Need help on guitar. GOING UP GUAGE STRINGS ECT. PLEASE PLEASE READ GUITARISTS.

**Lucidness** · 08-30-2010 01:03 PM

I want to go up a few guages from 9's strings so i can play DROP A song's ect ect. I have a few questions...

1. What guage would be best for going to DROP A and still being able to go back to standard tuning?
2. I heard that question 1 can affect the nut of the guitar, here is my guitar

Would the nut on that be ok? Nothing has changed since i bought it. And besides these guitar's are aimed at metal guitarist's pretty much.

That's pretty much all i needed.

Thanks.

**hadoitz** · 08-30-2010 01:51 PM

1. I'm not sure, it's nearly impossible I think.
I use the 12's gauge, but only comfortable to play in drop C to standard tuning.

2. I don't think it has anyting to do with the nut, and your guitar doesn't have a floyd-rose tremolo, so the only thing you may have to adjust is the action and truss-rod, especially if you're going to tune to standar tuning with heavy gauge.

CMIIW

**Supernova** · 08-30-2010 05:19 PM

drop A? Those would have to be some fucking thick strings.

I think what you really need is a pitch shifter pedal. I've seen one somewhere (either boss or digitech) that will transpose +/- up to 3 keys.

As for the nut, I think the idea is that if you have one of those plastic ones with the string-sized cutouts, such as on a strat, the extra sized strings will fuck it up cause they're too big for the slots. They might strech the slots a little, but I don't think that's any big deal.

**Lucidness** · 08-30-2010 07:27 PM

How much are those pedals supernova?

**Supernova** · 08-31-2010 03:05 PM

I'm not sure, I've been trying to find more info on the one I mentioned earlier; it might have been in the soundcheck in one of my issues of guitar world, so I'll look through them later. Untill I find a specific unit, all I can say is for that type of device it could be anywhere from 100 to 300 dollars, give or take, depending on the quality and features of the device.

**Lucidness** · 08-31-2010 04:05 PM

Ok cheers. way out of my budget but thanks.

**DuB** · 09-01-2010 03:29 AM

I'm not sure if Drop A is even feasible on a 6-string guitar. Are you sure this isn't a 7-string guitar tuning? I think that 7-strings come in different tunings but the most obvious one would be for the extra-low string to be a fourth below the low-E, making it a B. If this is the case, Drop A would make pretty good sense for a 7-string as it would basically be the 7-string equivalent of Drop D (i.e., you drop the extra-low string from B to A). Any metalheads around who know more about 7-string guitars?

**Supernova** · 09-01-2010 05:06 AM

^good call, I didn't think of it, but the standard tuning for the seventh string is B, so dropped-tuning on a 7 string would essentially be drop-A. These "drop-A" songs are, thus, actually played on a 7-string. Perhaps it would be possible to tune up with a set of 7-string guitar strings, and exclude the top string (although this would prevent you from tuning to standard with the same guitar.

Originally Posted by Lucidness

Ok cheers. way out of my budget but thanks.

Yeah, just thought I'd mention it for future reference. I know how you feel, I have $0 for guitar stuff, which is a bummer because myclassical acoustic needs a serious repair job (a formerly fixed crack through the neck, but not the fretboard, reopened when it fell out of it's stand

)

**tboi3000** · 09-01-2010 05:24 AM

For my six string, I tend to use my digitech RP150 effects pedal to go from standard to d to b and so forth. It cost me around $150-$200 Canadian. The pedal's easy to use, and since it's an effects processor, their are many more features included like flange, reverb, chorus, distortions, etc. Unfortunately, the RP150 does not have a foot pedal.

drop A is only B-standard dropped, and I use my six string without my RP150 tuned down to play Amon Amarth songs and it's not too bad.

lol 7-strings rule!