hi guys i"Ve been having some difficulty keeping some of my strings in tune after a restringing and was wondering if any of you have advice or the same problems. i use 12-54 gauge strings and tune down 1.5 steps across the board. i stretch the strings as much as possible but the low strings mainly the c# and f# dont seem to hold tuning as well. i know that some of you tune lower using even lighter lighter strings and i was wondering how you guys keep in tune.

Hey man,

C and F? that low? new strings tend to go out of tune for a week or so.. just wait and see if it get's better.. i had that with my 0.13 (and up) as well.. they are good now..

what tuners do you have b.t.w.?

Keep in mind that when you change strings gauge and tunings on a guitar that's been set/tuned in a factory, you have to fine tune it and probably make a luthier to set it up, so it would be perfectly in tune at the 12th fret as well.

Then, that advice might be stupid (i mean, you probably already know that) but always tune your guitar by reaching the right note from a lower note. Excuse my frenchness, i don't really know how to explain, but basically, never tune your guitar by detuning it (from a higher note to reach the right one). Pull your strings so they don't lock at the head, and increase the tension to reach the right note.

Hope it helped in some way.

i had taken my guitar into a tech when i first made the tuning and string gauge change and since then i have changed strings twice. my low string tends to want to go sharp more so than flat. my guitar does have locking tuners and a locking bridge but it is not of the floyd type. checking on my tuner the low open string seems to fluctuate all over the place but its its probably not as crazy as i think. how dev and some of u guys can use a 52 tuned to c and stay in tune without more tension is beyond me.

This is a very obvious thing, but do stretch your strings before you try and tune. Strech them damn well, from up near the nut right down to over the pickups. Especially if you have a Floyd Rose guitar! It will save you many hours of fucking around that you would have to do if you didn't stretch before trying to restring a Floydy guitar. Give them a good yank, retune, stretch them again, then retune, then stretch them again.... Keep doing it until they do not stretch out of tune again. You shoudl find that you won't have anywhere near as many tuning issues after that.

yeah i have been stretching them but its just kind of frustrating about how long it takes for that one string.

What guitar? What bridge? Do you have dirt in the nut slots? Are there edges and imperfections on the screws or knife edge of the tremolo? Normally, a guitar shouldn't go out of tune like that, no matter what string gauge. And with steel strings, if you have to stretch them for a week before they stay in tune, there must be something wrong, either with the strings or the guitar setup.

Tammo

when i said that it was taking a while i meant like 20min or so but i still have to tweak the tuning a bit everyday for that string. the guitar itself is an old fender strat ultra which has locking tuners and a locking bridge but as i said before its not of the floyd type.