tuning of the popular Italian chitarra, thus finding the ideal tuning solution.

    In the end, it just works

    The intervals between guitar strings were refined and perfected hundreds of years ago because they were simply the best choice given the overall considerations of the instrument. But that leaves one question: Why do the strings start and end with E? Why not D, C, or B?

    The answer is that no one really knows. However, it seems to me that when you consider the scale length of a guitar and the ideal diameter and tension of the various strings, E to E just makes sense. Lower-pitched tunings tend to buzz and rattle, and higher-tuned strings are prone to breaking. Just like the standard intervals, it’s likely that starting and ending with E just worked the best out of all the options.

    People are nothing if not practical, and standard tuning for the guitar is a perfect example of this. In the end, guitars are tuned the way they are because it just works. And while there are many different alternates and variations, standard is still the king after 400 years — and will be for the foreseeable future.