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Topic: Fender Stringmaster Quad Baritone Tuning |
Tony Oresteen
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 6 Dec 2022 6:51 pm |
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I am researching tunings for the baritone neck of the Stringmaster Quad. (You could also swap the nut on a T8 outer neck and drill out the tuner post string holes for bigger strings and have a baritone neck). Google does not have much on lap steel baritone tunings and when I search here not much pops up either. I did find a post back in 2014 where Doug Beaumier posted a baritone tuning he had found:
"On the Quad bass neck, Fender recommended what they called A6 Major & Minor
E .032
C# .038
A .044
F# .048
E .055
C# .071
A .087
F .110 "
https://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=261574&highlight=quad
I do not understand why Fender would recommend the low F vs a low F#. An Am6 chord would be A C E F#. An A augmented chord would be A C# F.
Also, what scale neck would those gauge strings be for? 26", 24.5" or 22.5" scale necks?
Is anyone using a baritone tuning on an 8 string steel neck?
The only video of someone playing a baritone neck that I could find is Buddy Merrill playing "South" where he makes a jump to the outer neck on the Lawrence Welk Show (at 1:47 below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcipRLzk4zM
Thanks!
_________________
Tony
Newnan, GA
Too many guitars, not enough time to play
'72 Sho-Bud 6139, '71 Marlen 210
'78 Fender Stringmaster T8 black
PedalMaster D8
Last edited by Tony Oresteen on 7 Dec 2022 9:38 am; edited 2 times in total |
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Nick Fryer
From:
Ohio, USA
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Posted 7 Dec 2022 5:34 am
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Nice post! I am interested in this lately as well. I am going to put the bass strings on my Quad. I’ve seen a few options but I’m not sure what is best. An old friend of mine told me that he used to do C6 but everything an octave down on his quad and would double horn lines in the band. I’m leaning towards this because I’m comfortable with C6. The Andy Volk book lists the Leon McAulliffe tuning. I can’t remember it off the top of my head but will check. It’s a diatonic type tuning (Low-Hi) C, D, E, F etc. I’ll check the book later today and post the actual tuning. I’m very interested in finding out the proper string guages for these various bass tunings.
- NF
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www.fryerguitarpickups.com |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 7 Dec 2022 8:02 am
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When I had bass strings on my triple neck Stringmaster I used the A 6th tuning.
I used the the bass strings only on the bottom 4 strings.
Erv |
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Doug Beaumier
From:
Northampton, MA
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Ethan Shaw
From:
Texas, USA
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Posted 7 Dec 2022 12:15 pm
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| I've tried various approaches to this on my quad. Mostly I tune the lowest strings ADGC, which is how I tune my upright bass. I use that to actually play bass lines on the steel. If you're not doing that, though, that lower version of A6 is a really good choice (with an F# on the bottom), because it's familiar territory. One thing to take into consideration is the ball end of the strings you're using. Bass strings won't fit because they have a bigger ball, so I use pedal steel strings as big as I can get them, and then remove the ball from a bass string and twist in a guitar string ball for any notes A or lower. |
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Mike Neer
From:
NJ
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Tony Oresteen
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 7 Dec 2022 4:03 pm
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| Erv Niehaus wrote: |
When I had bass strings on my triple neck Stringmaster I used the A 6th tuning.
I used the the bass strings only on the bottom 4 strings.
Erv |
Erv et. al.,
That makes sense and that is one option I am looking at.
This option would have my T8 set up with C6 outer neck, A6 middle neck, and baritone inner neck. My A6 is Remington/Cashdollar tuning with a low F#:
Since the 8th string F# is in octave 2, the next logical lower note would be an E in octave 2. So then the C would follow in octave 2, the A in octave 1, and the F# in octave 1. That puts you as low as you can practically go with a 24.5" neck as the string will get so thick you can not drill out the tuner post hole any larger or it might break.
What do you do with the four other strings? One option I came up with is E A D G like a regular 4 string bass. Problems with this are that the E is a step lower than the F# which would need a bigger string or it will be very loose. The other problem is the G2 string will be next to the F#1 string and the G string will be much thinner than the F# string - just about 1/2 the diameter of the F# which would raise the steel bar and could cause the G2 string to buzz.
So the practical solution is to move the baritone strings to strings 5-8 and 1-4 are dupes of the A6 normal tuning strings 5-8. This seems a bit wasteful to me.
