Tone of 24" scale vs. 24 3/4 vs. 25 1/2 ?

[NickS]

Hendrix tuned down from 25 1/2 to the first fret (equivalent of 24" tone") possibly due to this more stable tone enabling him to achieve feedback more reliably?

Hmm.
Question: What gauge strings did he use?
Supplemental: What gauge strings did he use on his Flying V?

[LameDog]

Dunno I guess it has to be somewhere between 9's and 11's, but Stevie Ray Vaughan who emulated Hendrix used to play with really thick strings. But I think gauge of string does not change this "string-length and twangy-bluesy-or-stable tone" phenomena.

Yes with thicker strings you have greater string tension, to get to the same pitch on thinner strings, for any given scale length. But this is because you have more metal to stretch. And yes a thicker string does make for a thicker tone and greater output from the pickups, and perhaps changes pick attack and nuances.

But I think the issue I am trying to understand is determined by scale length and pitch of string only, it seems. I suppose there must be a mathematical correlation between wavelength (pitch) and length of string, When you change the pitch of a string you change the point, due to the nut and frets remaining fixed, at which you cut into the natural wavelength form. And if you change the scale length, but keep the pitch the same, it has the same effect.

Luthiers and guitar-makers must know this stuff, I guess, so I am now hoping to find a luthier discussion page to confirm or refute all this.

[NickS]

But I think the issue I am trying to understand is determined by scale length and pitch of string only, it seems. I suppose there must be a mathematical correlation between wavelength (pitch) and length of string

Yes, Rayleigh's wave equations. They've come up a couple of times before.

When you change the pitch of a string you change the point, due to the nut and frets remaining fixed, at which you cut into the natural wavelength form.

When you say "cut into" what do you mean? If you are talking aabout pickup position, yes, it may change the relative amplitude of harmonics for a given note, but that relative amplitude also changes as soon as the string is fretted anywere. Same for where you're picking/plucking the string.

[SKC Willie]

I just converted a 22.7 inch scale guitar to 25.5 and I couldn't tell the difference in tone.

should of done a demo.

[LameDog]

"Rayleigh's wave equation"...that is like cool to drop this in to the conversation. Had a quick search in the forum but could not find any other posts. Looked online via Google, but the discussion is scientific technospeak and way over my head. Any chance of a brief summary? Will try to follow it up however.

Portugalwillie said "I just converted a 22.7 inch scale guitar to 25.5 and I couldn't tell the difference in tone". Yes, yes, but with respect to your hard work and success in doing this, the trick here may be because you have moved up a whole tone, and if my understanding is correct on this point, if you move up a whole tone you should not hear and appreciable difference....which could be exactly my point, rather ironically. But really well done for being enterprising of course and trying that out. Curious to know why you did this. Was it a mini strat you upgraded for a son as he got older? I guess a mini strat neck pocket may be the same as a Strat's in dimensions, dunno. Did you get a conversion neck from Warmouth? I would like to get a 23 1/2 solid electric with a whammy...you don't see many, or any, of these around.

I have two cheap guitar tuners, (and I do not work for these companies...though if I did work for them I would still say I didn't on a forum I suppose....(I think companies must pay staff to get on forums to promote their own gear and do down their compeditors, so we are all suspects) there are lots of other tuners. I use QwikTune, which has a scale, and also I use Snark2, which is a round faced gadget that clips on the headstock. You can adjust the Hz setting on the Snark if it is version 2, so you can specify between a range of 415 Hz to 466 Hz what you want the tuner to regard as standard A. A is usually thought of as 440 Hz. This range gives you just about half a semitone up, and half a semitone down of true standard A which has helped me for what I am trying to come to terms with here.

So for instance if you have a 25 1/2 scale guitar and if you set the Snark to 425 Hz, and re-tune to this, then in my rough guess, this is about the right pitch to tune a 25 1/2 neck to, to enable you to get a Bluesy Gibson 24 3/4 tone. If you have a 24" neck you have to think of tuning up about 1/3rd of a semitone to get the Gibson tone, so the standard A will have to be re-set up to....um, dunno...but I think 1/3 of a semitone appears to be about 20 of the smallest degrees on the scale it has (it seems to give you 60 degrees marks for a semitone, so I guess 20 of them is about right)?

