Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dan Sleep on November 4, 2013 at 5:31am

You should be using the 3-4-5 strings to tune to GDg. Is that what you are using?

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Permalink Reply by Charlie Boston on November 4, 2013 at 5:35am

I am not sure I bought the strings from C B Gitty , it was listed as a bulk pack for 3 string CBGs. They called them medium acoustic open G standard strings. As you can tell I know nothing about music and even less about guitars. I am trying to learn!

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Permalink Reply by The Capo Kid on November 4, 2013 at 5:54am

 Very thin strings they look like 3 2 1 to me , maybe wrong , you want something  around the  42 32 24 gauge , I would buy a pack of cheap guitar strings and see what gauge suits you , then buy some decent ones .

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Permalink Reply by ChickenboneJohn on November 4, 2013 at 5:44am

My advice is to pay attention to the actual gauge sizes. In my experience you can't really generalise about just using the 5th,4th and 3rd strings from a set, as gauges sizes vary so much. I know everyone seems to say just use the 5,4 3 strings, but I thinks it's too vague, especially if you are experiencing string breakages. For example, a G string can typically be a heavy as .026wound or as light as .016plain - that's a huge variation. I use .042, .032 and .024 (or .022) for G D G tuning on a 25 1/2 inch scale. That's reasonably high tension on a 25 1/2 inch scale should be fine for 24 1/2" or 24" scale.

Are you sure that you are tuning to the right pitch?  - it's an obvious question, but it's really easy to tune to the wrong note. 

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Permalink Reply by Charlie Boston on November 4, 2013 at 5:53am

I don't know, I have a chromatic tuner I use. My method is put all the strings on then get them tight enough to hold, I then tune them to the GDg tuning. When I strum them all open it shows up as a G. I don't know about pitch, how do I know what pitch I'm in on my tuner? Like I say I know nothing about music or guitar playing, I just like to build these things and want to learn to play them.

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Permalink Reply by Omar on November 4, 2013 at 5:47am

Is it possible that you are tuning to an octave too high?  That would result in very tight strings, but your tuner would tell you that you were tuned correctly....  BTW, your guitar looks great!

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Permalink Reply by Bad Finger (Eric) on November 4, 2013 at 6:37am

I think Gitty's Open G strings are meant to tune to GDb

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Permalink Reply by Clock The Wolf on November 4, 2013 at 6:55am

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Permalink Reply by Charlie Boston on November 4, 2013 at 7:10am

Thanks for all the responses, I have some things to check on. I will see what strings I have and buy a couple of sets of cheap strings to see what works for me. I can then settle on a good set. I will be more specific when I reorder strings, I wasn't aware of all the options. I am also going to try to find someone local to teach me how to tune my CBG with my tuner, correct pitch etc.
Thanks for all the responses, I appreciate each and every one. Thank you all.

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Permalink Reply by The Capo Kid on November 4, 2013 at 10:19am

When you tune to pitch it means tuning to the note it should be G2 , D3 , G3  , G2 being the bottom thickest string and the top G3 is the thinnest string .

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Permalink Reply by Charlie Boston on November 4, 2013 at 10:56am

Thanks, I have been looking at my tuner and I do not see any thing that let's me know it's a D3 or a D2. I will have to have someone local give me some pointers on it. Thanks for the info. I appreciate everyone's comments and suggestions.

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Permalink Reply by robert jones on November 5, 2013 at 12:47am

If you are on a Windows machine you can get AP Tuner from Cnet and various of the other legit software sites for free. It has several preset tunings and indicates octave, accuracy is on par with the Boss clip-on chromatic I use during set-ups.

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