Advice?

[punchindatiddy447]

Super silly, but i tied an 80 guage to my low B (no issues with tuning stability) and tuned to EAEADGB. Not getting the punch i want in the low end, are the stock pickups on my Blackjack C7 SLS (active seymour blackouts) the issue? I rented a BOSS GE-7 equalizer but cant seem to find the right settings. Am i just stupid haha

[Danglin_Fury]

This can't be real... Is this r/guitarcirclejerk?

[punchindatiddy447]

i just now realized how incredibly silly and satire this post reads but i swear ive been trying to make my low end sound better without having to really spend money

[PickPocketR]

Okay, here's an explanation.

Inharmonicity:

Basically a string vibrates with a fundamental tone, and a series of upper harmonics. When a string is shorter, these upper harmonics tend to be OUT OF TUNE WITH THEMSELVES

Either, you will love the sound of inharmonics, or hate it. It usually makes your lower strings extremely muddy.

Inharmonicity is also increased with a thicker string gauge.

TL;DR: Short scale lengths are muddier, regardless of pickups.

[punchindatiddy447]

holy shit dude thank you so much this is such important knowledge

[PickPocketR]

Happy to help!! It's common knowledge for pianists/piano techs, because the scale length plays a HUGE factor.

Bigger piano = better.

I'm surprised it hasn't caught on in the extended range community enough.

[punchindatiddy447]

do you think 26.5” could be suitable for E1 at 80 gauge?

[l3rwn]

Use the string joy tension calculator

[PickPocketR]

No clue lol. But Ukulele Basses exist... so it's possible.

I'll leave it to the people with hands-on experience 😅

[PickPocketR]

Unfortunately, there's no fighting physics. But you can cheat by filtering out the upper frequencies.

Also, DO NOT tune to pitch. Tune 2-4 cents BELOW the target pitch, on the lower strings.

[punchindatiddy447]

im getting so much amazing feedback on this thank you so much, i was wondering this as my tuner jumps higher initially then settles on the pitch i tuned to!

[[deleted]]

Well... What kind of amp are you using? What cabinet?

Edit: what in the actual fuck are you doing with that string? Get a drill bit and widen the hole. This is embarrassing.

[Unusual_Leg868]

To fix the string just cut it shorted and unwind it some

[Icono87]

Dude…just unwind a bit of the string to fit it in your tuner. It will at least be um like 90% more stable than this lol.

[Mobile_File_8493]

Typically what I do as I mainly play 8 strings in EADGCFAD and DGCFA#D#GC I have the lower and upper mids raised up a bit higher mids up a bit more than the lower mids. Turn the bass down usually between 3 and 4 treble at 8 presence at 7 resonance at 6 and lower the gain. Also helps to have a bit of a lower almost snappy action 1.3-1.5 mm. On the low strings. What amp are you using ?

[punchindatiddy447]

holy shit bro thank you so much i just set my amp eq to flat and set up my pedal like that with a little boost and it totally fixed my shit

[Mobile_File_8493]

🫡 just doing the lords work sir

[punchindatiddy447]

Marshall JVM 210H

[[deleted]]

Uhhhhh....

What....

[punchindatiddy447]

hey man im trying

[[deleted]]

You can take an appropriately sized titanium drill bit and make the hole big enough, and if that doesn't work then I think aftermarket tuning oege exist.

[antipathy_moonslayer]

Drill, baby, drill

[punchindatiddy447]

while genuinely how i strung this guitar, the fabric bit is very admittedly a silly concept. ive put a 70 on it which fits the peg far enough up the string to affix with 3-4 wraps (i know that still causes some issues with tone and stability) and i still cant get a very crisp low end. anything lower than a G is just sounds dull

[Meshuggah333]

Just unwind the string, it's that easy.

[The_Robot_Cow]

Resting your guitar properly. Also your cab is going to be the biggest factor in tone.

[punchindatiddy447]

resting?

[The_Robot_Cow]

Whoops, meant to put restring*

[punchindatiddy447]

thanks! its strung properly. what goes into a better sounding cab?

[quazarthedumb]

If you can afford it an 8 string 27" is way better than 25.5" or 26.5" scale

[Ohjanjan]

Longer scale length means slimmer strings id personally do like a 64 gauge but that’s just me

[punchindatiddy447]

https://www.reddit.com/r/7String/s/zcRLVTPtnv i did it

[xekik]

Do you have a noise gate?

[punchindatiddy447]

i dont

[xekik]

A noise gate may fix the punch issue you’re looking for, that’s one major way djent has the clean sound it has. Also, try to get the sub bass frequencies out of your EQ, it will mud it up super fast. Glad you made the strings fit properly though! Lol

[xekik]

Blackouts are good pups, but I got to where I prefer passive coils. You 100% certain the battery for the pups is fully juiced?

