Black Hole Sun tuning mystery solved!

[ArtechnikA]

Fretless.
Done...

 

[ElectroVibe]

When I was young I used to use a certain a cassette to tune my acoustic. It might have been Buddy Holly greatest hits which I think were usually in tune.

 

[kjp360]

Some folklore claims that various bands/producers have used the vari speed on their tape decks to sharpen or flatten a song because a) it 'sounded better' or b) it becomes harder to steal the chops (especially if not out a full semitone).

 

[ElectroVibe]

I read that Paul McCartney got in a panic because he thought that Revolver was out of tune. It may have actually been, but that just goes to show how unimportant perfect tuning really is.

 

[OogieWaWa]

"No, I didn't say I wanted you guys to play a blue note; I want them ALL to be blue notes."

 

[aprod]

But they also tuned in minor fifths

What is a minor fifth?

 

[aprod]

Getting sucked into this rabbit hole, a minor fifth is in the quarter tone scale between a diminished fifth and a perfect fifth.

That is nonsense.

 

[MattZilla]

That is nonsense.

it is fact.

I used that fact as a joke.
A not-funny joke, but still a joke.

 

[boggus]

It is supposed to be more harmonic and pleasant than 440hZ. It is supposed to help your Chakra or Shakra, and stuff like that.

That whole "432Hz is natural spiritual blablabla" is ofc pure BS. It was amusing to see people uploading pitch-shifted version of songs to youtube with "432HZ" added in the video title and hordes of comments were like "OMG that is so awesome, sounds sooooo natural and sooooo better!!!".

To have Black Old Sun match the "A=440Hz" tuning, you have to pitch-shift the track +40 cents (1 cent = 1/100th of a semitone). Which would make Black Hole Sun to be in ~429,9 Hz tuning really.

This thing would be quite common on a lot of classic rock records, due to many reasons. As technology got better, the 'tuning' and 'pitch' stability got better as well, and was non-existent already in the 80s and especially in 90s and 2000s, unless it was done on purpose - for example, Dimebag from Pantera always downtuned a little bit from whatever tuning he was in, and he could downtune -40, -25, or -50 cents.

I read that Paul McCartney got in a panic because he thought that Revolver was out of tune. It may have actually been, but that just goes to show how unimportant perfect tuning really is.

That's what he said, but I think it's because mostly of the sound of the album, it's very compressed and has a lot of distortion in the midrange because of it, especially in the mono version, which Beatles were accustomed to. I'm not sure what is really 'out of tune' on Revolver, compared to their other albums and songs. Even their last recorded album, Abbey Road, has a track Here Comes the Sun where the bass is like +30 cents sharper than guitars...

 

[MattZilla]

Some folklore claims that various bands/producers have used the vari speed on their tape decks to sharpen or flatten a song because a) it 'sounded better' or b) it becomes harder to steal the chops (especially if not out a full semitone).

I’ve spent way too long this morning trying to find which 70s-80s guitarist would slow the already recorded backing track and tune his guitar down then return to regular speed to achieve a faster sounding pick attack. I think it was Vinnie Vincent or Gary Glitter?

 

[Michedelic]

In 80 or 81, a lesser known guitarist by the name of Eddie Van Halen introduced a tuning that I hadn't experienced yet, drop D a whole step down. Which is actually Drop C. That disc was called Fair Warning. And later, Drop C tuning became extremely popular with Nu Metal bands. Van Halen, and scads of others, used a basic Flat tuning system. All their discs were recorded a Half Step below standard. Fair Warning took the Flat tuning a "step" further, pun intended, and changed the way kids tuned their guitars forever. Was Eddie the first? I doubt it. But it was the first I'd heard it. We loved it cuz our strings felt loose, and the sound was mean, heavy.

That was initiated by Tony Iommi way before that. Hendrix tuned a half step down as well.

 

[morgansterne]

All we have to do is shorten the official duration of a second slightly, and then 440 hz will become 432 hz without anybody having to retune.

 

[lizardking837]

All we have to do is shorten the official duration of a second slightly, and then 440 hz will become 432 hz without anybody having to retune.

Where's the petition, I'll sign it!

 

[5andFretless]

I played for years in a band that tuned to 432. All we did was tune to the keyboard, which you should do anyway instead of using independent tuners.

Never caused any issues. In fact, in practical application I never noticed a difference.

 

[Valvehead]

The minor fifth element in this thread is strong.
Diminished big badaboom!

 

[Valvehead]

Pearl Jam's "Even Flow" is out of tune too. Maybe air pressure and humidity were off in Seattle.

 

[Folmeister]

I got sucked into this whole thing with a guitarist. I was willing to give it listen, but when the Nazis entered the narrative and it strayed into Q-Anon conspiracies I pretty much wrote it off.

 

[2112]

Is there any sort of processor/stompbox out there that offers pitchshift retuning on-the-fly across a continuous range as opposed to the discrete steps offered by something like the Digitech Drop?

 

[micguy]

IIRC in an interview Eddie said they tuned slightly lower than standard (I forget the exact measurement) as it helped DLR's voice.

The story I heard was that Eddie would just tune his guitar to something he liked, everyone else would tune to whatever he was tuned to, and they'd go. Oddly, once they got to Jump (playing keyboards and guitar in the same song), suddenly everything was in normal tuning - he tuned his guitar to the keys, no doubt.

Whatever it was, I learned to play by playing along with the radio, and Van Halen songs were both annoying and also taught me how to tune fast on the fly.

 

[Drifter8230]

Is there any sort of processor/stompbox out there that offers pitchshift retuning on-the-fly across a continuous range as opposed to the discrete steps offered by something like the Digitech Drop?

That's a good idea, I'd invest in it! It would probably need a very fast processor to keep up with the input.

Edit: I've never heard of a pedal that can tune down intervals! I want it now