I realise this is a Short Scale forum so you don't really relate to 25 1/2 scales at all, but again using a 25 1/2 neck, if you set standard A to 422 Hz and re-tune you are then getting close to a 24" neck tone, and it is a tone that is very Hendrix like in the sound of chords I feel, particularly in the inverted chords of "Wind Cries Mary" (just after the line "the wind cries mary" Hendrix used a barred A shape, moving up by three semitones, da, da, da, with the E bass string barred also). This pitch of 422 Hz seems to clean up the chords. Also in slowly descending bends (which Hendrix liked) I think I noticed the sustain is better than the Gibson pitch. To me the Gibson bluesy pitch has a gut-retch-in-the-throat sort of sound on up-bends which is great for blues, but has less sustain coming down.

On a 25 1/2 neck 429 Hz seems to be about the same as the 25" neck found on PRS guitars.

If you have the QwikTune running at the same time as the Snark, but resting the QwikTune on your knee close to the body of the guitar, this will show you how far you are away from standard tuning when the Snark is set to tune to a relative pitch, as described above, and you can mark the dial with a bit of sticky tape or felt pen to locate that tuning again easily, so from then on, once marked in this way, just using the QwikTune.

There are two versions of Snark. SN-1, and SN-2. Only SN-2 has this resetting of standard A feature.
Cost me about £17 sterling.

I did read there is a shred guitarist who tunes down his 25 1/2 guitar by half a semitone...but at the moment have lost the bit of paper i jotted his name on, but the writer attributed his good tone to this tuning down.

Of course this is all personal: you like it that way, or you don't...hours of fun.

[Phil O'Keefe]

The longer scale length means that it will take more string tension to produce a particular note. More string tension can produce more "snap" and "twang" and generally a brighter sound. Everything else really comes down to materials and construction.

I would tend to agree with this. One other thing that factors in is the location of the pickups - their placement relative to the nodes of the string vibrations, etc. - but that's a factor of the design of the guitar, and where the designer decided to put the pickups, and not strictly scale-length related.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Node_%28physics%29

A lot of us run one gauge heavier on strings with our shortscales than we do with our Strats and Telecasters due to the lighter string tension. This helps to compensate somewhat for the string tension issues. The thicker the string, the more tension you need to put it under to achieve a particular note too.

[hotrodperlmutter]

I just converted a 22.7 inch scale guitar to 25.5 and I couldn't tell the difference in tone.

should of done a demo.

yes, you should have.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I didn't see the post above mine before originally replying to the thread, but if that poster clicks on the link in my first post, he'll see some diagrams that help explain the nodes and waveforms a bit.

[NickS]

"Rayleigh's wave equation"...that is like cool to drop this in to the conversation. Had a quick search in the forum but could not find any other posts. Looked online via Google, but the discussion is scientific technospeak and way over my head. Any chance of a brief summary? Will try to follow it up however.

I am trying to express something better done as a diagram. Below is a garbled attempt of what I think is happening.

In school, basic physics books used to show a sound wave as two opposite curves that cross over each other, and the pattern repeats, so the lower wave is now the upper one and visa versa moving left to right across the page.

The link to the previous post mentioning Rayleigh's wave equation (which states how the fundamental frequency of a vibrating string is affected by tension, length and mass per unit length) was in my previous post. A guitar string is not modelled as a sound wave, it is modelled as a vibrating string. Sound waves are applicable to instruments that use vibrating air columns in pipes, such as organs, flutes, recorders, trumpets etc.

A string can obviously vibrate in different ways depending on where it is picked or plucked, but the resultant waveform contains the fundamental and lesser amounts of multiples of the fundamental (harmonics) because all the possible modes of vibration must have nulls at each end of the string.

Here is a brilliant simulator - do play with it. http://www.falstad.com/loadedstring/. Pluck the string in different positions to see how that affects the harmonic content. It's best considered as a partial analogy of an acoustic guitar, as it will sound all harmonics whatever the fundamental frequency (equivalent to the string length, whether fretted or unfretted). In conrast, an electromagnetic pickup only samples the waveform in a certain position (simple single coil - humbuckers and single coils with claws are more complex) so as the string length changes (by fretting) the relative amplitude of harmonics varies.

[LameDog]



I didn't see the post above mine before originally replying to the thread, but if that poster clicks on the link in my first post, he'll see some diagrams that help explain the nodes and waveforms a bit.

and

NickS said "Here is a brilliant simulator - do play with it. http://www.falstad.com/loadedstring/. Pluck the string in different positions to see how that affects the harmonic content"

Thanks for these links!
Nice to get you experts on the case.

