Quick and dirty slide guitar setup trick

[DeepSouth]

Thought I'd just share something cool I stumbled on the other day.

I have a couple of Strats setup up nicely in D# standard tuning - I use 11's on them because with the dropped tuning the tension is about the same as 10's in standard E tuning.

Well I had the idea that if I was to tune to open E or open A tuning for slide the tension would increase pulling the floating bridge up and raising the action a bit and it worked really well.

The tension increased and so did the action - which is good for not banging on the neck with your slide too much. It didn't raise the the strings too much though - it's still fairly low and easy to fret behind the slide.

All in all for my style of slide playing it was actually almost an ideal setup. The only thing I might tweak is to raise the unwound G string a tiny bit to be closer to the level of the wound D string (talking in standard tuning here).

Hopefully you can follow what I'm talking about with all of that.

The beauty of this whole thing is when you get sick of slide you can tune back to D# standard and your stratocaster is still setup properly for normal playing. Tuning back to slide raises the tension and string height due to the stratocaster tremolo springs being set for a lower tension.

[Wally]

The problem is that when that bridge moves, the intonation goes out the window because the saddles' measurements to the 12th fret change. You can't jerk a 'floated' bridge like this around with different tunings...unless you ignore intonation. My ear won't let me do that.
You are correct in that the strings will elevate, but the tuning issues jsut don't allow it....if tuning and intonation matters, that is.

[twick]

Does intonation really count when you playing slide?

[Wally]

Originally Posted by twick

Does intonation really count when you playing slide?

Well, if the OP had not made the following comment, Twick, I might not have made my observations.....

Deep South wrote: "it's still fairly low and easy to fret behind the slide."

Out of the many, many STrat players I have seen over the time of my professional carrer helping gutiarists get the most they can out of their guitars, I find that a high percentage of them do not understand that bridge and what can and cannot be done with it.

[twick]

Fair enough. Not trying to be antagonistic, just question.

[Wally]

No problems here, twick....just answering the question. Apologies if I was too 'brusk'. (:^)

[Charlesinator]

Well that said ... if you had a guitar dedicated to say open E tuning, do you set the intonation for such???

[FMA]

Originally Posted by Charlesinator

Well that said ... if you had a guitar dedicated to say open E tuning, do you set the intonation for such???

Yes. Or not.

I keep my Melody Maker in open E and it has a compensated wrap-around bridge. With some minor tweaks, adjusting the angle of the bridge slightly with the set screws at the back of the bridge, it intonates well. Not perfect, but close enough that double stops and partial chords sound in tune.

[Wally]

Originally Posted by Charlesinator

Well that said ... if you had a guitar dedicated to say open E tuning, do you set the intonation for such???

Imho and ime, Charles, yes......to the maximum extent to which an insturment will allow adjustment for a 'dedicated' application, then the instrument should be set-up for the strings, the player and the tuning that player chooses.

There is a video of Van Halen opening their tour a few years ago ...somewhere in North Carolina, IIRC . "Jump"....Eddie's guitar was for 'wrong' for the song. Whether the guitar was set-up for some other song or whether it was just out of tune, I don't know; but it is hilarious to watch a primeir rock guitarist try to play a song with a guitar that totally doesn't work for it. EXtreme example.....but valid. Hilarious video to watch...