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  #1  
Old 05-28-2022, 02:24 PM
eyesore eyesore is offline
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question: I do not own a CF guitar ..yet. Anyway I play out a lot and I would love to use different tunings. With wooden guitars they keep going out of tune when I use open tunings. Is this a problem with CF guitars?
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Old 05-28-2022, 02:48 PM
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Originally Posted by eyesore View Post
question: I do not own a CF guitar ..yet. Anyway I play out a lot and I would love to use different tunings. With wooden guitars they keep going out of tune when I use open tunings. Is this a problem with CF guitars?
Yes. Maybe not quite as much but close.
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Old 05-28-2022, 04:04 PM
JackDaniel JackDaniel is offline
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I tune my cf guitars far less than wood. They generally stay better in tune.
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Old 05-28-2022, 04:27 PM
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I tune my cf guitars far less than wood. They generally stay better in tune.
Yes, mine stays in tune over time probably secondary to humidity effects on a wooden guitar. Changing tuning, say to DADGAD from standard tuning, still involves most of the same sort of tweaking to get it right.
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Old 05-30-2022, 07:43 PM
northtrader northtrader is offline
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My Rainsong JM1000 is awesome for alternate tunings. Solid as a rock. Way better than my predecessor, a Taylor 814CE. I change tunings often and appreciate the stiffness of the CF neck (it's a N1 in case people are curious) because the action is very consistent from standard tuning down to some low tunings (open C, AGDGCD, BGDGBD, AGDFCD are a sampling of the lower tunings I regularly play.)
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Old 05-30-2022, 09:32 PM
btbliatout btbliatout is offline
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OP, I'm curious to understand the root of the question a bit better. (Hope I'm not sounding either dense or rude)

Are you finding that open tunings don't stay in tune as well as the standard tuning? Your question was specific to open tunings, so I'm curious to know if there was an implication that standard tuning is more stable for you.

I'm rather young in my guitar journey, but I have found that once my strings are settled, I see no difference in tuning stability, regardless of the instrument (wood or carbon fiber) or tuning I'm using.

Like others, my carbon fiber instruments are much more stable than my wood instruments, requiring a lesser degree of tuning (both in frequency and the amount of tuning). This does assume my strings have settled though. If I change tunings, especially with my nylon instruments, good luck getting it to settle any time soon. For my nylon instruments, changing into dropped D means I'll be retuning every 2 minutes for the whole night. Maybe it'll be settled and stable in the morning ya know? My steel string instruments settle real quick though, usually within minutes, but it's not instantaneous.

Like others, I find carbon fiber instruments much more consistent. While I like the tone of wood a fair bit more, none of my wood instruments hold their intonation and tuning through the varying seasons like my carbon fiber instruments. When I'm playing pieces that go up and down the neck, I prefer my CF instruments for their near perfect intonation, no matter the humidity. Mind you I had custom nuts and saddles cut for each of my CF instruments. The nuts/saddles that came with my instruments had "good" intonation, but my local luthier was able to bump me up a notch to as-good-as-it-gets.
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Old 06-07-2022, 11:00 AM
eyesore eyesore is offline
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I play out alot on weekends . I wish I could play more slide and some other open tunings, but every time I retune it takes a few minutes for the guitar to settle down into that tuning[ they keep going out for the first few minutes].I wonder if this same thing would happen with a CF guitar..?
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Old 06-07-2022, 11:09 AM
steelvibe steelvibe is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by eyesore View Post
I play out alot on weekends . I wish I could play more slide and some other open tunings, but every time I retune it takes a few minutes for the guitar to settle down into that tuning[ they keep going out for the first few minutes].I wonder if this same thing would happen with a CF guitar..?


You still should tune just under the targeted note and then back up to it just like normal, and fine tuning is the same on CF. However, wood is no match with CF in holding a given tuning, unless of course the strings are heading south or already there.
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Old 06-07-2022, 11:43 AM
seannx seannx is offline
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Quote:
my carbon fiber instruments are much more stable than my wood instruments, requiring a lesser degree of tuning (both in frequency and the amount of tuning). This does assume my strings have settled though.
It’s the same for mine. The wood guitars can be a sharp or flat on all strings depending on temperature and humidity, while the carbon fiber ones require at most very minor tweaks on one or two strings, and often are completely in tune.
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Old 06-07-2022, 11:49 AM
DethWshBkr DethWshBkr is offline
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I'll tune my X30, my RainSong, and my Virtuo maybe once every other blue moon. Steel strings still stretch, but sometimes one or two may be just a tiny bit out.
My Les Paul, pretty much if I pick it up, all 6 strings need to be tuned.
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Old 06-07-2022, 01:05 PM
eyesore eyesore is offline
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Originally Posted by DethWshBkr View Post
I'll tune my X30, my RainSong, and my Virtuo maybe once every other blue moon. Steel strings still stretch, but sometimes one or two may be just a tiny bit out.
My Les Paul, pretty much if I pick it up, all 6 strings need to be tuned.
When I come home from work ,i usually play all three of my acoustics for about a half hour. They are ALWAYS OUT OF TUNE! HA.
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Old 06-07-2022, 03:30 PM
Aspiring Aspiring is offline
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Even my X7 nylon string stays in tune better than many of my wood steel strings ...

As others have said the carbon guitars hold tune better. Not that they won't move but much less.
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Old 06-07-2022, 07:37 PM
DethWshBkr DethWshBkr is offline
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Originally Posted by eyesore View Post
When I come home from work ,i usually play all three of my acoustics for about a half hour. They are ALWAYS OUT OF TUNE! HA.
I just took my Virtuo to church for a few minutes since I'm playing Sunday. The Snark showed 5 of the 6 were in tune. The D string was just barely flickering 1 notch flat. It's been weeks since I've tuned it, and the humidity and temperature have varied a ton recently!!

Last edited by DethWshBkr; 06-07-2022 at 07:48 PM.
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