Hi guys,

As some of you already know, I recently bought a new (to me) SB8 stick bass in straight 4ths. I love it! Quickly after receiving it, I changed the tuning to DBR with bass on C and then raised the melody side to start on low A. Not being truly happy with the sound and feeling I was getting I changed it to 10-string Baritone melody, but for obvious reasons only the 8 middle strings, being left with CGDa (bass) + C#F#Be (melody). I'm pretty happy with this and I even took the stick for a jam session in which (to my surprise) I was able to play a few songs just by picking them up along the way.

Due to the "limited" range of an 8-string (my choice, I know, I know) and after reading Big George Waters' post on getting an SB8 with stright 5ths tuning, made me think if it would make sense to have a stick on mirrored fifths or a variation of it.

The bass would remain on CGDa as this is "home" for my left hand, but the melody side would either go CGDa, an octave higher than the bass, or even GDAe, but since the highest possible string for the stick is a D, maybe FCGd would make more sense.

What do you think? Any of you use this tuning or have experimented with it (or with the idea of it)? Would it even make sense?

Cheers,
Walter

P.S. If you live in Zürich let me know so we can jam.

What do you want to do on the melody side? The biggest complaint I hear about 5ths tuning is the difficulty in playing scalar lines. If your intent is to play with large intervals, or your hand is adept at managing the position shifting required for scales in 5ths tuning, this could be fine for you. The issue I mention is why people have Grands in mirrored 4ths.

With only 8 strings, i suggest that a single-region tuning makes more sense, and can provide a complete pitch range, as well as not splitting the fretboard and forcing you to always play 2 seperate musical lines confined to each region.
2 regions of 4 strings means both regions are limited, tuned in 4ths or 5ths.
But this is only my personal opinion and perhaps not suitable for your approach.

Your idea makes sense.
Logically, if 5ths isn't a problem for the bass side, it won't be a problem for the melody side (which also tends to be played higher up the fretboard), this is more a case of whether you are playing music wriiten for guitar.
Trey Gunn and others use mirrored 5ths, but of course mostly do not play music written for guitar.
TouchGuitars U10 with bass BbFCGD, melody CGDAC (mirrored fifths):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ftr2jPQZ20

I want to play, improvise and write. And need a tuning that will help me thing differently, playing in 4ths has me falling in the guitar patterns that I used to play. The bass side is more challenging, as I've never played in 5ths before, but I like it more. So I want to keep my bass side on inverted fifths and tune the melody on straight 5ths, ending up with some sort of mirrored fifths, Trey Gunn style.


I don't intend to play music written for guitar, so it should not be a problem. I guess I can fairly easily try the mirrored fifths tuning of the U10, but a whole step higher, since low C is home to my left hand (on the second fret) and my right hand sits comfortably on the 12th fret I'd go like this:

1 B
2 E
3 A (unison with 8?)
4 D (unison with 7?)
5 C
6 G
7 D
8 A

Your comment about a single-region tuning, PLUS, your idea of the U8 tuning for Big George's stick on 5ths made me think of tuning mine in inverted fifths using the same tuning. Or even split, from 3-8 and tuning strings 1 & 2 in higher pitches, but to get some sort of 12-string stick tuning in which I keep all the bass strings and add the two lowest melody strings.

Something like this in 4ths/5ths:
1 F# (4th string of 12-string classic tuning)
2 C# (5th string of 12-string classic tuning)
3 C (lowest)
4 G
5 D
6 A
7 E
8 B (highest)

Something like this in mirrored 5ths:
1 G (an octave higher than 4) or A (in unison with 6)
2 C (an octave higher than 3) or D (in unison with 5)
3 C (lowest)
4 G
5 D
6 A
7 E
8 B (highest)

I guess I'm overly complicating things, but these are some ideas that came to mind as I was writing. Thank you all in advance.

Hmm i hadn't thought of a single region tuning being inverted.

I think Trey Gunn tunes in mirrored fifths like this: bass CGDAE melody CGDAC (melody C an octave above bass C).

Anyway, i thought of this:

B
E down fifth
A down fifth
D down fifth
G down fifth
C down fifth
G up fifth
D up fifth

6 in fifths and 3 in fifths sharing a common low C.
This could be played as a full-range region of 6 in non-inverted fifths CGDAEB.
Or, as a bass region of 3 in inverted fifths CGD, plus a large range melody region of 5 in non-inverted fifths GDAEB. The bass region would be familiar to you.

That’s pretty cool! Some sort of DBR In fifths, making 9 strings out of 8. The beauty of the SB8 is not having an extra space between strings 4 & 5, making a seamless integration of both sides!

Have you play inverted and straight fifths? If so, did you notice much difference?


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As interesting as the 5ths/5ths tuning sounds (and what type of r.h. chordal possibilities) I have invested tooooo much time to 5ths/4ths, and my hands "think" like that now. When my right hand is doing right hand stuff, on either side, it's doing right hand stuff. And my left hand, ON EITHER SIDE, is doing left hand stuff. I think in both directions and tunings. And they work together, WITH A LOT OF PRACTICE, and don't get into many arguments. Unless I want them to

I know what you mean. Inverted 5ths is comparable to straight 4ths, and both hand share similar chording and patterns. Whereas that doesn’t happen with mirrored 4ths or 5ths. That’s why I was thinking of an inverted all fifths tuning, where both hand would share those similarities.


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I haven't used inverted fifths enough to comment.

I do remember a Trey Gunn interview where he expressed how mirrored fifths works well in being symmetrical in terms of body symmetry and the symmetry of the hands playing the 2 regions: For both hands the strings rise in fifths in the direction the fingers point.

I forgot to add:
Considering a single region tuning inverted or not, not inverted possibly seems better.
It's more ergonomic for the left hand to be closer to the nut than the right hand, playing lower frets than the right hand, and it is more comfortable for the hands to play the strings on the more distant side of the fretboard.
So, it seems to make more sense to have the lowest notes on the opposite side from the left hand, and the highest notes on the opposite side from the right hand.