You said "A lot of us run one gauge heavier on strings with our shortscales than we do with our Strats and Telecasters due to the lighter string tension. This helps to compensate somewhat for the string tension issues. The thicker the string, the more tension you need to put it under to achieve a particular note too."

Yes I have pondered this...It raised the question in my mind: "why doesn't the extra tension on a thicker string dramatically change it’s overtone characteristics compared to a thinner set of strings on the same neck, for the thinner strings are under less tension?"

I think the key is to think of a string as being made up of a set of thinner strings. For instance with a 9 gauge top E. If you were to think of it as being made of 9 elastic bands all stretched out side by side, up to standard E pitch. Each elastic band would have a tension of...(lets say) 100 units (100 is arbitrary, and just to make the math easier). So the total tension is 9 x 100 = 900. Now if you use 10 gauge strings you are adding one extra elastic band, and the total tension goes up to 1,000, but the tension on each elastic band is still only 100. Likewise with 11 gauge. The total tension is 1100, but each elastic band is still 100, and each elastic band still vibrates away at standard E. So the actual tension per unit is constant even when you change up to a thicker string. A thicker string has to have more tension, as it is stretching up a wider area of metal. However though you have added tension to keep at standard E tuning, each "elastic band" within that string is still at the same tension it was to begin with. This is the best way (but I agree the explanation is muddy) I can think of of trying to explain for the fact that 11's, 10's or 9's when put on the same neck will have the same tonal qualities when all tuned to standard pitch, but all change tonally in a similar way to each other when re-tuned to a new pitch. Admitted there is a difference in slinkiness and ease of playing with different string guages, and the thickness of thinness of tone, but these are other factors but the overtone content did not change, it seems to me.

Thanks for the comment about pickup placement, am pondering this as if I want to do a neck conversion, wont the pickups in the body now be a bit in the wrong place...but the alignment difference may be so slight it might not matter.

You may notice overtone changes better if your string action is not set too close to the fret board, as slightly higher actions allow the strings to ring out more: too close and they get dampened by the fingerboard and air resistance against it, I think. Or course if you change string tension you may need to slightly adjust the guitars truss rod too to keep the neck in the shape you want.

So far my experiments in changing tone have been on two cheap strat copies: one by Encore (!) and the other on a Squire Affinity (!!) I am on a tight budget. But I did buy a Peavey Predator second hand, it is the earlier Peavey Predator with three tuners on each side of the head, and a floating two post bridge (but not a Floyd Rose which came on the second version of the Predator). This came with 8 gauge strings on it.

But to my chagrin, just to complicate things, I noticed that this Peavey guitar, even if tuned to standard tuning (and it is a 25 1/2 neck), has a more bluesy tone than the Strats. This is contradictory of course to everything I thought so far...but I think the answer may be in the large amount of metal used in the floating bridge which is of a softer type of metal around the sides and back of the floating bridge. My guess is this metal is absorbing the upper partials normally heard on a Strat, so you end up with a filtered tone which comes out a little more like the Gibsons.??? The Strat twang is still there, but it is mellower and mixed with a slightly more Gibson blues. This may be why some 24" players do not notice appreciable tone differences when they try tuning up or down: as I noticed that quite a few Fender 24" guitars have quite a lot of metal in the bridge...some with very exotic tremolos. So perhaps this is why the tone differences amongst some 24" users are reported to not show up quite so much as amongst 25 1/2" players? On the Affinity I have 11 gauge on the lower four strings, and 10's on the second and first strings, and I do notice the tone differences of re-tuning even with these thicker strings on. The Affinity is not a floating bridge, so that is also something to consider...if it floats perhaps it melds the tones together?

Then a thought came back to me about something I read, that originally in Germany the first tuning fork for A was made by John Shore in 1711 (I am not an expert on any of this, I just read about it on Google in the last week or so) and that he did NOT use 440Hz. I had made a note of this on a bit of paper, and just now found it. Guess what, the original frequency for this A was...ta ta (roll of drums)...423.5 Hz. So I was close in finding 422 Hz gives a nice tone on a Strat? He was a lute player I think. So perhaps he noticed stringed instruments sounded sweeter at this tuning? Scales lengths of Lutes may be related to the 25 1/2" scale perhaps? I suspect it was the invention of the piano that forced 440 Hz, as standard, on us. And this may have been enforced even more once brass instruments followed the piano's lead (brass can not be re-tuned like a stringed instrument, so then everyone had to follow?). It probably suited the piano's own tuning problems at the very top and bottom of its keyboard to be at 440 Hz in the centre of the keyboard? To start with 440 Hz near the centre of the keyboard may have helped with a known tuning problem at the extremes of the keyboard?

