[bostjan]

I think .012's would be fine. .013's to be safe, though.

[zultone]

13's it is.
Now I just gottta find some...

[ohio_eric]

What scale length is your guitar? Anything less than 27" and it's going to struggle. Even at 27", like Jim Soloway mentioned, it will struggle. Think like this. That low F# is only a step higher than the E string on a bass and they use 34" scales.

I'm not trying to bust your balls here. It's just that guitars can only be tuned so high or low before the laws of physics kick in.

[bostjan]

Originally Posted by ohio_eric

What scale length is your guitar? Anything less than 27" and it's going to struggle. Even at 27", like Jim Soloway mentioned, it will struggle. Think like this. That low F# is only a step higher than the E string on a bass and they use 34" scales.

I'm not trying to bust your balls here. It's just that guitars can only be tuned so high or low before the laws of physics kick in.

Or rather, break down. You need tension to have a string under tension, and it's less and less of a string as the width approaches something near the length.

I'd say 28" should be ok for low F#, but still pushing it. I'd prefer 30", but I prefer longer scale lengths all around.

[Shannon]

On my old 25.5" 8-string, I had no problems using a 74 and an 80 for the Low F# string.

I'd recommend the D'Adarrio EJ22 string set (13-56) w/ an at LEAST a 74. 80 would be better.

[7stringninja]

I see this thread took a right hand turn away from EQing, but I will still comment on the original post title.

What everyone else has told you is true. If you have a short (standard) scale length like 25.5" or so, you are going to have major issues with tension.

Also, what kind of tremolo do you use? Just curious.

Ok, and as far as EQing to get rid of the "mudiness"........

This may seem a little tedious, but I've found it to be the BEST way for finding desired EQ settings. Now, you already said that your mids/lows/highs are all pretty much cranked, and you were going to try turning them back to see if it helps. Well, IMO, you are approaching this totally backwards.

What you SHOULD do is.....turn ALL your settings to ZERO. Gain, volume everything. Now turn the volume knob up to a reasonable value (something you would normally use with your old settings). Turn the gain up, little by little, carefully playing and listening to how the gain affects the overall tone and clarity of the sound. Find something that sounds like the right amount of gain, then turn it back a notch. Approach the low/mids/high this same way, doing one at a time, slowly adding low/mid/high until you find something that sounds right. You should see, it will sound like it's getting closer and closer to what you WANT, and then at some point it will start to go away from what you want. Now turn back to the point where it changes. After you've set your EQ's, I recommend going back and re-doing the gain setting. Do it the same way, starting over from zero again. The values of the tone could GREATLY influence your opinion on a gain setting.

[zultone]

Originally Posted by Shannon

On my old 25.5" 8-string, I had no problems using a 74 and an 80 for the Low F# string.

I'd recommend the D'Adarrio EJ22 string set (13-56) w/ an at LEAST a 74. 80 would be better.

Oh, awesome. I think mine is 27" , with the .60 or 65 I forget, it handled G fiiinnne. So the .80 should do just perfect.
I'm guessing I'll need to drill a bigger hole in my tuning head to fit the string?


Ninja: Sweet! I'll try that as soon as everyone's awake here.

[Mastodon]

What scale length does Meshuggah use?

[zultone]

I think they use 28" or something.

If I get thos ethickass strings... Could I tune down to E as well?
Then I'd have a 7 string bass with a bunch of room to go high as well?
My band doesn't have a bassist... James and I are both really open minded... And it'd be kinda cool/unique to do that.

[Naren]

Originally Posted by zultone

If I get thos ethickass strings... Could I tune down to E as well?
Then I'd have a 7 string bass with a bunch of room to go high as well?
My band doesn't have a bassist... James and I are both really open minded... And it'd be kinda cool/unique to do that.

You could, but I personally wouldn't recommend it. If it comes to that, you might as well just buy yourself a 6-string bass

I used to tune my 6-string to drop-B and drop-Bb and sometimes it would sound really muddy when unplugged, but I EQed the amp and distortion so that it sounded badass when played through the amp. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was something like: bass - 4, mids - 5, treble - 8. I might be remembering incorrectly, but I think that's what I had it at. The lowest I ever tuned the low B on my 7-string to was Ab. And that was too loose (at .56, I think).