Drop tuning

[Roadburn]

Old thread, but I like to add something here.

Do you want to sound cool, or do you want to look cool (checking Viking's avatar, he wants to look cool but anyway...).
Thing is, does it matter what tuning you use as long as the riffs kill???


And I would like to add that many of my favorite (some old school) doom/stoner bands (which don't use hi gain or scooped sound) play in all kinds of dropped tuning.

That's all, carry on...

 

[Landshark]

Slash plays in standard so he should be pretty good right?

 

[TheLoudness!!]

Kashmir was in drop d....

 

[Purgasound]

Back in August I toured with a band that we all played in Drop-B, btw.

 

[thetragichero]

i tune my strats and my four string bass to drop d, my guild is tuned a full step down

 

[Longgone]

I played in a band for about seven years and we always tuned a half step down (ala Hendrix, VH, SRV) but we did it more for the benefit of the singer. He said the high stuff was much easier to sing night after night like that. As mentioned already if you are a cover band and you cover a range of music, you`ve got to have about 4 guitars in different tunings to get everything like it was recorded. Alternate tunings are great and some of my favorite songs use alternative tunings. Artists that use a drop D tuning for effect have been around for a long time. Les Paul, George Harrison, Jimmy Page are just a few. I believe in modern music drop D tuning is a bit overused. I like it when it`s used to flavor a song, but not as the main course.

 

[diesect20022000]

I play in a440,drop-D,Drop-C, C#/Db and double drop-D. i like drop C the most personaly. i use 11-50 and 12-54's for that.

 

[Michael1987xl]

Kashmir was in drop d....

Actually, the correct tuning for Kashmir is D-A-D-G-A-d. I believe Page discusses this in some detail in "It Might Get Loud".

 

[TheLoudness!!]

Actually, the correct tuning for Kashmir is D-A-D-G-A-d. I believe Page discusses this in some detail in "It Might Get Loud".

It's not standard though

 

[Frankie]

Lotta good country is drop D. I tune my guitars to Eb. No mids scooping ever though, that should be a sin.

 

[TheLoudness!!]

Lotta good country is drop D. I tune my guitars to Eb. No mids scooping ever though, that should be a sin.

I agree, when you own a Marshall the heavy mids are a big part of the sound!!

 

[diesect20022000]

lotta good country is drop d. I tune my guitars to eb. No mids scooping ever though, that should be a sin.

amen!ESPECIALY with a marshall!

 

[TwinACStacks]

Don't do drop tunings and Can't stand MOST metal.

TWIN

 

[diesect20022000]

Don't do drop tunings and Can't stand MOST metal.

TWIN

I PLAY metal and can't stand MOST metal,lol. I'm also weird about drop tunings. while i employ them frequently the last band i was in used them to slack off on guitar. i use them because i LOVE hybrid chording and wide intervals. they took awhile to adapt my scales to though. It's definitely all about preferance. i understand why a lot of people don't like drop tunings as there are a LOT o bands thatuse them....horribly and of course their are the "purists"....there's always something to dislike and something else to like. for straight rock or most other styles other than metal i use a440 or occasional eb or D but, for the heavier proggish metal i do most often i like drop C now. if it sounds good to me i don't really care basicaly,lol.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

Such hate of dropped strings, ha ha.

I personally either like or dislike, totally depending on whether it adds to the song.

But think SRV or Hendrix they mostly used 1/2 a step down and they were fricking awesome and there tone was killer. Not to mention they did it long before modern metal kids etc. Plus old blues players and shit are famous for there often lazy but awesome use of alternate/dropped tunings to make slide playing sound cooler.

I think if you make a stance on this you are going to be missing some sweet cds in your music collection. How could you not listen to soundgarden for example, out of some kind of dogmatic belief that dropped tunings are the devil. Like, what man?

I'm not really a Muse fan but there is a song of theirs "citizen erased" where i think (could be wrong) the E string is tuned to A and everything else is normal, so you get a A octave thing going on, its a pretty massive sound riff, just love how it fills the song up. Think its similar to a tuning Tool use i a couple of songs. I guess its all personal taste, but man, that's some phat sounding stuff.

A bit off topic but does anyone know anything about that whole A = 440Hz, but some guys reckon it should equal a slightly lower frequency thing? I have heard a few people go on about this and just wondering if anybody's got the technology to explain? Something about natural resonance frequencies that standardized 440Hz doesn't fit with?

 

[Adwex]

......A bit off topic but does anyone know anything about that whole A = 440Hz, but some guys reckon it should equal a slightly lower frequency thing? I have heard a few people go on about this and just wondering if anybody's got the technology to explain? Something about natural resonance frequencies that standardized 440Hz doesn't fit with?

Not sure about the slightly lower frequency thing, but I have to chime in about something that has always bothered me....The open A string is NOT 440 Hz, it is 110 Hz, two octaves lower. Try hitting a 5th fret harmonic...THAT'S 440.

 

[chuckharmonjr]

slim...open chord tunings for slide playing has been around since the first bottle got slid across strings. Dropping the entire tuning 1/2 step is also a very old trick to help the singers. What freaks me out is this concept of totally strange open chord alternative tunings to get a certain sound. Why not play it straight?

 

[Adwex]

Just for clarity....in my mind, the term "drop D" means that just the low E is detuned to D, one step down, all other strings are in standard. "Drop C" means that the low E is detuned to C, 2 steps down, all other strings are detuned one step. This is basically the same as drop D with all strings 1 step lower. Regular barre chords, or power chords, are played with one finger barring the 4th, 5th, and 6th strings.

"Detuned" means all strings are in standard, relative to each other, but all are dropped. Barre chords are played in the normal manner, but the all notes are lower frequency.

 

[beammeupwelshy]

slim...open chord tunings for slide playing has been around since the first bottle got slid across strings. Dropping the entire tuning 1/2 step is also a very old trick to help the singers. What freaks me out is this concept of totally strange open chord alternative tunings to get a certain sound. Why not play it straight?

Yeah i kind of tend to agree and i would probably do it that way if i was trying to work out a funky chord sound or something. But I have a few CDs like Tea Party stuff and even some of the Zeppelin acoustic stuff, that have their guitars tuned to open C chords and other weird opens tunings, most of which sound amazing, like Rain Song for example. I can play the acoustic part in the open C tuning but Ive never tried to learn it tuned to standard, I wonder if its possible? It'd probably be really hard.

I guess its just a way to achieve resonant hold on a particular key, all the open strings kind of take on a droning sound similar to a sitar or something. One thing that that i have to say is though, is that it can definatly be overused.

 

[SwampThing]

Personally I think it boils down to Taste..There are bands that pull it off spectacularly (Pantera) While some dont (Insert any late 90's nu-metal band here). A Mesa quadruple-fuckin-rectifier, digitech grunge pedal and a 7-string Ibanez dont constitute "heavy" or Tone for that matter.

I am by no means a cork-sniffer when it comes to tone..but I hate the misuse of Drop tuning.