Re: Acoustic Tenor Guitar and Low Tension String Recommendations
Originally Posted by
The_Noseeums
Looking at getting a Blue Ridge BR-40TCE, unfortunately because of the erratic supply ad demand of this instrument and it being out of stock from places like Elderly, The only place I can get a decent price on it right now, will not add some kind of setup for the instrument. Its distributed by blue ridge to hold a tuning of CGDA. Which i believe is traditional. I play in a tuning of DGBE. With low tension strings (newtone heritage) im looking at approximately 62 total lbs of tension, where as you're saying its build for around 85 lbs. What would happen if I decided to go with one of these low tension string sets overtime for a tenor i'm purchasing basically straight from the distributor? Or rather yet, you're saying I could change the soundboard? the bridge maybe to better support that tension?
When I was looking at setting my BR-60T up for DGBE, Saga Music (makers of Blueridge) assured me via email that the BR-60T could easily handle 100 total lbs. of tension. As Fox stated, the Blueridge tenor guitars are overbuilt.
DR Sunbeam strings are round core and very flexible. I started using a 12 gauge set of those (top four strings) but had a terrible time with fret buzz. I guess it would be possible to raise the action to get rid of the fret buzz, but since I wanted to keep the action relatively low (3/32 of an inch at the 12th fret) I had a luthier but a small amount of relief in the neck and switched to John Pearse Bluegrass strings (top four strings). The Bluegrass strings are higher tension so the amplitude of the vibration is less making it less likely to result in fret buzz. My concern would be that any low tension string set would have a greater amplitude of vibration due to the laws of physics. With a low tension string set I think you would definitely need to have the guitar set up with a higher action.
Blueridge BR-60T Tenor Guitar
Eastwood Warren Ellis 2P Tenor Guitar
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