[The Dead Ranch Hands]

put a capo on your guitar. it shortens the scale. does the tone change?

Part of it will be the difference between the nut material and the fret material which becomes like a zero fret with a capo.

But to really get it, take a full scale Fender, tune down to D, then capo the second fret. A/B that with standard tuning. There is a subtle difference, and the "short scale" sounds a little darker and plunkier. But it's subtle. Pickups have a way bigger effect.

Actually I guess that'd be like a 22" scale. First fret would be closer to a Jag.

[hwestman]

As some have pointed out above most of the comparisons made are pretty poor science comparing guitars with totally different construction and electronics in addition to the difference in scale length doesn't isolate the effect of the different scales.

However, a good way (IMHO) of comparing would be to play a guitar, then capo it and release string tension to offset the capoing. Then you would be able to compare the difference in tone due to the change of scale length.

To eliminate the difference in sound due to strings passing through the nut vs strings being capoed you could start with the guitar being capo:ed on the first fret and then moving on to the second or third fret.

In addition you could use a thicker string gauge when going to the capoed setup.

Another pretty good comparison could be made by those who have put Jazzmaster pickups on Jaguars (or the other way around) provided that you have an unaltered JM or Jag to compare it with (provided that they are made of similar materials and have similar pickups and setup...)

[limeypip]

Hi dynac0mp
I'm no expert and I have a vox vt amp, not an all valve tone monster. Today I went to the guitar shop to compare the fender blacktop jag and blacktop strat.
The jag had an alder body, maple neck with rosewood board. It was fitted with 9-42 strings.
The strat also had an alder body,maple neck, rosewood board and the same gauge strings. The pickups are exactly the same on both guitars.
When the strat was in the three full humbucking modes --- bridge, mid, neck, I was really surprised that, to me, they sounded so close. I was expecting the strat to be much brighter because of the string tension but the diference was about as big as a nats willy. Go try it your self, see what you think.
Steady as you go ----limeypip

[LameDog]

My observation that the Peavey Predator Plus, (the one with tuners on both sides of headstock, and locking tuners and a 2 single coil and one humbucker coil and a two point floating trem....not the Floyd Rose one in other words), had a more bluesy tone than the same 25 1/2 length strat copy I have,... was a strange finding. But I would like to add that even then, the Peavey was not as bluesy as a 24 3/4 inch neck, ever; but had an acceptable, similar sound. I guess this was because the thinner strings meant it did not carry the higher overtones so well, plus whatever higher overtones were there, were absorbed a bit by the all metal bridge. I was playing these guitars acoustically, so once you amplify it all it gets more complex regarding pickups, amps, whatever. It normally has a floating bridge action, and that also was part of the tone change, but then even when I set the bridge down against the body that bluesy tone was still there, which causes me chagrin...but hey! there you go, I got the tone I wanted after all sort of!

What I really seem to like is the tone of a 23 1/2 scale Brydland scale, it seems lyrical, tuneful and bluesy and I think it would probably go very well with Soapbar pickups (kinman noiseless ones, I have my eyes on). But I cannot find a modern electric at all with that scale length being made now, with a whammy bar. The late and great Gary Moore used a Gibson tuned down a semitone, which gives that Byrdland tone too (when I refer to "tone" here, I mean when you play lead, particularly on bending notes up or down you hear it best, not just strumming a chord, even though chords are mellower too). Seems like I cannot settle on just one guitar, as I also like the Gibson tone...and that Telecaster sound on the bridge pickup is unique too.

Then add fuzz and who cares!

[LameDog]

this post deleted by the me, LameDog, in the interests of moral rectitude .

[Pens]

Wow.

[jamba72]

there is a difference between basic TONE ( of the woods, construction) and the SOUND it produces through many other options ( pickups, their placement, bridge, nut, strings) .
a LP special made of mahagony with set neck will sound different with ANY pickup than a stang.

