The usual advice when tuning all the way down to something like F# is, outside of buying an extended range guitar, to have a longer scale. Guitarist Gabriel Martins said “aboslutely not” and tuned a 22.2″ Ibanez GIO Mikro GRGM21M (yes, this one) down that low with some pretty killer results!
According to Martins in the Facebook group Extended Range Guitar Nerds, he used an eight-string set of 65 gauge strings.
“Downtuned the 22.2″ scale to Drop F# with a 9-65 8 string set (extremely light), since many say one needs at least 27″ to do so… And used all strings across the whole neck with a melancholic feel,” reads his post. “Although it has some, it’s far from being 0-0-0. I know you’re thinking ‘it must sound terrible, like a totally inaudible rumble of angry spaghettis that weren’t eaten’, but I promise it probably sounds better than you think. Or not.”
Martins said in the comments he doesn’t have any intonation issues up until the 13th fret on the F# string. You can check out the guitar in action below via the YouTube video, as well as hear the guitar all by itself via the Soundcloud link.
