PG answers some basic questiosn you may have about tuning your guitar!
How do you tune a guitar?
Tuning a guitar is the process of adjusting the tension in a string to bring it to a specific note. In practical terms, that involves turning a tuning head on your guitar’s headstock to tighten or loosen the string that’s wrapped around a corresponding peg.
What tools do I need to tune my guitar?
Just one: a tuner. If you have an electric guitar, you can buy a tuning pedal to plug your guitar into or you can buy a clip-on tuner, which clamps onto the headstock and works with any kind of guitar. You can also use free tuning apps and websites.
What does flat and sharp mean?
Flat means that the note is lower or deeper than what it should be. Sharp means that it’s higher than it should be. In both cases, it means you’re out of tune or your strings aren’t tuned to the notes that they need to be.
What notes do you tune your guitar to?
Standard E tuning is the most popular guitar tuning, and it goes like this, from top to bottom of the fretboard: E-A-D-G-B-E. My first guitar teacher taught me a little memory trick for remembering: “Eat at Denny’s good breakfast everytime.” Thanks, teach!
Are there other tunings?
Yes! There are nearly endless tunings for guitar, and some are easier to play then others. For example, popular open tunings like DADGAD make it fairly easy to produce pleasant, rich sounding chords with very simple finger positions. Drop D tuning, which simply involves dropping the low E string in standard tuning to a D, is another wickedly fun and simple tuning used by hard rock and metal guitarists.
Can’t guitars tune themselves nowadays?
Some modern guitars come equipped with self-tuning machines on the headstock, and automatic tuning machines like this one are hitting shelves, but they’re still rare to see and often have questionable accuracy. Best to do it yourself for convenience, accuracy, and ear training.
The Recording Guitarist: Should You Change Your Electric's Strings Before Tracking?
Sometimes—depending on the vibe you’re hunting—new isn’t always best.
Hey, remember that guitar mag article on prepping for studio work? The one that said you should always change strings before recording because you want the brightest, loudest, most accurately intonated sound? I've edited words to that effect often over the years.
Then there was that column that told you to avoid last-minute string changes at all costs, because well-worn strings provide better tuning stability, more consistent dynamics, and fewer finger-squeaks. Yeah, I've edited that article at least as many times.
So who's right? I'll whip out my standard wishy-washy answer: "They both are—it depends on the context." So let's listen objectively and consider those contexts.
Unless you're cutting a solo guitar recording, the tone in isolation doesn't mean crap.
Don't you ever wash that thing?
Let's start with a recording made with filthy, disgusting strings. I grabbed my battered but beloved Hamer 25th Anniversary model (a Gibson-flavored axe retrofitted with Seymour Duncan's Joe Bonamassa PAF pickups). These days I play flatwounds almost exclusively, but I string this guitar with roundwounds to have a "normal" reference for gear reviews. It had worn the same set of U.S.-made, all-nickel strings (gauged .011-.052) for something like 18 months. I hadn't cleaned the fretboard in years, and it was thick with muck. You could have planted a crop of potatoes between the 3rd and 4th frets.
Ex. 01 Old Strings (Dry)
Still, the strings didn't intonate too terribly, so I plugged in and improvised a short phrase, recording direct and then reamping through a small combo with a hint of spring reverb, but with no additional EQ or compression in my DAW (Ex. 1).
A little plonky-sounding, perhaps, but it's not that dreadful, is it?
Ex. 02 New Strings (Dry)
Next I snipped off the ancient strings, gave the fretboard a desperately needed scrub, and installed a new set of the same string type. I played and stretched strings for five minutes or so, and then duplicated the performance at identical recording settings (Ex. 2).
As expected, there's a bit more shimmer. And curiously, it sometimes feels like the low-mids have been scooped relative to Ex. 1, though I suspect that's a psychoacoustic side effect of the revitalized highs.
Ex. 03 Old Strings (EQ)
But how meaningful is this difference in timbre? Could you duplicate the brighter treble via EQ? Check out Ex. 3, which is simply Ex. 1 again, but with a bit of a DAW EQ bump around 2 kHz.
The EQ doesn't exactly make the old strings sound new, but to my ears, the modified old-string clip now sounds closer to Ex. 2 than to its original pre-EQed tone.
Ex. 04 Old Strings (Mix)
Which sounds best? Stop—don't answer that question! It's a trick! Because unless you're making a solo guitar recording, the tone in isolation doesn't mean crap.
Ex. 05 New Strings (Mix)
Let's consider the tonal differences in the context of a band arrangement, using typical mix effects. Ex. 4 features the old strings. Ex. 5 features the new ones.
06 Old Strings (EQ'd Mix)
And in Ex. 6 the old strings are EQed to sound newer.
Um, not super dramatic, is it? It's a reminder that the quality and intensity of a performance is approximately 937 times more important than such subtle tone variations.
Making soup. Now that we have a doubled part played on very old and very news strings, what sort of sonic mischief can we get into?
Ex. 07 (Pseudo Flange)
In Ex. 07 you hear both guitars panned in center for an "organic flange" effect.
Ex. 08 (Wide Image)
The tracks are panned far left and right in Ex. 08 for a dramatic stereo spread.
Ex. 09 (Filter Mesh)
Finally, Ex. 09 is a complex mesh: Both tracks are routed through filters, but the left-panned track's filter is panned right, and vice-versa.
Change for the better?