I come from the 6 string "regular" Spanish guitar world and think of baritone turnings a bit differently than steelers might. I have a pair of "regular" baritone guitars that are a perfect 4th (and a perfect 4th minus 1) below a "regular" electric guitar tuning, i.e. :
1 B
2 F#
3 D
4 A
5 E
6 B
and
1 Bb
2 F
3 Db
4 Ab
5 Eb
6 Bb
7 F (it's a 7 string baritone tuned down)
https://www.squier-talk.com/threads/stagemaster-7-covidia-barryflat-baritone-conversion-f-bb.186338/
Why not just tune the steel baritone neck down a perfect 4th from the A6 tuning? This would yield an E6 baritone tuning:
But we could go further and go down a perfect 5th below A6 which would yield a D6 baritone tuning:
Which one would work best? I do not know so I guess I will have to try both out. I like my lap steel strings at a tension of around 28-32 lbs pull, never below 25 lbs or over 33lbs.
I've calculated the gauge strings needed for all three Stringmaster necks sizes for E6 & D6 Baritone, keeping the tension at around 30 lbs pull per string:
To calculate the tensions I used this on-line calculator:
https://stringtensioncalculator.com/
I assume that 0.105" is the largest string that the tuners could be drilled out to hold as Fender lists the 0.105" size string in their tuning.
I'd appreciate any feedback you might have. Is my logic off or how would you design 8 baritone strings for a multi-neck setup?
I have not tried the Fender baritone tuning (I just can't wrap my head around that low F) - if you have please post your thoughts on it. Next up is for me to order some strings and try these tunings out. Before I do that I need some group knowledge before I go down a path of despair.
Thanks!
_________________
Tony
Newnan, GA
Too many guitars, not enough time to play
'72 Sho-Bud 6139, '71 Marlen 210
'78 Fender Stringmaster T8 black
PedalMaster D8
Last edited by Tony Oresteen on 8 Dec 2022 10:43 am; edited 3 times in total |
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Tony Oresteen
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 7 Dec 2022 4:45 pm
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| Ethan Shaw wrote: |
| ... One thing to take into consideration is the ball end of the strings you're using. Bass strings won't fit because they have a bigger ball, so I use pedal steel strings as big as I can get them, and then remove the ball from a bass string and twist in a guitar string ball for any notes A or lower. |
I had that problem with my Jackson (as in FMIC) "regular" 8 string electric guitar. I had to drill out the 8th post to get it to take a 0.090" string. As stock the posts would only take a 0.065" size string max (which is what they shipped with the guitar - way too small for an 8th string). I tried a 0.090 bass string and as you say the balls are too big. The through-body ferules would not accept the large bass ball.
JustStrings.com (where I buy all my strings) sells large single strings with guitar balls:
Ernie Ball makes 70, 72, 74, and 90 strings with guitar balls.
GHS makes boomers in 70, 74, 80, and 90 with guitar balls.
D'Addario makes 70, 72, 74. and 80 with guitar balls (packs of 5 only).
_________________
Tony
Newnan, GA
Too many guitars, not enough time to play
'72 Sho-Bud 6139, '71 Marlen 210
'78 Fender Stringmaster T8 black
PedalMaster D8 |
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Abe Levy
From:
California, USA
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Posted 9 Dec 2022 9:39 am
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I have a baritone c6 on my long scale triple. I got this from Chris Scruggs and it sounds great.
G…..024
E…..030
C…..036
A…..042
G…..052
E…..056
C…..066
A…..070
_________________
Mostly Pre-1970 guitars. |
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Dane Carlson
From:
Bay Area, California
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Posted 9 Dec 2022 9:54 am Re: Fender Stringmaster Quad Baritone Tuning
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| Tony Oresteen wrote: |
| I am researching tunings for the baritone neck of the Stringmaster Quad. |
I'm unfamiliar with how a quad is tuned in general. Are all 4 necks in different tunings? Are they all in some sort of 6th tuning? Trying to understand why 4 necks are useful.
| Tony Oresteen wrote: |
The only video of someone playing a baritone neck that I could find is Buddy Merrill playing "South" where he makes a jump to the outer neck on the Lawrence Welk Show (at 1:47 below) |
I'll bet that Lawrence was whispering in Buddy's ear to make sure to smile for the camera. |
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Erv Niehaus
From:
Litchfield, MN, USA
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Posted 9 Dec 2022 10:16 am
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Dane,
Yes, all 4 necks are tuned differently.
The reason for the 4 different tunings is that some songs lay out better in one tuning than another.
And they are 8 string necks to extend the range with, usually, some form of 6th tuning.
Erv |
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Tony Oresteen
From:
Georgia, USA
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Posted 9 Dec 2022 11:19 am
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Thanks Abe. I will check out that tuning.
Dane,
What Erv said. Go to You Tube and search for "Stranger on the Shore Doug"
Watch Doug B. playing Stranger on the Shore on his short scale Quad. He jumps necks mid song to get a better layout of notes.
(I can't get a link from YT as I am on a mobile device)
EDIT: I am home now. Here's the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fo3c70X_WGU
_________________
Tony
Newnan, GA
Too many guitars, not enough time to play
'72 Sho-Bud 6139, '71 Marlen 210
'78 Fender Stringmaster T8 black
PedalMaster D8 |
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