Band looking for advice

[the yeti]

Do the guitar and bass players not know what to do about this and they asked you?

if yes, you got the wrong players.
if no, "why you like waste time?"

 

[MDBass]

Drop G? With a pitch shifter? Can humans even hear this?

Bass players who play that low will say yes. I think they're the only ones.

The pitch shifter idea was to take the guitar an octave down to bass register, but...

When playing a bass in drop G (or F#) you're actually hearing the harmonic, not the fundamental, so yes it's quite audible; take a listen to Periphery, they use multiple tunings but most are F#-G#, and the bass is massive with a ton of note definition.

 

[MDBass]

Unfortunately yes..... I know a guitarist who sometimes tunes to drop F...... he tried drop E (as in a full octave below E standard) once but couldn't find a string gauge that would make it playable.....

My advice? Comprise and have him play a 6 string bass.....

GlassGloud plays in DOUBLE drop A:

 

[DwaynieAD]

Just because you can go that low, what does it bring to the party? Seriously... I get the feeling I'm missing something somewhere. (Wouldn't be the first time if so.) And even though I do like many metal bands, I'm an "old guy." And I don't get all the ultra-low tailchasing I'm seeing or hearing. Help me out with this one.

Personally I don't like it. It wasn't my decision as the tuning existed before I joined, I was just pointing out that its easily doable.

 

[the yeti]

Yep

wow. really? you need some different personnel.

 

[DwaynieAD]

This a nice vid, would like to hear a live recording, from the audience (not from the board). I didnt mean to call all droppers idiots, sorry if I came across that way. To slack a string 6 semitones is kinda beyond ... well, beyond. Sure, a low B can be detuned a semitone, but the the question was a guitar playing bass with an octive pedal, was it not- no low B.

Drop Tunings:
What matters for the purposes of fingering is the relative relationship among the strings. For example, a dropped B tuning has all strings tuned to different notes than a standard tuning, but the strings have the same relationship to each other as a drop D tuning (where only the 6th string differs from standard tuning), and as a result the fingerings are nearly the same as for standard tuning.
Drop a# Specifically:

Drop A♯/Drop B♭ - A♯-F-A♯-D♯-G-C / B♭-F-B♭-E♭-G-C

• Two full steps down from Drop D. Utilized by bands such as A Day To Remember (on Mr Highway's Thinking About The End, Welcome To The Family, Violence (Enough is Enough), Life Lessons Learned the Hard Way and Sticks and Bricks), Hostility, Issues, Static-X, Bring Me the Horizon (since Suicide Season), In Flames, Sybreed, Hellyeah, Amaranthe, Breaking Benjamin (since Phobia), Parkway Drive, Otep, Spineshank, RED, Bury Your Dead, Eye Empire, Dirge Within, Remembering Never, and occasionally Chevelle, Darkest Hour, Evanescence, [This invalid link has been removed], For the Fallen Dreams, and Sevendust.

What wer're discussing, is using a guitar, to simulate bass, with way slacked strings. Sounds like a recipe for mud. When I (used to) see bands like the youtube video posted, live, it was always mud and sound pressure. That has been my experience. Maybe non stadium bands in this vein dont sound muddy these days anymore live cos everything is better with gear and strings.
Im not saying cats in that those sub genres are all idiots, Im am saying that what Ive seen live is usally too loud, and overly full in the low end to the point where clarity goes bye bye. Just what Ive seen. You can rock any string tension you wish.

 

[the yeti]

So to start off, I'm the drummer for a heavy metal band... Thanks so much in advance!

this is genius! can't believe i didn't see it straight away. super complicated "what's the best bass for metal?" thread! ftw!

 

[fretter]

Didn't they have this in the 1960s, where some guitars and basses were almost identical? This approach doesn't make sense when you're talking about heavy, down tuned metal, in my humble opinion. It would be like the drummer for Amon Amarth using brushes.

 

[rufus.K]

Thanks for posting your band. Nice stuff, Seems like you had fun. It's muddy, with drum fills.

 

[Zodion]

Bass players who play that low will say yes. I think they're the only ones.

Low A is 27.5hz and I assume G is around 25. You're not hearing the fundamental at that point unless you have a 15" etc. I'm getting a dark lord bass set for F#. Harmonics at that point as the fundamental would be too muddy

 

[T2k5]

The amount of negative comments about the tuning in this thread is surprising; drop G is nothing new nor weird. I don't do drop tunings, I just get more strings, but I play F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb and there are absolutely no issues whatsoever with getting the low end heard (whether or not the fundamental gets cut off doesn't matter much). I'd recommend looking at Link Removed, you can go as low as you'd like. I'm using a .190 for the low F# and you can find up (or down) to .266 in there.

 

[PortlandBass77]

GlassGloud plays in DOUBLE drop A:

WHY?.............

 

[Zodion]

It's more "feel" than "hear", imho, though it still retains musical relevance. Maybe I like low frequencies because of my high frequency hearing loss.

What about the Warwick Dark Lord? People have been playing that through regular rigs and say it's fine

 

[rufus.K]

WHY?.............

Agreed. What gauge rubber bands make that sound?

 

[Zodion]

The amount of negative comments about the tuning in this thread is surprising; drop G is nothing new nor weird. I don't do drop tunings, I just get more strings, but I play F# B E A D G C F Bb Eb and there are absolutely no issues whatsoever with getting the low end heard (whether or not the fundamental gets cut off doesn't matter much). I'd recommend looking at Link Removed, you can go as low as you'd like. I'm using a .190 for the low F# and you can find up (or down) to .266 in there.

A lot of guys are saying you need special rigs but that's if you want the fundamental. Warwick dark lord was made for F# with a .175 on it and no one needs a special rig. (Important to me because I'm getting one)

 

[40Hz]

Personally I don't like it. It wasn't my decision as the tuning existed before I joined, I was just pointing out that its easily doable.

Thx for saying that. I agree it's doable. I just didn’t get it and I was afraid there was something I might be missing out on. I have pretty broad tastes when it comes to bass technique and performance. But there's just some stuff people are doing lately that seems more an attempt to be "different" purely to be different rather than any other reason since much of it doesn't seem to make much sense musically. At least to me. But I don't claim to know it all. So that's why I was asking.

 

[PortlandBass77]

Agreed. What gauge rubber bands make that sound?

 

[Eminor3rd]

Fender Bass VI?

 

[bholder]

What about the Warwick Dark Lord? People have been playing that through regular rigs and say it's fine

I dunno, how low does it go? It's not a matter of brand, it's a matter of what human ears are capable of. Again, folks are probably mostly hearing overtones and inferring the root tone.

Edit: I just looked it up, 35" scale length, nothing so impressive about that. The Quake is 39.55" If you want to go low, you need to go big.

 

[Zodion]

I dunno, how low does it go? It's not a matter of brand, it's a matter of what human ears are capable of. Again, folks are probably mostly hearing overtones and inferring the root tone.

It's made F#,B,E,A. I've seen in played and every little thing was designed to get that low F to sound good