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Topic: String gauges for 24" scale |
Carey Hofer
From:
South Dakota, USA
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Posted 9 Oct 2021 11:11 am |
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| Hi ya'll. Decided a month or two ago to dive into the world of lap steel. I joined steelguitarforum.com and have been researching things ever since. Just pulled the trigger on a new 8 string Rukavina lap steel. This particular model has a 24" scale. A little longer than the typical lapsteel scale I know. I am having a little trouble deciding on strings. Am going to tune it to high C6 (A C E G A C E G LOW TO HIGH) Does anyone have any advice for me on gauges or string sets? Thanks. |
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Allan Revich
From:
Victoria, BC
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Posted 9 Oct 2021 2:45 pm Re: String gauges for 24
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| Carey Hofer wrote: |
| Hi ya'll. Decided a month or two ago to dive into the world of lap steel. I joined steelguitarforum.com and have been researching things ever since. Just pulled the trigger on a new 8 string Rukavina lap steel. This particular model has a 24" scale. A little longer than the typical lapsteel scale I know. I am having a little trouble deciding on strings. Am going to tune it to high C6 (A C E G A C E G LOW TO HIGH) Does anyone have any advice for me on gauges or string sets? Thanks. |
This set should cover 7 of the 8 strings, I think. Don’t use the 54, add a 12 or 11 for the high G.
Your C6 is on this chart from John Ely
Excellent article about scale length and string gauges on his website, https://www.hawaiiansteel.com/learning/gauges.php
_________________
Current Tunings:
6 String | G – D G D G B D
7 String | G9 – D G B D F A D
https://papadafoe.com/lap-steel-tuning-database |
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Carey Hofer
From:
South Dakota, USA
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Posted 9 Oct 2021 2:55 pm
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| Thanks! |
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Brian Evans
From:
Nova Scotia, Canada
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Posted 11 Oct 2021 5:22 am
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My take on lap steel string gauges, FWIW:
More is better than less, unless they break. So you can usually take gauges for 23" and run them on a 24" scale just fine, but you probably want to go up a bit if you want to run 23" scale strings on a 21" scale instrument. 25" scale, you probably want to go down a step or two.
30lbs tension is a guide point for tension on a lap steel, maybe 25 lbs if it's an acoustic instrument. String tension isn't going to hurt a lap steel, not this century anyway... So on a lap steel it's more about feel under the bar, balanced tone between strings, and good intonation. Short, heavy strings can sound sharper in pitch at a given bar position than short, light strings, because of something called inharmonicity. Piano tuners sweeten their tuning so high pitched notes sound in tune with low pitched notes. We put some vibrato on the bar... |
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Carey Hofer
From:
South Dakota, USA
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Posted 11 Oct 2021 6:35 pm
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| Very helpful, thank you! |
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