[LameDog]

I have two guitars, on the budget end of things as guitars go, with similar floating two point trems. What I have found today is that both the guitars with their trems set to float are less responsive to tone changes when string tension is either raised up or down..there is a tone change but the floating of the bridge (and actually the sort of largish metal blocks the bridge is made of) seems to be acting as a sort of tone absorber; as if the trems are determined to give out only one tone for that guitar. I have a Peavey Predator Plus, (the earlier version). The other guitar is a "Vintage" make (Hornby Skewes market these?) sort of PRS type copy, it is the older version of this model before Trevor Wilkinson got involved in upgrading the design of them, and has a "mahogany" body. The trem looks like solid brass: darker tone therefore. Scale length is 24/3/4. But both trems are of near idendtical design to each other, a lot of metal surrounding the string balls and has knife edge floating on two posts. I am playing both of these guitars acoustically for these experiments in tone.

I think the tremolo-bridge is the culprit, or the saviour (whatever way you care look at it), and it seems to be over-riding the tonal changes of string tension and the trem is setting the overall tone of the two guitars to a great extent. But I think one may notice the difference in string tension/scale length more on a hard tail guitar, or on a guitar using a standard Fender trem which is set flat on the body of the guitar due to tightening the springs (not over tightened however) at the back, so the tremolo cannot not move up and down, as the free movement of the trem can cause a shimmer effect when strummed.

I am going off topic now, but, but it is relevant. I think I read online, and I think I noticed it too, that a floating trem causes chords to shimmer when strummed, and I guess that shimmer must act on single notes too but is not so easily noticed. Now a shimmer can be nice to hear, a sort of free soft Chorus pedal, but it may mean overtones are sort of melded together into a rather samey sort of tone whatever the scale length. Also people who play double-stop bends complain that a floating bridge caused the none bended note to go flat, due to the bending note pulling up the floating bridge causing the other notes to go flat. I notice that single note bends on a floating bridge are easier to play (less hard on the fingers) but are softer in feel and sound too. So that particularly nice bluesy bite you get on the up-bend of a hard tail Gibson at 24 3/4 scale will not be possible if a floating trem is there. Your pick attack is muted a bit. In fact you cannot get a hard strum on a chord, as the floating bridge wobbles and provides less resistance to your strum and makes the chord's attack mushy, I suspect. This does not matter if you are using high gain, and compression, for whammy mayhem, as you will not notice that sort of loss of attack dynamics anyhow, really, once you get that far, I guess. But to reduce the shimmer and increase pick attack I suppose more springs can be added at the back, while slackening off the spring holding claw a bit to compensate for this. The only problem with this is that downbends then become harder to push down, changing the feel and depth of bends, and adding strain to the tremolo arm and it's socket (which may cause wear and tear on the socket causing the arm to become loose prematurely) and the added pressure placed on the two posts into which the blade of the tremolo usually goes is a consideration: I suppose the blade edge will get blunter quicker and need to be replaced more often, and the posts may be put under so much extra pressure that they crush the wood directly in front of them, and the whole tremolo unit may start to slowly and impercepterbly move forward towards the pickups, ruining intonation, and even the block may then start to rest on the front edge of the routing it so you wont get a bend at all then, or it will not return back to tuning properly as the front of the block then snags on that front edge of the routing. So if your guitar is made of Basswood (Ibenez make a lot of shredder guitars in this?) or a similar soft wood beware of that problem. In fact with a softwood this problem of the moving of the whole trem block forward may happen to some degree even with only 3 springs in the back I suppose. So curing the shimmer/pick attack issue by adding springs could create other problems. However this may not happen with a particular trem: it's not Floyd Rose, it may be Khaler or Shaller some other German sort of name? Anyway it involves a rectangular route behind a roller bridge, and does not use springs in the back of the guitar, that one looks pretty solid and is not going any where soon...ah, my next project to investigate this issue somewhere else, far far away..... . But the trem on JagStangs, or other 24 guitars such as the Bronco may be best actually after all, as these have a similar route behind the bridge as the Shaller one. Putting lighter strings on could mean you could reduce the shimmer without adding extra springs at the back, but this raises problems of string slinkiness/lower string tension and increased thinness of tone and less volume from the pickups. I am amazed that actually the Fender standard trem, unless you are divebomb mad and need a 5 semitone up bend all the time, is so durable, hardwearing, good for tone transfer to the body of the guitar, good for returning to pitch if set flat, gives deep enough bends, and is simple and sensible as a design. Possibly one solution to all this is the Hipshot Tremsetter, which may reduce shimmer and improve pick attack on most trems? Well are all these newer trems simply trying to reinvent the wheel!? They are innovations however, that may lead to a solid step forward eventually that most people are happy with. At the moment I have issues with floating trems that put me off them a bit. Another issue with a floating trem is it's tuning stability, and I think this applies even to locking systems. Strings do go out of tune even on locking trems, that is why you have the fine adjusting knobs by the bridge end. You tune up the locking trem, but then extra heat from lights, a drop in temperature, stress of bends, etc all cause tuning changes. The main issue for me is that of tuning on stage: a string goes out of tune, say the third, and all the strings then go out of tune relative to this change in string tension on the third string. So you have no option but to tune the guitar up string by string, then recheck and find the strings are out still but in a different way, so you retune, and check and they are still a bit out but getting closer to being okay, and so you do it again, and even again, till it all settles down. This is because as soon as you adjust the tension on one string the other strings either get slack or get under more tension due to the floating bridge changing position, so all the strings change pitch. In a performance that sort of re-tuning hassel is unwanted and causes delays between songs which could cause an the audience to vaugely loose interest or attention in your set or the impact of timing between songs goes. If you are wealthy you could hire a tech to tune a second guitar off-stage for you to swop to, if the need arises, but even changing guitars on stage looks a bit naff, I feel, breaking the theatrical illusion, reminding the audience there is a backstage. You could of course use this ploy as a device, like the Marxist scriptwriter who wrote stuff 60 years ago or so....um can't remember his name right now (oh yes, Brecht?)...but he called it alienation technique...remind the audience this is just a play, you are in a seat, this is only a theatre, -every once in a while during a perfomance...pull them out of the fantasy depicted on stage as part of the point you are making to them. But I once went to the hear the very quirky music of Gentle Giant,- showing my true age here (I dont still live at Mum's or use her own shopping trolley, I've got my own trolley now thank very much!),- and the guitarist, also being able to play violin or something swopped his guitar to a violin or a bass, turning his back on the audience to do so. That move and delay spoilt the presentation somehow to me, or broke the audience's attention on the set...the same with going to the side of the stage to swop a guitar because it is out of tune and because the floating trem makes it such a time waisting thing to get back in tune, that you have to do this. With a fixed trem or a hard tail each string is in tune or out of tune to itself only, and you can easily tweek it back in tune yourself, and that little adjustment can even add a dash of cool to the show perhaps, as it is a sort of rock and roll cliche. Flash trems may be for Boy Racer types: some people like alloy wheels on their car for no practical use, as they are not in racing circuit contests. Likewise for some guitarists, based on how they use a Floyd of course, all of the bends they do could possibly be done with a standard Fender trem? Eddy Van Halen in his Wolfgan guitar specified the trem to be set flat, possibly because he found it solved all this tuning instability and tone issue? If you have a Fender headstock upbends can be done by pressing on the strings near the string tree perhaps?

