[MF_Kitten]

Originally Posted by distressed_romeo

Wonder what CGCGC would sound like...

i´ve used this tuning on my 6 string acoustic guitar:
CGCGCC (two brightest strings tuned to the same, as drone strings)

it sounds nice, very drone-y... for those who like that :P

a little limiting on a guitar though...

Yesterday I tried;

G#D#A#D#G#

I really like it, Lot of punch but not to loose.

[mgood]

I haven't experimented too much with different tunings.

D A D G was pretty popular once. I don't know if it still is or not. I've played a good deal of Queensryche tuned that way. A buddy of mine uses that tuning almost exclusively. I have a Hipshot D-tuner on one bass just for that.

Otherwise I'm pretty much E A D G on four-string and B E A D G on fivers. I even try to avoid tuning down a half-step all the way across, though I've played with plenty of guitarists who tune that way normally. I prefer to grab my five-string and play Eb on the fourth fret of the B string when they are playing Eb open on their top string. (Confuses the piss out of guitar players if they look at your fingers. That's worth any extra effort in transposing.) It can be a challenge if I'm trying to play a cover tune note-for-note and the original bassist used a lot of open strings. Sometimes there's just not a logical way to play it in standard tuning and I'm just about forced to tune down. But other than that, I usually keep it standard.

Just a little chart of "standard" tunings I made up when I was bored:

6-STRING GUITAR                  E      A      D      G      B      E
7-STRING GUITAR           B      E      A      D      G      B      E
 frequency in Hz         61.74  82.42 110.00 146.83 196.00 246.94 329.63

4-STRING BASS                    E      A      D      G
5-STRING BASS             B      E      A      D      G
5-STRING BASS*                   E      A      D      G      C
6-STRING BASS             B      E      A      D      G      C
7-STRING BASS      F#     B      E      A      D      G      C
 frequency in Hz  23.12  30.87  41.20  55.00  73.42  98.00 130.81

* When the five-string bass first got so popular, it was just about an even split between bassists tuning B E A D G and those tuning E A D G C (or even E A D G B which immediately labeled them as guitar players ). I've long suspected that when the six-string became fairly common a few years later, it was due largely to guys who couldn't decide if they wanted a low B or high C on their five, so they got a six and had both.

When I got my seven-string guitar, I jokingly said I was going to tune it F# B E A D G C and call it a seven-string piccolo bass
Never have gotten around to trying that.

[distressed_romeo]

Actually, the six string came before the five string if I remember correctly; Anthony Jackson was playing an extended-scale six string bass for ages before five and six strings caught on, although he called it a contrabass guitar. I've heard that five strings initially caught on because bassists were often asked to mimic basslines that were originally played on keyboards, and so needed the extra range.

[mgood]

Yeah, Anthony Jackson was doing it way before anyone else. (At least anyone I heard of.) But I mean when it started getting popular. I'm talking like 1990 when nearly every bassist thought they had to have a five-string. I bought my second four-banger in '89 and immediately people were asking me when I was going to get a five. I was like, "I'm not. " Yeah fives were around before that, but that's when I remember the huge bandwagon rolling by that everyone couldn't wait to jump on. And say early to mid nineties the six-string seemed to become acceptable. (Acceptable to bass players at least. Many bands still considered it a black mark against you if you showed up for an audition with a six. Before you ever played a note, they had you pegged as a "solo bassist" and not the rhythm section player they were looking for.) In the eighties, I think Anthony Jackson was the only well-known bassist playing six strings. And the contrabass was the only six-string bass I'd heard of (saw it in magazine ads, never saw one in person). But I lived in the middle of nowhere, so others may have a different perspective on the time frames.