D tuning

[Harro72]

You have probably seen this question before and believe me I have done a search, but the search page comes up with the line;

"not enough letters in your search request... do da do da"

Anyhoo... I have a EBMM Sterling which has a D tuner. SO at a flick of a thingy, I can be in D. Now, do I tune the rest of the strings to this??

Im trying to learn the song Lookin' Out My Backdoor (CCR), which the tab says that requires a 5 string bass. Can I tune to D and still play the song??

Thankyou, I bow to the wisdom and knowledge of the TB forums.

[black_labb]

tuning to d started with guitarists tuning to d so they could play powerchords on a single fret, so 1 finger could be used. its really dadgbe. often bassists in bands that usually use dadgbe tuning tune their bass to d so that they can go an octave below the guitar on those 2 extra notes.

some bassists will tune it to d and then tune to the same interval as eadg, but most just drop the one string as thats all they need, and its quick, especially when the band changes tunings a few times during the set. the piece you have lets you do it without ear/tuner.

re. the song, if the lowest note is a d (or higher) then you will be able to play it after figuring out where the notes lie, but most likely it needs the lowb

[JTE]

First, there's no way "Lookin' Out My Back Door", at least as recorded by CCR "needs' a five string!! That was recorded in 1970 or so! It's been decades since I've heard it, but I think it's in G. You may need a low D to get part of it, but not a five-string at all.

OK, now about the D-tuner. It drops the E string down to D. There's no reason to retune the whole bass. It gives you what I belive is called "Drop D" instead of tuning the whole bass down. I have them on all my working 4-string basses, and have since they first came out around 1985 or so. Great devices. You'll need to think two frets lower on stuff, but if you need a D or Eb below the regular tuned E, they're handy, easy, reliable, and make more sense to me than a fiver. And I do own a great five-string bass, but I'll still flip my HipShot to get the open D on the other basses rather than switch basses.

jte

[DocBop]

To the OP question no.

The de-tuners are for temporarily dropping your E string down to D. They got the idea from Classical DB players who use extender's to drop down to a C. You want to use a drop tuning just tune the whole bass down. Be careful drop tuning change the tension on your strings and you'll probably get lots of rattles and noise. That is why many use a second bass setup for drop tunings.