Tuning to suit the guitarist

[EliasMooseblaster 825]

On 11/03/2019 at 13:45, cheddatom said:

I've been jamming with a guitarist who tunes to drop C or C standard, depending on the song. I just keep my bass in standard tuning. When he plays a riff I just figure it out and play along. When I play a riff and he wants to play along he stares at my left hand and I have to remind him that that's useless.

A friend of mine joined some kind of metal band (like the good friend I am, I never got round to listening to them) where the two guitarists played everything in C-standard. As he already favoured 6-string basses, he found it was easiest just to tune his bass up a semitone...is there a term for the opposite of "drop" tuning?

[Monkey Steve 1,011]

On 12/03/2019 at 15:06, EliasMooseblaster said:

A friend of mine joined some kind of metal band (like the good friend I am, I never got round to listening to them) where the two guitarists played everything in C-standard. As he already favoured 6-string basses, he found it was easiest just to tune his bass up a semitone...is there a term for the opposite of "drop" tuning?

I did this for a band that I depped with at Christmas - the songs on their last album were in standard E, but everything prior to that was tuned down (on the guitars) to a C.  I tried it with just my 5 string and just re-tuned up half a step for the songs in C, and back down again for the songs in E.  Then after a while I brought a second bass, left that in E and left the fiver in C.  I did also experiment with a capo, but by the time I'd checked the tuning it wasn't any easier than re-tuning properly or changing the bass.

My preference for "drop" tuning on the guitars is simply to move to the low B on my 5 string, but if the whole guitar is up or down a semi tone or even a fourth, then from experience it's usually best to match that, especially where you want/need to use open strings

[EliasMooseblaster 825]

On 12/03/2019 at 11:59, ChrisLovatt said:

Two of the songs were in drop E, then were funny with me when I just played in standard tuning lmao

Drop E? So is that a 7-string (or baritone) tuned down a fourth - with the bottom string the same pitch as a standard 4-string bass?

Sometimes I wonder how many sludge/doom metal bands have seriously experimented with playing their rhythm guitar parts on heavily distorted Bass VIes...

[ChrisLovatt 27]

1 hour ago, EliasMooseblaster said:

Drop E? So is that a 7-string (or baritone) tuned down a fourth - with the bottom string the same pitch as a standard 4-string bass?

Sometimes I wonder how many sludge/doom metal bands have seriously experimented with playing their rhythm guitar parts on heavily distorted Bass VIes...

Yeah, the guitarist had an 8 string that he tuned E B E A D G B E
I played around with a Kalium string that was as thick as a pencil but saying it sounded "muddy" was a hell of an understatement.

So I recorded the songs and used the normal E on my five string as the low note, think he pitched corrected it down an octave, its barely even distinguishable on the recording though. 

[Stub Mandrel 6,417]

This reminds me I once had a jam with the guitarist from Impaler. I basically turned up the bass and daisy chained myself through a HM2 pedal and phaser. This was flat out through 150 watt stack in the living room of the house I was living in.

We had a lot of fun and I was later described as a 'def' bass player. They had two guitarists one of whom did the bass, I should have pushed my luck as they might have let me join!

Edited March 13, 2019 by Stub Mandrel

[stingrayPete1977 3,082]

On 11/03/2019 at 13:01, Happy Jack said:

I'm in the lucky position that my band only plays one song which is a real struggle even on a 5-string

 

Is it two really short sets or one really long version to fill the night Jack? 

[Stub Mandrel 6,417]

4 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

On 11/03/2019 at 13:01, Happy Jack said:

I'm in the lucky position that my band only plays one song which is a real struggle even on a 5-string

 

Is it two really short sets or one really long version to fill the night Jack? 

That's what I call prog 🙂

[stingrayPete1977 3,082]

On 12/03/2019 at 14:35, Stub Mandrel said:

What would be cool would be a partial capo for the low string allowing you to select a drone note to suit.

You could even set you 5-string bass up like a 5-string banjo!

<edit>

It looks like they used to exist!

http://www.woodieshanger.com/shop/woodies-g-band-single-string-partial-capo/

 

Double basses can have "an extension" which is an extra piece of finger board past the nut with a lever that folds over to activate or eliminate the extra portion, the Kubiki bass had something similar a hundred years later and bass players thought they'd reinvented the wheel! 

[cheddatom 753]

On 12/03/2019 at 15:06, EliasMooseblaster said:

A friend of mine joined some kind of metal band (like the good friend I am, I never got round to listening to them) where the two guitarists played everything in C-standard. As he already favoured 6-string basses, he found it was easiest just to tune his bass up a semitone...is there a term for the opposite of "drop" tuning?

I actually used to do a version of this. The guitarist played in drop A# so I tuned my B string down a semi tone and the other strings up a semi tone. It worked really well! It turned out to be essential with that particular guitarist as he had to learn the riffs by watching my left hand, he had no idea what notes he was playing

[rOB 45]

Sometimes I've matched the guitar/s, sometimes not. Depends on the music style and the parts.

Currently my band only plays in standard or drop D so I have a detuner fitted to my E string. Keeps things simple for me.