Strings gone wet noodle

[zuzu]

Some of you may have seen my thread about the open C alt tuning I've been fooling with starting yesterday. I was messing with it again today, love it, but I had to tune a bit. This evening I can't stay in tune with it, the strings are moving as I play.

I'm it is probably partly the guitar adjusting now to a pretty low tension, but it's laminate body so...The strings now, have been on about a year at standard tension and are tuned pretty far down. They are Martin Retro 12s and actually still sounded fine in standard tuning, this particular guitar not being played a lot since they have been on.

Informal poll for those who use alt tunings;
1. It's mostly the guitar moving
2. The strings, so long at one tension, won't adjust now

Just curious of your experiences. Either way I've got a set of medium Daddario NBs in my string box I'm goin to put on now, I'll report back tomorrow evening maybe, got a road trip tomorrow.

[Wade Hampton]

If you’re running 12’s on it and tuning it to a low C, of course you’re going to have trouble keeping the guitar playing in tune. There isn’t enough tension for the strings to work properly. Put some 13’s or even 14’s on the guitar if you’re to tune that low.


whm

[abn556]

You could try tuning up a full step to the same tuning in D. On a side note I regularly run CGCFCE on a 000-18, a J-45, and a OM-40R with no issues.

[rick-slo]

For one thing given low enough tuning the strings will not intonate correctly from fret to fret even if you fret with the correct pressure for the lowered tension on the strings but it pretty easy not to.

[zuzu]

It was totally the strings. The guitar sat all day with the new strings on it and just needed some tweeking when I got back to it this evening. And the mediums sound better for sure!

[Gasworker]

Until tomorrow

[zuzu]

Wrong! This morning only the 1st and 4th strings needed a little tweak.��