detuning and uptuning?

[rapturebass]

i dont know if this is in the ight section. Anyhow, ive got me a tuning question. Myt band plays in drop C#, and im still an intermediate player, so i practice in standard. Does going from C# to standard ruin my neck? I mean, its only a half step from D, which people do all the time. (keep in mind i dont downtune my G, which takes adjusting to tune up and down. So, if i do this every couple days, could it ruin the neck? Thankyou for your time.

[BillyRay]

It's not going to ruin anything. Dowtuning puts less tension on the neck, so the relief might flatten too much to keep a buzz free action. You just adjust the truss rod to compensate and maybe raise the saddles a bit. Intonation might be off too.

Will it sound good ? Maybe, maybe not. This depends on the string gauge and the string construction. Heavier gauge and stiffer strings tend to sound better when you downtune.

The action of downtuning and retuning often will also not hurt anything. You'll just have to perform setups more often.

PS: The only thing that I would advise against is using regular string gauge and tuning up. Some necks or tuners might not like tuning a .110 E string up to G. I know I've snapped a few old strings by carelessly tuning them up when restringing.

[Jimbob Jones]

For 8 months I was switching between drop C# and standard, using 50-110 steels. It was still a bit flappy in the drop tuning, but definately acceptable.

In standard there was quite a lot of relief, but I figured I preferred the setup to be perfect in C#, and compromised in standard, as playing in my metal band was a lot more technically demanding.

Never had an issue with snapping strings, but obviously, YMMV.