I suppose my answer to the "should I change strings?" conundrum is, "Eh, whatever." My advice is to go with whatever is most likely to inspire your best performance. Maybe worn-in wires make you feel cool and confident, like some old-school Stax session cat who hasn't swapped strings since 1962. Or maybe installing a fresh set is an upbeat preparation ritual, like sharpening your pencils and organizing your desk before an inspired day of writing. (Though, as any writer's-block sufferer can tell you, sharpening and organizing can become obsessive habits that flourish in lieu of writing.) Musician, know thyself and string accordingly.
[Updated 10/15/21]
Do thicker strings make you a better player? Let's find out!
Stevie Ray Vaughan's influence on gear and gearheads has been gigantic. Back in the '80s, it seemed as if he almost single-handedly resurrected the Stratocaster, helping boost vintage Strats into a mythic realm. And who else did more to bring the worship of vintage Fender amps to a whole new level?
In one of his earliest major interviews, around 1983, Stevie Ray Vaughan let out a bit of personal information that has had an effect on gear and gearheads to this day. Talking about his now well-known '59 Strat—even then completely trashed—he told the interviewer what string gauges he was using: .013 to .052. The interviewer was surprised and asked him to repeat it. Yep, 13s. I remember reading that interview as a teenager and my jaw dropping.
No one used strings that thick. But now that Stevie Ray did, it started to creep into the consciousness. Thus became the mantra, myth, truth, cliché—whatever you want to call it—in strings: heavier is better. Surely, heavy strings produce better tone. And, surely, only a great player will be able to handle the thicks. So, it follows that if I play heavy strings I am great. The debate goes on. You hear it all the time. "Anybody tried 12s?"
Some myths are meant to be explored, so let's look at some of the great players and the gauge strings they used. Starting with Stevie Ray, we find that, according to most available published information, he did indeed play some of the heaviest gauges available, most consistently 13s. He even went thicker, an astounding .018-.072 at one point. However, on the brown '63 Strat known as Lenny, SRV switched to lighter strings to get a lighter tone. Some nights when his fingers were thrashed he'd go down as light as 11s—back into mere mortal territory. It was rumored that he went to lighter strings later in his life, but I haven't been able to substantiate this.
Swing to another god of guitar, James Marshall Hendrix, undisputed King of Gigantic Tone. One might assume that from gigantic strings come gigantic tone, but check this little tidbit from the absolute must-have book Jimi Hendrix: Musician by Keith Shadwick: "Hendrix described the setup on his Strat around 1967 as 'Fender light-gauge strings, using a regular E-string for the B and sometimes a tenor A-string for a [high] E to get my kind of sound on the Stratocaster. [I] put the strings on with a slightly higher [action] so they can ring longer.' This particular string-swapping routine was a popular modification at the time. It resulted in a set of stings as light as possible, aiding not only the string bending but also finger vibrato. On a later guitar, his black Strat, the surviving strings indicate he preferred 'light' gauges, .009" to .038"."
Now go back to the roots. Early on in rock history, flatwounds were all there were. It wasn't until 1959 when Ernie Ball put together his first sets that you could get some medium or light-gauge strings. Here's another mind- blower: until guys like Ernie Ball came around, aspiring string-benders like Chuck Berry found a secret weapon—banjo strings. Yes, that ultimate rock tone that Chuck Berry got on songs like "Johnny B. Goode," "School Days," and "Sweet Little 16" was derived from 8-gauge or lower banjo strings.
Some more:
- Jimmy Page: well-known user of 8-gauge strings.
- Danny Gatton: played 10s with a wound G, also played 9s.
- Jeff Beck: "On my early stuff, I was playing the thinnest strings you could get, .008s," Beck told Fender.com. "And then the Jimi man came along and told me, 'You can't play with those rubber bands. Get those off there.' So my string gauges have been creeping up ever since. Now I've got .011, .013, .017, .028, .038, and .049. I'm trying to get heavier on the top end."
- Billy Gibbons: hipped to light-gauge 8s or 9s by B.B. King. King's take on it is that it takes a lot less stress and strain to play the light stuff. Gibbons' custom set from Dunlop has a 7-gauge high E!
- Brian Setzer: 10s straight out of the box.
- Peter Frampton: 8s back in the Comes Alive days.
- Carlos Santana: 9s
- Allan Holdsworth: 11s
- Eddie Van Halen: well-known for using 9-gauge.
- James Hetfield: .009-.042
As you can see, a lot of the great players of our time have used some pretty everyday-player gauges. This is not to say that heavy strings don't produce a different tone. The point is that the gauge of your strings is not the gauge of your greatness.
Back in the '80s when I read that SRV interview, I immediately went out and got a set of 13s put on my yellow '79 hardtail Strat. The guy at the store looked at me oddly, wondering what I was up to. What I was up to was sticking my nose where it didn't belong. What I failed to remember was that Stevie Ray was a pro playing at a pro level. He played gigs every night for years to get to the point where he needed 13s. Needed, not wanted. Because of the style he had developed and the level he was playing at, SRV had to have those strings to get through the gig. Other strings would break under the strain and not produce the tonal heights he was looking for. Me? I was just a kid playing in my bedroom. When I got the Strat home with the 13s on it, I plugged it into my Peavey Classic 2x12 and tried—really tried— to play "Love Struck Baby." Didn't happen. I could barely chord with those monsters, let alone bend. Lesson learned.
[Updated 7/29/21]