Optimal string sizes?

[[UEAK]Clowd]

so a while ago I remember reading through a thread where people were talking about custom string sets for drop tuning... but I can't find it anywhere now.

I'm thinking about buying a bunch of bulk strings from www.juststrings.com, so I may as well get custom sizes for drop B (B F# B E G# C#)... I can never seem to get the intonation quite 100%, maybe this would help?

 

[muckypup1]

If you have a 26.5 in scale guitar, then I would go for a 56 or 52 for your low B string, it will be tight, but not so tight you have to play harder. But yeah, a custom set would be best for low tunings like this.

 

[Harry Hughes]

For drop B on a 25.5 inch scale guitar, for me it would be :

B - 56
F# - 42
B- 32
E- 24 (make sure it's wound, a plain will suck)
G#- 14 or 11
C#- 11

If you're quite a heavy picker, definitely bump up the bottom 3 strings to 60, 46 and 36 I reckon

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

For drop B on a 25.5 inch scale guitar, for me it would be :

B - 56
F# - 42
B- 32
E- 24 (make sure it's wound, a plain will suck)
G#- 14 or 11
C#- 11

If you're quite a heavy picker, definitely bump up the bottom 3 strings to 60, 46 and 36 I reckon

thanks.

I can't explain to you how much I hate unwound third strings haha. I made the mistake of trying it out last time I picked up new strings(they didn't have my regular d'addario 13-56) and it's so dulll.

I do pick very hard, but I don't think I could fit a 60 in my nut or tuners haha. Right now I'm at, usually-

B - 56
F# - 46
B- 36
E- 26w
G#- 17
C#- 13

and it kinda sucks cause the low B is a tad bit rattly, and I've gotta work fairly hard to bend the high strings.

 

[nwright]

D'Addario has a nice string tension guide on their site. Worth a look if you want to match tensions to a familiar gauge you've used in the past, or compare tensions in dropped tunings to tensions in standard.

 

[MarcusGHedwig]

The problem with having a 46 for the F# and only a 56 for the B is that the F# is gonna be substantially tighter (and I much prefer to have the lowest string be the tightest) - on D'addario's web site, you can see in the info for this pack that when tuned to standard intervals, a .46 for the second-lowest string is still gonna be slightly tighter than even a .60 for the lowest, so if you were dropping the low string then I'd probably want a .64 or even .66 there. However, I will agree that's overkill, and thus my vote would be:

62
44
32
20w/20p
15
10.5

(I love ascending tension simply because I bend the crap out of the high strings and beat the crap out of the low strings, thus making even tension over all a pretty poor idea IMO - and if those bottom three strings are too tight, then you could do 60/42/30 instead)

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

I would go that thick for my low B but like I said, I don't think I could make it fit without any modifications.

I'm gonna try this out and see how it goes-

.58
.44
.34 (I like the three low strings to be pretty even in tension)
.22w
.15
.12

gonna use that for a few weeks and see how I like it, then tweak accordingly for the next order.

 

[[UEAK]Clowd]

the .58 is still fucking rattly. jesus christ.

is it even possible to get rid of all the rattle in low tunings on a standard guitar?

 

[ParsonsMatt]

A .068 is the perfect compromise for me... Would probably be perfect in Bb, but it works great in B standard and drop A.

 

[LeSedna]

I would be interested in what you think is a good C standard set ?

On various string sites I have found that :

1 2 3 4 5 6
Standart E-46 A-36 D-26 G-17 B-13 E-10
D D-56 G-44 C-32 F-19 A-14 D-11
C C-60 F-46 A#34 D#20 G-16 C-12

It's for my ESP that is a 25.5 and has a floyd (which I guess makes every string feel like it's more little because of the tension of the floyd removing some difficulty). I'm like you Marcus, I like my high strings quite soft whereas my low strings would be hard.
And that is infinitly important that the 4th string (the "G" string in standard) is plain and not like the low ones. (Don't know how you say, I mean I want it to be made the same way are made the high strings and not like the low strings because the feeling is really too different for me) and I don't know what is the minimum size of a string that makes it made as a low string. I'm fearing 20 is already too high ?

Sh*t it's complicated to explain without the good word