# Favourite acoustic tunings...



## distressed_romeo (Apr 23, 2007)

Pretty self-explanatory title...what are your favourite tunings for acoustic guitar?

For me, the main ones I use are as follows...

Open G (DGDGBD)
Drop D
DADGAD
Open C (CGCGCE)
CGDGAD

...and variations on those, such as DADGBD and DADGAE. I used to be all over the place with tunings, but I'm starting to find a few that work for me, which makes life easier.

One my six and twelve-string steel string guitars I'll drop all of the above tuning down an additional semi-tone, as that seems to make those instruments sing more to my ears. The classical I leave at concert pitch though.

On the classical I use lute tuning a lot, dropping the third string by a semitone and then putting a capo at the third or second fret. I've also found that drop D capoed up to Eb works well on the nylon string.

Oh, and my steel-string six is currently strung up for New Standard tuning (CGDAEG) and my personal variation on it (CGDAEF#), which is suprisingly versatile for both 'heavy wood' and more conventional playing.

Anyone got any really wierd ones?


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## The Dark Wolf (Apr 23, 2007)

I use standard, standard down a step, and drop-C on my classical. That's pretty much it.


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## distressed_romeo (Apr 23, 2007)

The Dark Wolf said:


> I use standard, standard down a step, and drop-C on my classical. That's pretty much it.



How well does tuning down a tone work on your classical? I tried going down a semitone when I first got my nylon string, and it seemed to suck all the life out of it...


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## subatomicsatan (Apr 23, 2007)

DADGAD is my favorite alt tuning for my classical.


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## Loserchief (Apr 23, 2007)

DADGAD is such a great tuning for two handed tapping and fingerstayle in General. I use it on both my steel string accoustics.
On my Classical it's E standard since playing flamenco on DADGAD doesn't work.


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## RgAscendant (Apr 23, 2007)

DADGAD, CADGAD (saw this one in Guitar Techniques, really good for extended chord voicings), and EEEEBe (saw this used by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young, really nice sounding, but can sometimes be hard to get full sounding chords).


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## The Dark Wolf (Apr 23, 2007)

distressed_romeo said:


> How well does tuning down a tone work on your classical? I tried going down a semitone when I first got my nylon string, and it seemed to suck all the life out of it...



Really? I never noticed any problems. Sure, it sounds different, but it didn't sound bad. Just a bit mellower and sweeter, to be honest.


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## distressed_romeo (Apr 23, 2007)

The Dark Wolf said:


> Really? I never noticed any problems. Sure, it sounds different, but it didn't sound bad. Just a bit mellower and sweeter, to be honest.



That's interesting...with mine it just made the whole guitar sound really dull. Could be I ought to try some higher-tension strings.


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## telecaster90 (Apr 23, 2007)

My acoustic stuff is more indie than classical, but I use EAEEBE (a David Crowder tuning) and DADFAE (a tuning used on Opeth's Ghost Reveries). 

This new forum's cool, I think I'll post my new acoustic stuff here when I record it.

www.myspace.com/colinpoulton


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## distressed_romeo (Apr 23, 2007)

Both of those tunings sound really interesting. Having a fifth between your top two strings rocks, doesn't it, especially for slide?

Preston Reed uses a similar one to the Crowder tuning; CGDGGD.


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## telecaster90 (Apr 23, 2007)

Yeah, it's pretty cool. My favorite of those two is the second one. It's an open Dm9 chord. I need a pick up a slide one of these days and mess around.


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## DDDorian (Apr 23, 2007)

I generally use DADGBD, down half a step. I have a twelve-string on the way which will be getting a major tuning workout (right now I'm thinking open C with droning 9th strings, down half a step). Dropping open strings half a step always seems to fill out the tone, I can't explain why, but it's almost mandatory for open tunings, I think.


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## distressed_romeo (Apr 24, 2007)

DDDorian said:


> I generally use DADGBD, down half a step. I have a twelve-string on the way which will be getting a major tuning workout (right now I'm thinking open C with droning 9th strings, down half a step). Dropping open strings half a step always seems to fill out the tone, I can't explain why, but it's almost mandatory for open tunings, I think.



That's the same reason I always go a half-step down on my steel-string acoustics. It just makes them ring more.


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## BigM555 (Apr 24, 2007)

One of my favorites has to be from Don Ross's tune Michael, Micheal, Michael.

CGCGBbC

After learning the tune I picked out all kinds of ideas. Very inspirational.


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## Buzz762 (Apr 24, 2007)

DADGAD down 1/2 step. I use it almost exclusively when I'm writing.


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## Kotex (May 5, 2007)

CCACGCE


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## distressed_romeo (May 5, 2007)

Kotex said:


> CCACGCE



Tuning two strings in unison can be cool. Preston Reed uses CGDGGD a lot...


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## Naren (May 5, 2007)

When I had some acoustics (I've owned 3 acoustics by now, but own none at the moment), my favorite tunings were: standard (which I used 80% of the time), drop D (10%), and whole step down (10%). I changed my tunings on my electrics 10x more than on my acoustics (I've tried almost a hundred different tunings on my electrics, while I've only tried a total of maybe 5 tunings on my acoustics, only 3 of those which I used regularly).


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## Jongpil Yun (May 6, 2007)

Standard, 4ths. That's about it.


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## Desecrated (May 6, 2007)

Bminor with a B in the bottom. also C-dim.


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## Drew (May 6, 2007)

DADGAD, but I had an absolute blast riffing Wolf-inspired riffs onmy acoustic in Open-G, so I suspect I'll be experimenting more in that tuning in the future.


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## distressed_romeo (May 6, 2007)

Drew said:


> DADGAD, but I had an absolute blast riffing Wolf-inspired riffs onmy acoustic in Open-G, so I suspect I'll be experimenting more in that tuning in the future.



Wolf?


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## Kotex (May 7, 2007)

> Orginally posted by Distressed Romeo ~Tuning two strings in unison can be cool. Preston Reed uses Cssed Romeo~GDGGD a lot...



Yeah, it sounds really cool. I can still get away using in an almost "bass" type way. It definetly makes some of the heavier chords and shit sound cool.

I also like to use the doubled strings on different frets, getting some nice sounds out them.


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## distressed_romeo (May 18, 2007)

The Dark Wolf said:


> Really? I never noticed any problems. Sure, it sounds different, but it didn't sound bad. Just a bit mellower and sweeter, to be honest.



Funny, I tried Drop C on the classical tonight, and you were right, it sounds great...


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