I got interested in the Stetsbar tremolo for Gibson Les Paul guitars, but even here on the Youtube clips that I watched, the tone was extra bright and seemed to coming almost entirely from the metal Stetsbar, bypassing the tonal effects of the wood, so you expensive Gibson has a different tone now but you might like it, but it seems to defeat the object of having a heavy mahogany body with a nice resonant maple top...the trem set the tone, and truthfully the scale length might really be of no consequence then.

So far I have found only one guitar maker using a 26 inch scale. He is a crazy sort of guy, who seems to deliberately talk arrogantly to lampoon the guitar world: Zachary Guitars, humble servant of God. I cannot afford his beauties for sale of course, and am a bit put-off by his unusual "sales pitch"! But, gulp, dare I suggest it here on a short scale forum....a 26 or 26 1/8 guitar for excellent tone similar to the Byrdland tone!

[LameDog]

I also really think there is a pattern.

For instance, on a 25 1/2 inch scale guitar, tuning down a semitone very nearly takes you to the 24 inches of a Jaguar/Jagstang/Mustang. The tuning down changes the standard Strat twang (very suitable for late 50's USA true rock and roll, and shredding, I guess) to a very mellow stable, almost classical guitar, rounded sound at 24 inches. Apparently Hendrix did tune his guitars down to get this tone, but having large hands he needed a 25 1/2 neck, and the lower pitch may also have suited his vocal range too.

