Finally managed to get myself a stick, a railboard 10 string thats about 3 years old from its original owner. Arrived today, its a thing of beauty!

The tuning on it appears (after asking a question on facebook) to be Dual Bass Reciprocal (actually, yes, now I see it on the spare string bag), which is not something I want, I figured I would start in standard and see where I went.

However, I am a bit confused about the strings, I can't see what the gauges are supposed to be.

The strings on the bass are obviously wrong, way to heavy for normal, so measuring them with a not great micrometer from 1 I get: 21, 31, 43, 62, 85, 118, 90, 55, 35, 16, all wound about from the 16 as string 10, the highest bass one.

I also have a packet of strings, in bags one to ten, which I assume were taken off the stick when the other strings arrived, and these strings are 21, 31, 40, 55, 85, 115, 66, 55, 30, 16.

Obviously my best option is to order a new set of strings, but I am in the UK so ordering from the states and getting them delivered, I am not going to be seeing them any time soon and I have a new stick sitting here daring me to try and play it.

Is there some combination of those strings that make sense as a set (assuming they are of the right length etc) to make a set?

I am guessing from the frequencies of the strings it should be something like
16, 21, 30, 40, 55, 115, 85, 66, 55, 30?

String Gauges , always an interesting topic, sent you a DM which might be helpful.

I know you are in the UK, but there are other UK players who order strings from SE. trying to use other strings made for guitar generally are not workable nor do they sound good. Order the strings from SE and just wait for them. You'll be happier. Best of luck

Indeed I will have to wait for strings, but in the mean time I just wanted to get up and going with some strings I had.

I swapped some strings around last night and have 9/10ths of the gauges I worked out there!

Hey Wood, I got a really dumb question for ya, you mention "standard" tuning as opposed to what you got, but what standard tuning ??
*The Classic 5ths and 4ths tuning ??

I'm only asking because about a month ago, maybe 6 weeks ago I made a real ass out of myself because I was attempting to re-string correctly my mid 80s Ironwood in stock Classic tuning, and where I went wrong was I falsely accused S.E. of sending me a wrong set of gauges, because they did not seem right to me - well, where I'm going with this is they were indeed the correct set from the get go - and even though I've dabbled with alternative tunings for many many years with my own instruments - I had to completely start over regarding my Ironwood, because nothing was as it seemed to be, because I now had melody and bass strings to contend with...

Now that I have an understanding of the Classic Stick tuning [string gauges vs note pitch...] I'll never make that mistake again.

If I were you, I'd order a couple of sets in the tuning you wish straight from Stick Enterprises, because you will get the exact string gauges for what you are looking to do.

The only confusing part was the numbering system used to identify which string goes where, but I got help about that here in a different thread but come to think of it, that's all explained on the S.E. website under "tunings"...

Cheers.............

I yes, i suppose the language can be misleading isn't it. By standard i mean what is referred to as 'Classic 10 string tuning', ie, the original tuning.
I am not against using another tuning, but i figured that i needed to learn to play it to find out why I would need to change the strings

No, that's fine... believe me, I'm a huge fan of different tunings as well...

I was just curious as to what was meant by standard today - as it seems the modern Sticks can be set up in a variety of tunings from the factory - as opposed to the old Ironwood/Polycarb instruments which had non-intonating bridges, those were classic 5ths/4ths only !!

Sounds good friend - do you have a Stickbass in mind which you are after ??
*meaning are you going used or new ??

I'm seeking on an older 34 in scale Stickbass myself, and may have found one...

I encourage Stick Enterprises to be open about the gauges used in their sets and state them on the site. This will be a big help to Stick owners and those considering tensions and choosing strings for alternative tunings.
Anyone with a micrometer can measure sets and publisise the gauges, and many have, there's no way to keep the gauges secret if that was the intent.

Even better would be to carefully measure the mass per inch of each gauge (EDIT: D'Addario will probably be able to do this easily for you) and provide a tension calculator, as Kalium and D'Addario do.

Being someone deeply involved with the technicalities of gauges, tensions and alternative tunings, the lack of gauge information drives me crazy

ixlramp, I get where you are coming from but at the same time - me of all people - I highly recommend just buying the strings directly from S.E. and here's why:

Do you remember when I was on the warpath when I got my strings from S.E., how i was so sure they were 100% wrong on most of the gauges ??

Well, turns out it was me that was wrong, and I will carry that burden to the grave.

Even though I've been tuning electric bass guitars in C G D A tunings since 1992 or so, the gauges S.E. uses are not even close to what I am accustomed to, plus lets face it, and this is a good thing: All Sticks are custom instruments, hence why I am a believer in all Strings coming straight from the man himself.

Now - that being said - I am about to find out if they do custom sets, as if that red 34" scale Stickbass is still for sale when I call Cambria on Tuesday, I'm going to ask that they set up up with that DMR bass tuning, where it's 4ths and 5ths but I want the 5ths portion C G D A and not starting with the low B and going up from there.

I realize this takes away from the 5 string 4ths portions, but I am not after that - I want two basses in one, one in 4ths and one in 5ths - with tunings I know in my sleep.

Sounds silly but the B would completely lose me since I play strictly by ear all these years - decades later.....

> I highly recommend just buying the strings directly from S.E.

To be clear, i'm not suggesting the use of non-SE strings, even though there's nothing wrong with doing so.
I mean: In order to make it easier for Stick owners to choose SE gauges for alternative tunings, to calculate per-string tensions to know what they like, to calculate what gauges to experiment with according to their needs and preference in tensions, and to help in many gauge-related situations like this one.

Your error about expected envelope sizes is not related, most of the bass side gauges are guitar gauges (true for normal bass guitar string sets too), so come in guitar envelopes.

> Even though I've been tuning electric bass guitars in C G D A tunings since 1992 or so, the gauges S.E. uses are not even close to what I am accustomed to

Yes, necessarily for a tapping instrument. Compared to standard bass sets, my experience is that a tapping instrument needs lower tension, and tension falling from low to high, instead or rising tension or equal tensions.

> All Sticks are custom instruments, hence why I am a believer in all Strings coming straight from the man himself.

I can't see how that follows, if Sticks were factory produced and non-custom that would make no difference to whether or not to get strings from SE.
There's nothing about a custom instrument that requires you get the strings from the builder of the instrument.

Yes they do custom sets, i think Greg takes care of that.