Purpose of unison strings in D13 tuning

Bill McCloskey · Posted 12 Jun 2024 6:58 am

I'm giving Johnny Cox's D13 tuning another go and should be receive a new steel with his exact copedent in a few weeks.

i've been making a study of the tuning and find a number of pedal combinations that result in unison strings. Pedal 1 for instance makes both Strings 5 and 6 B's. Pedal 3 does the same. Does anyone know a good use for these unison strings? Does it fatten the voicing or can it be used for something i'm not seeing at the moment? Below is the copedent;

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

I’m thinking it’s like a C pedal on E9. When used in combination with P2, it takes D major to E minor.

Those first 3 pedals are C-B-A. The Day setup.

That lever with B and A# is set up around an F#7 chord.

If you want a chorus type effect, you can double up the B’s and play single note melodies.

The unison with strings 6 and 2, when released forms a major 3rd interval. If you start with the unison, then slide up or back two frets and release…magic! A classic Lloyd Green move.

Fred · From: Amesbury, MA

I don't think the unisons you're talking about are there on purpose. The fifth string B is there because the C6 face of the tuning requires it. That same note comes up because the E9 face needs to have the 5 to 6 raise on the A and C pedals.

I use a universal copedent with the 6th tone in the same place with the same result. The 3, 5, 6, 1 sequence was part of every non-pedal tuning I used for years before trying out pedals. I just couldn't get comfortable without it. And the unison sounds kind of cool sometimes.

Bill McCloskey · Posted 12 Jun 2024 12:52 pm

The Freds have given me a lot to think about.

Jared Ruari · From: Oregon, USA

On my D13th setup I can use the 5th and 6th (B and A) strings with various changes to move smoothly from a unison to a minor 2nd, major 2nd, or minor 3rd.

There's a bunch of good and useful licks to be found moving from a unison to any of those intervals, or vice versa.

If you think strictly in terms of conventional E9 or C6, then the "extra" strings are holes in the tuning that need to be avoided, but when you look at it in more of a "one big tuning" sort of way those strings open up new possibilities.

Andrew Frost · From: Toronto, Ontario

Yeah, those unisons happen because of the extra string added with the major six chord tone on it. Like if you added a c# string to an E9 tuning between the E and B strings. On some 12 string set ups that use a 13th type tuning, that “extra string” so to speak will go up a semi tone when A or B pedals are engaged, which creates more chord tone choices, but primarily prevents undesired sympathetic resonance between adjacent strings ringing at the same frequency,. I think Zane Beck had this sort of thing going on with his E13 tuning for example although I could be wrong. Personally, I think those unison options would be very useful and interesting once you get a feel for them…

Justin Shaw · From: Ontario, Canada

I'm not sure this was the intended use in that tuning, but they do allow you to move into and out of cluster voicings and suspensions. My understanding is that a fair amount of the "modern steel" sound uses these types of temporary dissonances and resolutions.

For example you can get a B to B7 change by starting P1 down, striking both Bs and releasing P1. This voicing uses the b7 (A) that is the closest to the B, 1 whole step below the B. Often the b7 is either used as the lowest note of the chord, as a leading tone, or is put way up on top, and usually the closest B is not played with it. Playing the two notes as close as possible like this in a chord is part of the "cluster voicing" chord idea.

Finally, if you play a G chord (G B D), and strike the A just before raising it with P1 to B, you get a nice G suspended 2 (G A D) or G add 2 (G A B D) moment.

You can try this on 6 string guitar (let ring):

e x
B x
G 2 - 4
D 0
A 2
E 3

Fred · From: Amesbury, MA

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