(actually 24 1/8 is the scale length at the first fret of a Strat, so if you really want, try tuning down just a very tiny bit further than a semitone to allow for this extra 1/8 inch, or hear it on a shortscale guitar of 24 inches instead).

Then again, if you were to tune down to the second fret of a Strat, you get back to the original twangy Strat tone, but with possibly a bit more mid overtones to it. To try this you may need to have gauge 11 strings on a Strat, so then you can comfortably tune down a full tone and still not find the strings too baggy and loose when you get there.

I will need to call this second related tone found at the first fret “the converse tone", to try to keep a bit of clarity, as I find this hard to explain in writing

This pattern is repeated for 25 inch scale necks also. Some, if not all, PRS guitars are 25 inch. It was never my intention to be negative to PRS guitars, actually, in saying earlier that I did not like the 25 inch scale tone. That was not a criticism of PRS. I just found the acoustic tone of the strings seemed to have two opposing tones meeting face to face, and it gave a sort of floating etherial feel, and seemed a bit disorientating to me. It may be great for psychodelic or trance music. So I hope I did not annoy anyone who just spent a lot of money to get a PRS and it is their pride and joy? What do I know; a beginner! Also, if Paul Reed Smith reads these forums...they are great guitars, there is no doubt about it. I just prefer a different string tone...I don’t like the twang of Strats particularly either, if that helps. I’m eccentric like that. I acknowledge PRS are very well made, look great, use superior materials and have attention to detail, (and cost a whole lot more than I can afford!), and with it’s own specific bridge and pickups modifying that initial string tone, it is known as a great guitar .....Zachery Guitars excepted as he is out of this world of course, by his own admission! Zach you seem a crazy lovable guy underneath that gruff aggressive front you put up (I’m sure he agrees with me there, he’s really cuddly, honest, I'm sure there is good in everyone)?! A bit on the defensive, perhaps? Why? Pine is fine, man, as you say! Ikea; an innovation.
So on the positive, PRS tuned down a semitone may suit me however (see below).

The repeating tone pattern seems to hold true for all guitars of any length. For instance, if you you tune a 25 inch scale down a semitone you get to a new unique tone, and then tune down a further semitone (to the second fret) and you get back to a tone very similar to the 25 inch tone I think, but perhaps with a bit more oomph in the bass strings, or a richer version of the original tone. If you were to tune up (equivalent to 26 1/2 scale) you get the same “converse tone� found at the first fret, but with less bass, and a bit cooler. But you will need to change strings to 8‘s for this, of course.

Earlier in my postings I mistakenly thought the “converse tone� at 1/3rd semitone down on a 24 inch guitar was the “converse tone� of the 24 3/4 neck tuned down to it’s first fret, but I was wrong it seems. I think that is actually the “converse tone" of a 25 inch neck. To get to the 25 inch “converse tone� on a 24 inch scale guitar you seem to need to tune down something like 1/3rd of a tone....it is a sweet tone, different to the full 25 inch scale tone...and because it sounded so good to me, I thought that was the “conversion tone" of a Gibson Les Paul. But if you want the “converse tone� of a 24 3/4 scale I now think you would need to tune down a 24 inch guitar by something like just over 1/2 a semitone or 2/3rd’s of a semitone. This is very nit-picking off course, (gnat bites all around the back of my neck now!) and a tuner that allows you to read the degree of down or up tuning helps. 440 Hz is standard, but tuning up to 450 may give you a Gibson tuning, and 454 may give a PRS tuning, on a 24 inch scale guitar. But use these settings on a 25 1/2 scale and you get the “converse tone� of a Gibson and the PRS, both somewhere between the actual 25 1/2 nut and 27 inch notional fret. But as someone said about this subtly of tone, when in the full mix of a band, itm may be lost of course, perhaps. But Gary Moore did not loose his tone when playing live.

Just to add here, the upper “converse tone� of a 24 3/4 neck is at about 26 inches (actually strictly speaking it seems to be 26 1/4), and this is the very self assured scale of Zachery Guitars. There was a posting from someone on another site, not Zachery’s own site (Zachery’s site seems a sort of random website, on which he or other people posts often crazy spoof comments to it for a laugh, with his permission of course). Anyhow this comment was on another website, and was probably a genuine unbiased comment, and the person commented on the great tone of Zachary’s 26 inch guitar, and specifically talked of the added sustain. This feature of great tone and sustain at 26 and 23 1/2 scale I have noted already, I found these more melodic and gave better sustain. The website poster also went on to say that “Parisianne Walkways� by Gary Moore, sounded great played on this Zachery guitar. This is significant, because I read that Gary Moore tuned down his Gibson Les Paul a semitone (that is to say, he was playing the “converse tone� of the first fret, similar to the tone you get at 26 inches) for Parisianne Walkways originally. Hence the 26 scale matched Gary Moore's tone.

