Tunings

[Bruce Bouton]

A good friend of mine is rebuilding a fender D8 steel guitar. What tunings would be the best beginning option for this guitar. It would be great to see the tunings spelled out low to high.
As a pedal player and six string lap player I am woefully ignorant of what to recomend.
Thanks!

bruce

[Bill Hatcher]

What kind of music will he be playing on it?

[Nic Neufeld]

There's a counterpoint of great players playing with atypical tunings for the genre, or atypical genres for the tuning, however you want to view that...but that tends to be more of a, well, great player thing. Like I wouldn't naturally recommend dobro tuning for rock (Megan Lovell) or C6 for blues (Bobby Ingano), but it can work. Exceptions prove the rule I guess, so yeah, if they are just starting out, defining what kind of music they want to play will help recommend a tuning.

Sticking with the most common tunings, which is a good place to start, if not necessarily end up....I would pick C6 for Hawaiian, jazz, or country. If they are keen on Western swing in particular I think I would use the slight variant of it in A6 which tends to be the more common one there. For rock and blues, major tunings are the most common but most of those players don't play an 8 string (nothing stopping you from stringing it with just 6 strings though, or coming up with a useful extension of a simple major triad tuning).

A common D8 pairing might be a version of C6 and a version of A6...or if you want to get fancier than I can do, E13. My D8 is set up in C13 (which is basically C6) and B11 (an easy retune from A6). I use the 7680 (C13) and 7700 (B11) John Pearse string sets for the D8, although on my frypan I use a slightly adapted string set with varying gauges but that has more to do with that particular instrument.

C6, A6, both great and versatile (very similar). E13 still scares me, but lots of people love it and can play it well. Many, many other tunings but it'll ultimately depend on what he wants to play!

[Bruce Bouton]

Thanks Nic
i'm trying to help my buddy out. I play pedal steel and 6 string lap steels and dobro's, either tuned to g or e.
appreciate the info.

bruce

[Greg Brouelette]

The D8 means two necks, each with 8 string correct?

If so, then I would suggest C6 on one. A C E G A C E G low to high.
I use the John Pearse C6 8String set but I shift everything down. That is, I set aside the thickest string and use the 7th string for my low A and go up from there. Then I buy an additional 0.012 for the high G. This is the tuning that Cindy Cashdollar uses in her Lap Steel video course and it's also the tuning in the book "Mastering Lap Steel Guitar" by Rob Haines.

If you ignore the high and low strings then it's a standard 6 string C6 tuning. But with the 8 string version you can minor chords with the root on the low string and you can get a full major triad on the top 3 strings.

You can check out Cindy's tuning here: https://cindycashdollar.com/tunings/

For the other neck I think it would be great to have some variation of an open D. Low to high that's D A D F# A D so you have a power chord of DAD on the bottom strings, then the major triad of D F# A, and then a high D. What if we added the 6th so we can get easy minor chords? That would be D A B D F# A B D. Now you have major triads : D F# A, and minor triads : A B D as well as a 6th chord : D F# A B.

On Cindy's page she suggest an A6th or E 13th. The A6th is just C6th shifted down. The E 13 looks pretty cool though.

This is a decent video explaining E13 and C13 tunings and variations.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bAUtqDvwdGo


And just because, here a fantastic lecture by Alan Akaka on a whole bunch of tunings for the 8 string lap steel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2G8qAmotF_c

Enjoy!

[Ricky Davis]

Bruce; my longtime friend John Ely has a great non-pedal page with a whole summation of his and some tunings and how to tune them.
https://www.hawaiiansteel.com/tunings/my_tunings.php
He; as you probably know/remember; played with Asleep at the Wheel many many years; and studied with Jerry Byrd for(I think I remember) a year or so on the islands.
Ricky

[Tim Whitlock]

For country, western swing or Hawaiian:
C6
A6 (you can get this tuning with the same strings as C6)
E13

For blues and rock:
E
D
G

Click the "Strings" tab at the top of the page and then click "Non-Pedal" and then "Electric" to buy pre-packaged strings from the Steel Guitar Forum.

[Allan Revich]

A good friend of mine is rebuilding a fender D8 steel guitar. What tunings would be the best beginning option for this guitar. It would be great to see the tunings spelled out low to high.
As a pedal player and six string lap player I am woefully ignorant of what to recomend.
Thanks!

bruce

Does your friend play guitar already? Piano?

If he’s already pretty familiar with playing musical instruments, then his options are nearly unlimited. As mentioned by others, it depends mostly on what music he wants to play. If this will be his first musical instrument, then he’d probably be wise to start with a major tuning, or some variation of C6.

[Matthew Lyons]

Just want to jump on here an ask a question, hope that's alright.

I got the Rogue and a new longer scale neck from Amazon (no name brand) Should I use the longer scale for D tuning and the shorter scale for C6?

I now have them reversed with the shorter scale tuned to D and the longer C6.

Thanks in advance!

[Joe A. Roberts]

Just want to jump on here an ask a question, hope that's alright.

I got the Rogue and a new longer scale neck from Amazon (no name brand) Should I use the longer scale for D tuning and the shorter scale for C6?

I now have them reversed with the shorter scale tuned to D and the longer C6.

Thanks in advance!

While it depends on the string gauge, generally D should sound better, and have more definition on a longer scale. G and D tunings work better on acoustics and long scales, while short scale electrics are best for the same tunings a step higher (so A and E respectively). C6th is a relatively high tuning string gauge wise, so it is well suited for short scales (not to mention that shorter scale makes for easier slants which can be a big part of playing C6th). Open E is worth a try on the short scale.

Ultimately, individual differences in the sound and playability of either guitar may be more important for making a decision. If there’s a tuning you play more, play it on the guitar you like the most. The steel guitar is a very flexible instrument with respect to tunings and string gauges and scale lengths, so don’t fret (pun intended) and experiment.

[Matthew Lyons]

Thanks for that information! I think it'll be worth doing the switch next string change.

Appreciate it!

Just want to jump on here an ask a question, hope that's alright.

I got the Rogue and a new longer scale neck from Amazon (no name brand) Should I use the longer scale for D tuning and the shorter scale for C6?

I now have them reversed with the shorter scale tuned to D and the longer C6.

Thanks in advance!

While it depends on the string gauge, generally D should sound better, and have more definition on a longer scale. G and D tunings work better on acoustics and long scales, while short scale electrics are best for the same tunings a step higher (so A and E respectively). C6th is a relatively high tuning string gauge wise, so it is well suited for short scales (not to mention that shorter scale makes for easier slants which can be a big part of playing C6th). Open E is worth a try on the short scale.

Ultimately, individual differences in the sound and playability of either guitar may be more important for making a decision. If there’s a tuning you play more, play it on the guitar you like the most. The steel guitar is a very flexible instrument with respect to tunings and string gauges and scale lengths, so don’t fret (pun intended) and experiment.

[Rich Arnold]

A good friend of mine is rebuilding a fender D8 steel guitar. What tunings would be the best beginning option for this guitar. It would be great to see the tunings spelled out low to high.
As a pedal player and six string lap player I am woefully ignorant of what to recomend.
Thanks!

bruce

I use a G6 on my back neck of my D8 because it's what I also use on my dobro. It's my all purpose tuning.Here's what it sounds like.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3BMY0AxE594

D
B
G
E
D
B
G
E

The front neck....I could have any tuning on it at any given time.
Thanks for trusting us for advice with such a weighty matter. R.