String Gauge Question For The Baritone Folks

[orgmorg]

I need to figure out string gauges for an electric mandocello I am planning on building.

This is 8 strings, in pairs.

The typical acoustic mandocello is around 25" scale, tuned CC GG DD AA, with the low C's a fourth below a guitar's E string, gauged .074, .048, .034, .022.

I want to use a 26.25" scale, with octave strings, instead of unison.

For those of you into the baritones, what gauge seems to work best for a low C ( or B ) around that scale length.

Also, for the higher strings, do you want less tension than the lows?

Thanks.

Edited December 25, 2007 by orgmorg

[j. pierce]

I'd try a string tension calculator :

http://www.pacificsites.net/~dog/StringTensionApplet.html

http://www.kennaquhair.com/ustc.htm

I know there's more out there if you look around - I think one of the string companies publish these numbers as well - Since you know the typical set up of a mandocello, you could figure out the tension numbers, and try and calculate something that would give you comparable numbers based on your new scale length.

I'm really intrigued by this project!

.j

[orgmorg]

Ya, I've been playing around with that first one quite a bit.

Acoustic instruments usually use higher tension than their electric counterparts, so I didn't want to just adjust the standard mandocello guages to a longer scale.

Before I posted this,I had read thru a bunch of posts here about electric baritones, and there were a lot of different preferences for string gauges for a bunch of different scales and tunings. I was hoping someone had done one with a low C around 26.25" and had a string gauge they were happy with.

I was, however able to use the info I found to plug into the string calc and come up with what seems to be a reasonable equivalent for my application.

What I ended up with was 66-42-28-18 for the fundamentals, and 30-20-12-08 for the octave strings. Should be a good starting point, anyway. We'll see how it turns out. I will definitely post progress pics and such, as I get further into it.

Thanks for the reply.

[erikbojerik]

D'Addario has a PDF table on their website that gives string tensions for various string gauges at a given scale length, and includes acoustic strings as well as electrics. Google "addario string tension".

[DC Ross]

26.25" seems a bit short for a baritone (tuned B to B ), but may be okay for your mandocello.

I have two electric baritones and one acoustic.

On one electric (27" scale), I have 12, 16, 24p, 32, 44, 56, which is really noodley.

On the other (again, 27"), I'm using whatever came stock on it (just got it a couple of weeks ago -- an ESP LTD MHB-400. I think they need more letter-number combinations.)

On the acoustic, I use 16, 22, 29, 48, 60, 70 which is a bit tight

It sounds like an interesting project, keep us posted

Edited January 3, 2008 by DC Ross