As I said earlier in this post the “converse tone" of the 25 sounds so great to me, so I originally made a mistake in thinking the nice tone I found 1/3rd of a semitone below the 24 inch fret was related to the Gibson 24 3/4 tone . Tuning down 1/3 of a semitone from standard tuning on a 24 inch scale guitar I suppose may be possibly the Brydland tuning... it may be, or it may be that Byrdland is actually at about 2/3 of a semitone down. I need to recheck what the Byrdland guitar scale actually exactly is. (okay, I went and looked it up, it is actually 23 1/2, so that obscures thing a bit, as 23 1/2 is mid way between the converse tones of both the PRS and a Gibson tuned down a semitone????). The physical problem of using a 23 1/2 scale is that it may bunch your fingers when playing open E, A or D chords particularly if you want to hammer on or add 7th notes. So a slightly wider neck for a 23 1/2 scale may help give your fingers space and not make it so cramped at the top, however I think jazz guitarists used to like this shorter scale as it was easier to reach around the fretboard and to chord difficult chord shapes. Not great if you have massive hands...use the 26 inch scale.

Finally then, I would like to thank the person who told me about Warmouth neck conversions. I think this is a way forward for me that might work, So a standard Strat body with a six screw tremolo set flat against the body which can be used for down-bends only, but with a 24 3/4 neck for the bluesy tone I like, possibly tuned down a semitone or up a semitone, or tuned to the 25 inch “converse tone�? But perhaps Warmouth do 23 1/2 necks and 26 inch necks too? I know Peavey made a series of guitars, T12, T30, etc, some of which were 23 1/2 necks...but alas they did not have whammy bars, which I want, and I think may be a bit hard to find outside of Ebay. For I would like to try to get a whammy screech and growl sometimes. I think I noticed that most people on Youtube don’t seem to use their fretting hand for these dimbag squeals after they have plucked the 3rd string with a finger of the fretting hand and then lightly struck the string at the 5th or 7th fret for the harmonic to start to ring. So as now that hand is free, and the trem is set flat, to get an up-bend why not just put some finger pressure on the string, up beyond the nut, in the tuning peg area of the headstock, up near the string-trees of the Strat neck? But to do this, obviously, you cannot have a locking nut; but do need a well-cut and oiled nut, perhaps a black tusc nut with teflon added, or a roller nut. Put on locking tuners, perhaps. Also it occurred to me that possibly one could remove the string tree of the 3rd and 4th strings, and also move the string tree for the 1st and 2nd strings up the headstock a bit nearer to the tuning pegs (or remove both string trees all together as long as your strings don't jump out of the nut without them). This should give the string area there some space for a smallish up-bend. I only want to make my guitar sound like a motorbike, banshee, chainsaw or exploding bomb, sometimes, lol.

[paul_]

Dunno Question I guess it has to be somewhere between 9's and 11's, but Stevie Ray Vaughan who emulated Hendrix used to play with really thick strings.

SRV had his own thing going gear-wise. Hendrix used .10s when he could, the Fender "Rock 'n' Roll" set in the late '60s and before that he would cannabalize guitar/banjo sets to make his own .9s or .10s, which he got from Clapton and Page (who had been doing this since the early '60s)

SRV used .13s because of surf music and Albert King, who were probably as equal parts an influence on him as Hendrix was, both in playing style and gear choice. He worked his way down to 12s and then 11s after kicking the blow in the late '80s. He also set his action super high so he could bend his heavy strings more like Albert King. Most of his gear wasn't actually very Hendrixy, just a couple of pedals.

The neck and the bridge (as in the bridge bridge, not the tailpiece or it's vibrato capabilities) are the deciding factor in tone on a Fender guitar. On a set-neck guitar slightly more figures into it. I don't think, barring putting a block in the trem cavity of a Strat, that locking a bridge does anything to the guitar's sound. You have to change the contact point [saddles].