Downtuning - What difference does it make?

[Nail Soup]

Inspired by the "how can I drop my bass to F# ?" thread.

How much difference does dropping the tuning actually make? 

Just a subtle difference or a big game changer?

I mean why can't people just play in normal tuning - a lot of the heaviness must come from the amp settings, notes played, drumming style, vocals and so on. 

 

Is it about being able to use thicker strings without having to increase the tension or something?

 

Most music I listen to is probably not in the drop-tuning world.. but I do listen to a bit of Napalm Death and The Melvins.

 

[Lozz196]

For me it’s a good thing to do if it’s to match the singers range - a good example of this was in The Dirt, the band started Live Wire in regular tuning and the Vince wasn’t getting it, so they detuned to D and suddenly it was there.

But I’ve found that in the songs which I play with a low D even the higher notes on that string just sound wrong to me.
One gig I did the singer had throat issues so we dropped to Eb, and I found it horrible, just couldn’t get the pitch right in my head.

[Ed_S]

Completely agree about doing it to best match up with a singer - my main band was down a full step in D to begin with, then a half step to Eb for the next singer, then back in standard for the one after that. We had a handful of songs that they all did down in C, but as soon as Drop pedals became a thing we'd stop taking extra instruments and just use those to achieve extra half-steps-down from whatever default tuning we were in. I guess it's kinda laziness on my part as I could have just as well played a 5 in standard for all those tunings, but a fair few of the lines included open strings so it was just easier to match the guitars and join in with the pedal riffs etc.

 

The acoustic singer-songwriter that I used to accompany had a hell of a range and would capo and sing wherever took her fancy that day. It wasn't always the same place for a given song, so no tuning would be any better than any other for me and consequently I just played a 5 in standard and moved to wherever the songs happened to be that day. I realise not everyone would like that kind of arrangement, but since the music didn't exactly lend itself to riffs off the open strings and I have no idea which notes I'm playing anyway (everything is just relative position and play-by-ear to me) it made no difference what she was up to - I just found the first note and played from there.

 

I'm not much of a fan of down-tuning 5s to try and achieve heaviness by default, as whenever I watch a band where it seems like they've gone that way, the bass is so often lost under a sea of equally down-tuned 7+ string guitars and none of it ends up sounding all that heavy to me because there's no note definition left. If the guitars are routinely going that far down, I'd actually be considering going up to find some space! To my mind, a heavy riff is still a heavy riff in standard, and it's usually even heavier if everybody keeps out of each others frequencies, dials back the gain a little and really digs in like they mean it.

 

As far as thicker strings for lower tuning goes, it didn't work out that way for me. I actually used 40/60/80/100 in Eb and D with 60/75/95/125 on the bass in C before the Drop pedal era, whereas I'll happily use 45/65/85/105/135 in standard. Couldn't tell you why other than to say the resulting sound and feel was how I wanted it at the time - I wasn't trying to be buck any trends or prove any points.

[SteveXFR]

The two you mentioned, Melvins and Napalm Death don't actually tune all that low. Some of the heaviest music is in E or drop D. Black metal is nearly Al in standard tuning.

Lower tunings are great for getting that sludgy sound that bands like Eyehategod and Crowbar use. Quite often where low tunings are used in doom and stoner metal, the lowest notes are used sparingly as a doomy accent. 

For me, the sweet spot is tuning down to C and some disgusting fuzz on top.

I think this is a perfect example of what low tunings can do. He's tuned to B but doesn't often drop below C#

 

[fretmeister]

When I play a 5 strings I often drop the B string to A.

Simple reason - I often have to play piano parts and the lowest note on a concert grand is that A so I can play the part as intended.

 

For guitar use - I'm usually in D-D or C-C because over the years my voice has got deeper and as the songs I wrote already used the lowest notes I had nowhere else to go for transposing the tune downwards.

Lowering the tuning of the guitar also means I don't have to relearn the songs for different fingerings which I would have to do if I got a 7 string and kept it in concert standard tuning. That would be a massive faff especially with any part that used open strings a lot.