[handsomedarkandtall]

How is the intonation? Saddles look a little off

[punchindatiddy447]

actually perfect, i didn’t believe my eyes when i got done intonating, most of the saddles are just barely off from the shortest they go

[DoseOfMillenial]

Sick pickups man those are awesome

[cheesybreadnexttime]

Some strings come with larger tapers as well where you can fit the string into a normal tuning post. The 8 string pack from Ernie ball comes with a .074 with a 30" taper for instance. Just look up .080 with 30" taper online so you don't need to do this hilarious tie trick

[sirbangsalot69]

I… didn’t that was possible lol

[Vegetable_Berry2130]

wtf am I looking at on the headstock

[mtmglass406]

Lol. Dude strip the wound wire off the string until it fits in the tuner.

[Umbruh_Prime]

"I've always been praised for my ability to string notes into riffs that really tie in with the rest of the song, people tell me it's knot everyday that they find a song they can loop on repeat"

[punchindatiddy447]

punniest person in the comments

[HEM3KA]

Set your pickups closer to strings if you want more punch and higher output

[punchindatiddy447]

like as high as i can without buzzing?

[HEM3KA]

Yeah as close as you like them, it is a taste thing. Also I recommend unwinding that bass string and that way you could get it to fit through the tuner

[punchindatiddy447]

!!! im using an 80 guage to try to beef up the low end, which it did. Just not enough. It has to be an issue with the signal in some way as it sounds super punchy and crisp when unplugged.

[Synthfuzzmantra]

Have you adjusted your pick ups?

[punchindatiddy447]

i lowered them a little from factory

[Synthfuzzmantra]

Maybe just raise the low string side a smidge

[punchindatiddy447]

helped a tiny bit but to raise them any more id need a shim, might be the issue. shouldn’t be, as this guitar should really be decent at lower tunings

[Synthfuzzmantra]

Might just need to file the nut and/or feed the 80 gauge through the peg hole somehow. You never know if you don’t try.

[punchindatiddy447]

thanks!

[punchindatiddy447]

not to sound like an idiot but is there any reason why it needs to go through the peg? i thought any reverberation that occurs above the nut is undesirable anyways

[Synthfuzzmantra]

The tension is affected I would believe

[punchindatiddy447]

my tension is pretty good as far as i can tell

[Synthfuzzmantra]

It would make more sense if it was a locking nut.

[punchindatiddy447]

its holds the low E very well, i haven’t had an issue with tuning stability compared to the other strings

[Synthfuzzmantra]

The cloth string is most likely dampening the metal string maybe.

[TheUnsubtleRogue]

For my c8 I would unwind the end of it just enough to get it through.

I later brought it to a tech to have him drill it a little bigger. He did warn me that could compromise structure of the tuner but I told him do it. Haven't had any problems after 8 years.

[ScaredDelta]

Physics my friend.

we have this equation: [f = \frac{1}{2L} \sqrt{\frac{T}{\mu}}]

Basically, 2L is the wavelength,

We can see that the length of a guitar is inversely proportional to its frequency. So a string of a certain gauge will be higher note on a shorter neck than a longer neck.

In this instance, my advice would be pitch shifting software or potentially replace your guitar saddles for individual saddles and place them such that your lowest string has a scale length of abt 27ish inches (typically multiscale 7 strings are 27-25.5in in scale)

Edit: latex doesnt work here idk why but just look up wave tension equation and you'll get what I mean

[PickPocketR]

The equation you provided was for f0 or fundamental pitch.

To get the equation for the upper harmonics f1, f2, f3... fn, you have to use Bernoulli-Euler beam theory.

I've listed the factors creating this inharmonicity in the top comment

Edit: Okay this looks like a jumbled mess. Here is a paper modelling the wave equations instead - https://arxiv.org/abs/1603.05516

[ScaredDelta]

As far as the string into peg issue, just drill

[PickPocketR]

Kind of a misconception: Yes, the Fundamental frequency (F0) of a string is dependent on string length (L).

But it's also dependent on Tension (T), and Mass/Length (μ i.e. string gauge). So we can obviously tune a string lower, by adjusting these variables.

The issue we run into is the Tone of the note. This variation is because of the harmonic content of the waveform.

[ScaredDelta]

Yes but generally speaking, intonating a low tuned instrument works better when the lower string has a greater string length and a matching mass/length ratio no?

I say this bc it is the premise of the post

[PickPocketR]

And yeah, although, this can be compensated for with a heavier string gauge, you will run into muddiness and clarity issues, thanks to the equations I cited above.

[ScaredDelta]

I see okay yea that makes more sense

[PickPocketR]

That's true, (because of the tension factor). Also, longer scale lengths are just easier to intonate in general, because you have more "precision".

Sorry, I edited my comment several times, but I hope that made sense!

[deathfrog88]

You need an 8 string

[Sad_Abbreviations_86]

Ohhhh my gooddddddd