Add a new guitar tuning to TuxGuitar

Question

I want to add Open D tuning to TuxGuitar. I go to Track > Properties and then click on the wrench next to tuning. + adds another note to EADGBE. I want to add an entire tuning - DADGAD.

How do I do this?

Answer 1

Understanding standard tuning

Standard tuning is :

E5

B4

G4

D4

A3

E3

First you have to understand how note (or pitch I should say) notation work. The letter indicate the note name, the number indicates the number of the octave. Hence, A4 is an octave higher than A3. As a reference, remember the standard tuning absolute notes, or at least that the lower string in standard tuning is E3

A weird naming quirk to remember is that it doesn't change of octave number when passing from G to A, but when passing from B to C. So B4 is only a half-step away from C5

Understanding how your tuning differs from standard tuning

Open D tuning is :

D5

A4

G4

D4

A3

D3

Notice how the 3rd, 4th and 5th string are the same. You won't need to change these.

So, in your situation, when tuning it to open D, you have to tell TuxGuitar that you want a different value for the 1st, 2nd and 6th string.

Retuning a string in TuxGuitar

For this example, we will retune the 6th string from E3 to D3, but you can actually retune to whatever note you want, even notes that wouldn't be logical on a real guitar.

In the tuning menu :

Double click on the last string E - E3. This prompt should appear :

Then for the Value dropdown select D3, which is the note you set your 6th string when you tune it to a open D tuning. Alternatively, you can press up two times instead of looking for your note in the long list. Pressing up to go a half-step lower is pretty weird, but, hey, that's how TuxGuitar was made.

Let the second dropdown Label update automatically to D. No need to touch that one. Press ok.

Your prompt should look like this :

Retuning to Open D - DADGAD

Repeat the first operation for the first and second string. The values should be respectively D5 and A4

Last prompt should look like this.

Press ok. Press close on the track properties window. Test if that worked well.

Here you go.