+1 for DBM.

When I started, Greg and Glenn P recommended Baritone Melody. It’s the inner 10 strings of Classic 12 and has a great low melody voice that really sings. I love those tones.

A year ago I decided to try Deep Baritone Melody. This is the inner 10 strings of Matched Reciprocal 12. It also has those rich low melody tones and there was a bit more hand space for a song I was arranging. I also think the layout of DBM is very logical with a clear offset box relationship between the two sides of the fretboard. Greg talks about this here:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=668

It’s worth sketching some grids on paper to understand the notes on the board. The stick.com fretboard images are a useful starting point but I discovered more about the tunings when I wrote them out and extended them on paper.

So to summarise these ‘inner’ tunings:

Baritone Melody is the inner 10 strings of Classic 12
Deep Baritone Melody is the inner 10 strings of Matched Reciprocal 12
Full Baritone is the inner 10 strings of Raised Matched Reciprocal 12

Most of these tunings are common in the learning materials and generally it’s not hard to convert fret positions between them.

You can’t go wrong really because most of the tunings are closely related like bro and sis, not distant cousins.

HTH

Excellent point. Thanks!

Thanks - that's a great thread.

I see many references to changing the tuning. I'm an amateur luthier, so setups, to me, are part of life. Any reason to think that truss rod adjustment and intonation are any more difficult on a Stick than a guitar or bass?

Also, is anyone else using Neck Diagrams? I've been using that to study Stick tunings (they include templates for four 8-string and three 10-string tunings).

Truss rod adjustments on a Stick are much easier than on a guitar. The rod is exposed on the back of the instrument. This makes it easy to reach and you should adjust it in the playing position.

Intonation adjustments are pretty much the same except for there being more strings. Emmett’s bridge design is brilliant and correcting intonation is straightforward. Overall, any more modern Stick is easy to maintain and adjust. They really are a dream and someone who has made instruments will love it.

-Eric

I still have Greg’s video on truss rod adjustment bookmarked and watch it every time I do it. Just to be positive I move the wrench the right way.

That being said, my old Ironwood stick barely needs that adjustment or even tuning and I’ve had it since 2002. It is incredibly stable. The Tarara has only ever needed one truss adjustment since I’ve owned it.

I wonder about the Railboard in that department as people have noted it changes shape differently than wood as it warms up.

MM

There are lots of good tools like this. Some folks like Guitar Pro (GP6?). Personally I use the Fretboard Pro app and this website for chords:

https://www.oolimo.com/guitarchords/find

Truss rod adjustments are a fact of life with the Stick. They’re very much easier than guitar.

Welcome Steve,

There are 4 main tunings for 10-string, and some variants, almost all of which use melody 4ths and inverted 5ths, which is the most important element. You can chose any of them, and change the tuning after the fact between without issues, due to the fully adjustable hardware on the instrument, should you want to try something else.

Classic
Matched Reciprocal
Raised Matched Reciprocal
Baritone Melody

I've created instructional materials specifically for all of these, the Raised Matched Reciprocal is the newest so there is not as much material for it (yet ), though the principles of chord shapes, scales melodies are all the same for each.

Classic has the greatest overall range, and the patterns of notes relative to the inlays are the easiest to see.

The two MR tunings have more overlap, better hand separation and slightly less overall range
Baritone Melody has less overall range but lots of overlap (which also means maximum hand separation)

I still prefer Baritone Melody for the 10-string. Even though it doesn't go up as high, with Rails it's easy to play up high, so I spend what time I need there in comfort. The big plus is how low it gets. If you're trying to play rock and roll, you want those low melody notes. Also the overall relationship between both sides makes it better suited to things like Bach, and jazz, IMO

Down the road, if you decide to get a Grand Stick, you will just be adding higher strings on both sides, so you will already have good skill playing adjacent low strings on bass and melody.

These two videos will give you a sense of the high end of Baritone Melody. If you think it's high enough for you:





And this one gets down into the bass end more, with a nice jazz melody



And a little Bach



Anyway, that's the best way I can show you what the tuning is capable of.

Thanks, Greg. What I'm coming away with, both from this discussion and the others that some have pointed to, is that there is nothing that "locks me in" to whatever tuning I go for on my initial purchase. While I may start with something like RMR initially, I can always move to a different tuning, like Baritone Melody if and when I run into limitations.

So in the final analysis, the initial out-of-the-box tuning is just a starting point.

Which kinda comes back to my original question!

I am very familiar with the note names and the patterns for various scales in a stringed instrument tuned in 4ths, so I'm expecting that there will be very little re-orientation on the melody side, and I'll be able to concentrate on the techniques unique to moving to a tapping instrument and the challenge of developing hand independence (as a drummer, I'm hoping that will come a little more quickly than it might otherwise). My concern is with that bass side. It seems that MR would make learning the note names much easier, and Emmett seems to think a lot of the RMR tuning for the Railboard. All this seems to suggest that I'll adapt to the MR tuning more quickly.

On the other hand, it seems that while the "shape" of scales are entirely different in 5ths, the shapes of chords (I'm looking at a chart of ionian triads on a MR fretboard) are consistent between melody and bass, while inverting the voicing, so maybe I'm again overthinking this, as I tend to overthink literally everything!

Just one more thought for you.

Of the tunings discussed here, most of them have the same bass:

Classic
Baritone Melody
Matched Reciprocal
Deep Baritone Melody

...are all the same on the bass side (“standard bass”). So you’re really only choosing a melody tuning. This means if you change tuning amongst those in future, you’re only thinking about the shift in the melody strings.

These have different bass from the above:

Raised Matched Reciprocal
Full Baritone

Hope that helps. You can’t go wrong really, it’s all part of the magical journey.

Thanks - hadn't noticed that! That helps the thinking, doesn't it?

FWIW, I placed my Railboard order on Saturday. Haven't finalized it yet w/deposit & all but I'm in the queue (6-8 months right now! ) so still trying to decide on the initial tuning. However, it seems from everything said here (including the realization of the "common" bass-side tunings you've pointed out) that MR might be a good starting point for me.

Any recommendations on string gauge for starting out? I didn't realize I had a choice until I filled out the order form. Thanks!