Down half a step

[mcnach]

14 hours ago, russtufella said:

Just got a new singer and he has asked us to tune down half a step from standard. I don't have a problem with this, l'm just curious to how many other bands do this.

 

asking to downtune instruments, never so far, but asking to do songs in other keys it's pretty normal. Up to you whether you need/want to downtune or whether it works better in standard tuning.

[Monkey Steve]

did it in my last couple of bands, always at the singer's request - one asking that we de-tuned by a whole step.  wasn't a huge fan of that, but it wasn't the end of the world.  Not so much that the strings flap about (and none of that a semi-tone down), more that it seems to lose a bit of snap and zing off the strings.

We discussed it a fair bit with the guitarists - we'd all have preferred to play at concert pitch - but the audience is far more likely to notice a singer struggling to hit the notes than a very minor tone difference in the guitars.

[KevB]

9 hours ago, chris_b said:

I've just worked out Slither, in D, and works pretty well played down on the 3rd fret.

But I get your point that open strings can be a "get out of jail" card if you're playing with a riff mad guitarist.

Well Slither is in drop D anyway (since the opening riff uses a lot of open string low D notes) so if you were detuning then it would be a drop D flat/C sharp or whatever. The band I'm currently rehearsing with want to do Slither and Psycho by Muse which are both drop D songs but the band also detune half step from concert pitch as well so I'm faced with exactly this - a bass that is Db/Ab/Db/Gb and another that is Eb/Ab/Db/Gb for gigging but of course all the original recordings are a semi tone up so I keep a spare bass for home use which I can alternate between concert pitch and normal drop D for playing against the original recordings. I'd rather keep a gigging bass permanently in one tuning than constantly detuning and retuning at home.

[Norris]

Been doing it for years. It's amazing how much a semitone helps the aging vocal chords

[peteb]

11 hours ago, chris_b said:

I've just worked out Slither, in D, and works pretty well played down on the 3rd fret.

But I get your point that open strings can be a "get out of jail" card if you're playing with a riff mad guitarist.

That's a world many of us inhabit! I'm sure that you can play the riff on a 5 string but that song fairly motors along - but would you want to play that riff live without the open D for four minutes? Especially if the next song is Spoonman by Soundgarden?? 

I have a bass tuned down half a step with a D tuner for most of the rock gigs I do and a P bass in concert for the blues stuff. 

Edited March 27, 2018 by peteb

[casapete]

After doing a lot of gigs downtuned, I do find when reverting to concert pitch on other gigs how much 'brighter' 

things sound though, and almost feel a bit faster for some reason.

Must admit to preferring this, but it's no deal breaker.

[Monkey Steve]

5 minutes ago, casapete said:

After doing a lot of gigs downtuned, I do find when reverting to concert pitch on other gigs how much 'brighter' 

things sound though, and almost feel a bit faster for some reason.

Must admit to preferring this, but it's no deal breaker.

exactly...it's not a biggie, but there is a bit more brightness, bit more zing

[ambient]

Following my earlier post, I think I'd also get confused, I get confused very easily.

 

[Monkey Steve]

On 3/27/2018 at 13:53, ambient said:

Following my earlier post, I think I'd also get confused, I get confused very easily.

 

depends...I would find it difficult if everybody else had de-tuned and I was simply playing one fret down like you suggested

in the first band I did this for, everybody else came from a death metal background where tuning down is pretty common.  They still call the notes by the position on the fretboard, not by the actual note that's being played, so when you're playing an open E string it's still an E even though you're actually playing a D#.  So de-tuning made no difference whatsoever in playing terms and there was no confusion about what we called notes (other than it being completely wrong! - but we were all wrong together)

Edited March 29, 2018 by Monkey Steve

[IainS]

We've been doing it for a while to aid our aging singer in his singing of the higher pitched songs, which seems to be most of what we play. The only problem I had was a loss of tension in the strings, losing that zing that some have spoken of. Thicker gauge strings sorted that out though. 

[casapete]

5 hours ago, IainS said:

The only problem I had was a loss of tension in the strings, losing that zing that some have spoken of. Thicker gauge strings sorted that out though. 

I thought I may need to up the gauge on mine, but down just a semitone hasn't made it necessary. I keep one bass in that

tuning all the time, as I think constantly changing tunings may cause problems. (Haven't needed to adjust the neck at all in

7 or 8 years.)

[TheInfectedDonut]

I have a few songs written in Eb. I do lead vocals in my band for now and we sometimes have to tune to D standard or C# because my vocals are baritone. I actually prefer the lower tunings, sounds more melodic that way.

[shamrock198804]

I hated tuning my bass down, but I have played in a few bands where we tuned half-step down and one with a whole step down tuning.

I felt that the guitar just sounded wrong. I don't have perfect pitch (quite the opposite I'd say, my musical ear is terrible) and yet in my opinion the guitar in concert pitch simply sounds right, sings better.

Edited March 30, 2018 by shamrock198804

[joeystrange]

One of my bands does this.

Apparently when the guitarist (who started the band and writes the songs) started playing he didn’t have any kind of tuner so he tuned to Weezer’s Pinkerton album and has tuned to Eb ever since.