Welcome, Walter! Have fun!

I have never tried the 4th's tuning on a 10 string because the prevailing wisdom is that you
do not get the same chord variety. So I guess that the notes are there but ergonomically it
does not work...

The Stick police might come after me for saying this but if you are in "Classic" tuning
you can shift the melody side down to Matched Reciprocal" very easily as the bass side
will remain the same. There might be a slight intonation issue but at least you can get the
sense of what the two different tunings are like because they are so close. I know it is completely a subjective thing, so I cannot say with a good conscious that MR is better than Classic but i have tried every tuning except the 'Duel Bass" one and I always come back to MR. And that was after two years of Baritone Melody...

One discovers that the tunings on the Stick are essentially similar, even Baritone Melody is the same in that the shapes one uses to get the chords and scales are the same. It is rather, the spacing between the hands that is different. So Baritone Melody, for example, the string set on the "melody" side is tuned down (baritone) and the string gage is stepped down as well but because the tonality of the whole melody side being lower the playing position of the two hands tends to be further apart; the right hand moving up the fretboard toward the bridge to find the sweet spot.. It is the groove tuning preferred by Greg Howard who I believe invented the Baritone Melody tuning through trial and error, or maybe just because he is a very smart person ...

With Classic, because the tuning is higher the right hand tends to come down the fretboard and sometimes there is a clash between the hands. Matched Reciprocal is the third bowl of porridge in my humble opinion .
Your Pollycarbonate Stick can accommodate any of the three with a little tweaking .
The Stick was made for tweaking .

jRj
*j*
.~

Thank you for the detailed answer! Since my strings are quite old and I have a new set anyway, I'll give it a try with the medium set and classic tuning. Emmett himself recommended this gauge and tuning to me, although with the following warning: It's likely that the heavier "medium" gauge string set will slightly bow the fretboard, if it isn't already bowed. If so, playing becomes difficult and the inspiration vanishes. The magic is in the setup. I guess I have nothing to lose by trying, I'm pretty sure it's not setup as it should anyway, so I'll do some tweaking to get it as good as it can be.

I have two more general questions:

• How can I clean the polycarbonate fretboard? I guess the guitar fretboard cleaners that I have may not work and/or damage the stick

• Any ideas to replace the old damper? I feel that some notes ring freely after pulling off.

cheers!

> I noticed the lowest string (6th C1) is much thicker than the other bass strings. Is it possible to combine gauges and make a”hybrid” set inch which the difference is not that large?

Possible but not a good idea in terms of tension, that big difference in gauge is correct. With 2 strings a fifth apart, for equal tensions the gauges need to be in the ratio 3:2. For example .085 .130.
It only looks like a big difference because bass guitars are tuned in fourths and the tension falls significantly from E to B, for example .105 .130.

> Coming from a guitar and bass world, I find the 5ths tuning a bit odd and difficult to adapt. Would it be a good idea to tune it in mirrored 4ths and see it as a guitar+bass

Not really as you have fixed intonation, so you cannot deviate much from the intended gauges and string types (wound/plain). However you can tune those gauges/types up or down to your preference, the saddle intonation offset is determined by gauge and string type (specifically, string stiffness), not pitch.
If you are interested in alternative tunings/gauges/tensions you really should get a Stick with adjustable intonation.

> Actually, I like to experiment with tunings

> ...fine if you do this on basses or guitars, because on this instruments you have the interaction between open and fretted strings, and this interaction ist highly dependent which tuning is in use...
...but on the stick are only freted notes...
...don't waste your time

Alternative tunings are just as valid and effective on instruments where open notes are not used, the intervals between the strings are still altered,
A waste of time can't be judged for someone else.