 

 

[MacDaddy]

Extended fretboard for the low D does for me. No need to compensate down the next either.

[T-Bay]

We always play a half step down live for the comfort of the singer, but play standard if doing any recording.

[LeftyJ]

My old band (female-fronted metal) had a singer that always had a tendency to sing at a very high pitch, but we really wanted to get away from the classic gothic metal flow and adopt a more poppy and modern approach, so we wanted her to sing an octave lower. It turned out not to match her range very well in standard tuning. One of our guitarists already played a 7-string, and both the previous bass player and me played a 5-string bass, and playing at a lower pitch really helped getting the whole band to sound more like we had in mind. It wasn't long before our other guitarist also bought his first 7-string, and it worked wonders for our sound as a whole. 

 

 

[SteveXFR]

18 minutes ago, LeftyJ said:

My old band (female-fronted metal) had a singer that always had a tendency to sing at a very high pitch, but we really wanted to get away from the classic gothic metal flow and adopt a more poppy and modern approach, so we wanted her to sing an octave lower. It turned out not to match her range very well in standard tuning. One of our guitarists already played a 7-string, and both the previous bass player and me played a 5-string bass, and playing at a lower pitch really helped getting the whole band to sound more like we had in mind. It wasn't long before our other guitarist also bought his first 7-string, and it worked wonders for our sound as a whole. 

 

 

 

I like that, it sounds really good. It's almost a bit like Paradise Lost (Draconian Times era). The low bass really works well with the high vocals. 

[Joe Nation]

Thanks for bringing this up. Only other day - having just got my first 5 string - I was wondering about the pros/cons of playing a 5 versus a 4 in drop-D. Guess it depends on how much you need the open D or if you just need a lower D and Eb.

[MichaelDean]

I think it also gives an instrument a different feel compared to one in standard tuning and can inspire different music. @Joe Nation, I also find that a 4 downtuned sounds heavier on the open D to the fretted D on a 5 string, plus the instrument feel thing also applies there. I think it's possibly more important for electric guitars too as it gives different chord shapes, and then as a bassist it's nice to have the root in the same relative pitch.

 

Wouldn't it just be boring if everyone did everything the same too? 🙂

[Doctor J]

I've been a fan of tuning down since I started playing in the late 80's. The first band where I was actually able to downtune was when I wrote all the music and we played slooooowww, which formed in 92. Since Sabbath had tuned to C#, we decided to go "one lower" and tune to C. It really suited the music. After I left that band, they continued, playing the songs I wrote, but tuned to E. It was awful 😂   Since then, I have played in bands who tuned to dropped-D, another who went between B standard and dropped-A and another who tuned down to A standard but had some songs in dropped-G. It's down to the music you're playing, that darkness and weight really suits lower tempo, heavy music. The last stuff I put out was tuned down to A. There is a lot of joy to be had playing the same octave as the guitar and then introducing to low A on the bass for effect. It's something I have always enjoyed immensely since I was a kid, but it's definitely not right for all music types. Some examples...

 

 

 

[Doctor J]

As for the difference it makes... even though Geezer never tuned down to match the guitar, there is weight to the early version which is missing from the effort a few years later when they tuned to E

 

[SteveXFR]

It seems that heavy bands who play fast (Slayer for example) often tune to E or D# but heavy bands who play slow (Crowbar, Down etc) tune low to add weight to their sound .

[Doctor J]

It takes more time for a low frequency wave to be generated, it doesn't suit speed at all. Fast downtuned stuff usually sounds like mush. Why rush? 😁

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, Doctor J said:

It takes more time for a low frequency wave to be generated, it doesn't suit speed at all. Fast downtuned stuff usually sounds like mush. Why rush? 😁

 

Very true although maybe Sunn o))) could play more than a note a minute. 

