Image by Getty Images via Daylife

A: Why not? It’s a bass! The tuning of a standard six-string bass is a good thing. Musicians all around the world already know this tuning so it’s easy for them to learn touch-style on a tuning they already know.

There is also the popular bass-strings tuning we call ‘Inverted Fifths’ which has some enthusiasts among touch-stylists. Yet you can still play the ‘Easy Touch-Style’ method in that tuning. Because this tuning is popular, upon request we will provide instruments with bass strings tuned this way, and the method book covers Inverted Fifths tuning as well as our standard tuning.

If you’re an existing bass player or guitar player taking up touch-style we suggest you try the standard ‘Bass Bottom’ tuning, because we think you’ll find it familiar, and it seems better for many types of music. And if you’re just starting out, we still suggest you try standard ‘Bass Bottom’ tuning. In our opinion, it’s much simpler, and faster to learn.

[Reprinted by permission from Megatar-FAQ at http://megatar.com/megatar-faq/]

However, the gist of the question seemed to be that some strings felt too tight and some too loose. And I’m betting that this fellow is not the only one to ever have this question. So here are some guidelines when tuning up your new two-handed tapping guitar …

TIGHT STRINGS

Some strings are tighter than other strings. That’s a fact. If you mean *way* too tight, then that usually comes from accidentally tuning one of the strings an octave too high.

But if you are not really very familiar with tuning a guitar at all, and if you have a buddy who’s a guitar player and tunes up all the time, you might have him to help you of course. It’s pretty simple, but that doesn’t mean that it will seem familiar *to you* necessarily if you’re not familiar with guitar or bass tuning.

When you get the instrument tuned correctly, the strings will be playable.

So I would suggest rough-tuning by this method –

(a) Get the lowest bass (or melody) string tuned AT FRET TWO (double dots) by the meter. If you have it an octave too low, the string will be very floppy and will probably buzz. If you have it an octave too high, it will probably be really tight and stiff and hard to play. If you’ve got it at the right octave, then it will be comfortably playable — the bass strings will be comfortably playable around frets 2-5 and the melody strings will be comfortably playable around frets 12-15.

TOO FLOPPY? TOO TIGHT?

If you’re not sure what is ‘too floppy’ or ‘too tight’ then you could experiment and make it ‘too floppy’ on the right note and then make it ‘too tight’ on the right note and in between those two you should find the right note where it is neither too floppy nor too tight. If you do this on the *lowest* bass or lowest melody string it will probably not harm anything. Those lower strings have more latitude during tightening.

(b) Now rough tune up from the lowest bass (or melody) string by playing the lowest string AT FRET SEVEN (double dots). This should be the note of the next string at fret two.

(c) Tune by ear this way for the rest of the set of strings. Now they’re approximately correct.

(d) If you make an error of an octave during this process, then again the error-string will be so loose and floppy that it buzzes, or so tight it’s hard to play.

(e) Once you have the instrument approximately tuned this way, then use your tuner to fine-tune the individual strings.

(f) And as always, as when tuning any stringed instrument, always use the tuners to come *up* to the pitch you wish to hit, and do not use the tuners to come down to hit the pitch. It produces more stable setting of the string’s tension when you tune up than when you tune down.