12 String with unison G string

drofluf · January 2023

Anybody tried this? Been wondering how it might sound.

I'd obviously need to widen the nut slot which is generally regarded as a one way journey but in practice how bad would it be if I went back to octave tuning for the G string? It currently has a .080 and I'd go to a play .16

P.S. Don't do as I did and put plain g string into your favourite search engine unless you're of sound constitution,, it's a whole new world out there!

WezV · January 2023

i've not done it on a 12, but recently swapped from octave to unison G on a 9 string I am playing about with. I went with a wound/unwound unison pair.

That octave G adds a lot of treble to the sound, it can be quite harsh on some 12 strings. Others will tell you it's a core part of the 12 string sound.

Going with a unison G should given you a more balanced tone, Maybe a bit of loss of the 12 string character, but you still get all the chorusy magic stringing double course gives you.

In terms on nut grooves, it depends how straight you string pull is. you can get away with wider slots when the string splay behind the nut is less

ICBM · January 2023

Yes, I have - although only on an electric 12. If you recut the nut groove correctly, with a smoothly rounded bottom (don't Google that either, I suspect

) then it will be fine with the smaller gauge back in.

However, personally I would not do this unless the reason for doing it is that you're using a very light set with a plain *main* G string so it will be two plain ones in unison. ie I wouldn't fit two wound Gs.

Winny_Pooh · January 2023

I have a unison unwound G on my electric 12. Far prefer it.

drofluf · January 2023

Well I managed to find the time to make the change this afternoon. A nice surprise was that I didn’t meet to perform surgery on the nut as the new string fitted without binding. Also means that if I don’t like the new sound it’s 100% reversible.

However, having unison G strings does what I’d hoped. It’s “tamed” the guitar slightly and I don’t get the “rogue” high Gs when fingerpicking which is what I mainly do. It also still has that 12 string “shimmer” when strummed. So I think I’ll keep it like this for the time being at least.

Tannin · January 2023

drofluf said:

Anybody tried this? Been wondering how it might sound.

I'd obviously need to widen the nut slot which is generally regarded as a one way journey but in practice how bad would it be if I went back to octave tuning for the G string? It currently has a .080 and I'd go to a play .16

P.S. Don't do as I did and put plain g string into your favourite search engine unless you're of sound constitution,, it's a whole new world out there!

Widening nut slots really shouldn't matter. I did it with my 12 (though certainly not for the heresy of fitting a unison G - what a waste of a perfectly good 12-string that would be!) and it was a non-issue. You could fit strings either way around and it played just fine.

(I set mine up Rickenbacker-style, octave strings at the bottom, to suit fingerstyle better. I've sold it since but that worked well. Sadly, try as I might, I just don't like the sound of fingerstyle 12-string. I don't use a pick at all these days and a pick - with that flexibility to play either upstrokes or downstrokes as appropriate, -is essential to a good 12-string sound.)

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12 String with unison G string

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