[thodrik]

Latter period Slayer saw them use 7 strings tuned to B. Of course, a 7 string in standard tuning will be a lot tighter than tuning a guitar with light gauge strings down to B.

 

A lot of it comes down to set up both in terms guitar and amp set ups. A lot of Machine Head's classic more thrashy stuff is in C sharp 'sabbath tuning' but it sounds very crisp (or crap depending on your opinion of post-Blackening material). 

 

I quite like faster downtuned stuff like High on Fire and old Mastodon and Baroness which to me is a bit of mix of downtuned classic rock with little bits of thrash metal and sludge thrown in. Even then I don't consider the music to be unduly heavy compared to a brutally aggressive thrash band playing in standard tuning. What is 'heavy' can vary from one person to another. I just to focus on whether I actually like it. There is lots of heavily downtuned Roadrunner Records type generic metal which I don't consider to be 'heavy' at all. 

 

I am also pretty sure Geezer tuned down to match the guitar both live and in the studio and has given interviews saying as much. He probably did a fair number of songs on standard tuned bass live if he didn't have a spare to hand or he simply forgot to tune down or switch basses on account that the 70s were a wild time. 

[Cosmo Valdemar]

2 hours ago, Doctor J said:

As for the difference it makes... even though Geezer never tuned down to match the guitar, there is weight to the early version which is missing from the effort a few years later when they tuned to E

 

That Never Say Die concert is hilarious. Standard tuning but playing the riffs in the same position - so, on record, Symptom of The Universe riff is in E but played in C# tuning but suddenly jumps up to G in standard. 

Ozzy looks like he's going to give himself a hernia.

 

I always thought Geezer's tuning matched Iommi's though...

[thodrik]

5 minutes ago, Cosmo Valdemar said:

I always thought Geezer's tuning matched Iommi's though...

He generally did. It just sounds like he isn't at times because Geezer played a lot of his stuff in the higher registers anyway so it doesn't necessarily sound downtuned. 

[ubit]

Nah, dropping down never works

 

 

 

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, ubit said:

Nah, dropping down never works

 

 

 

 

Back when they were great. That era of QOTSA was their peak. 

My daughter is called Flo because we saw QOTSA a month before she was born and they opened with Go with the flow. Lucky they didn't open with Regular John.

[BreadBin]

Did you see them on this tour @SteveXFR? Oh how I wish I had...

 

[thodrik]

13 minutes ago, BreadBin said:

Did you see them on this tour @SteveXFR? Oh how I wish I had...

 

I saw them on the UK tour later that year, though by then Dave Grohl had left and Joey Castillo had joined. I think that Dave Grohl only every played a select few dates over the summer. Immense drummer as always though. 

For me that is definitely the absolute peak for the band. 

[StickyDBRmf]

Because I play the Chapman Stick, I tend to mess with standard sets of strings on my basses as low as (low-to-high) C# F# B E. Still a sharp key, fret markers don't make me insane, and I like the looser tension - as the Stick is lower tension (although special design strings). But if I were playing with mates, who knows. My guitars have mediums & I never tune to Standard they are always Joni Tunings or some such pertubation. The Stick is a keyless instrument (no open strings and fret markers are five frets apart which makes sense in 4ths & 5ths tunings) so my brain has kinda exploded...I currently do not own 5-string, but when I did, it was EADGC and I would detune to D when needed. Of course I do also have a 8-string fretless that sounds bonkers when the E's are tuned to C and the other octaves strings are tuned down a 4th...

[SteveXFR]

1 hour ago, BreadBin said:

Did you see them on this tour @SteveXFR? Oh how I wish I had...

 

 

Yes I did, at Glastonbury. The best set I've ever seen at the festival. 

I also saw them on the Rated R tour supporting Foo Fighter with Motorhead at Hyde Park then on the Era Vulgaris tour at Bristol O2 and Reading Festival and then in 2011 at Bournemouth O2.

They were amazing live each time but I wouldn't see them again unless they make another heavy record. Songs for the deaf was their peak for me.