Detuning your bass: standard vs. drop tunings

[Anders Barfod]

I doubt AC/DC ever switches guitars live for 430 tuning.

I also doubt that,, but not sure tape speed manipulation is the reason for all their different tunings on all the old stuff..
Some lesser vocal talents like 80s madonna it is pretty obvious that her voice is recorded in a slightly lower pitch and the vocal track increased in speed to match the instrument track at A4=440Hz,, Take "borderline" ,, pretty obvious..

 

[Honch]

Sloppy strings with a very sharp (pitch) attack is not good in my own opinion.

Now, hear here. For the first time, you're making sense. Hence one of the reasons for fanned frets basses. You can lean in on the low string without them initially going up sharp in pitch. Usually it's way more than any plus minus 5 cents.

 

[Honch]

And as for old recordings being in off tunings, more often than not it was manipulation of tape speed, or they didn’t have tuners and tuned to each other. I doubt AC/DC ever switches guitars live for 430 tuning.

Mostly this was in the vinyl days. Where they just had to. You had only so much time you could cram into one side of vinyl, and where the songs just a tad too long, and the pauses between them short enough, you could cram them in if you raised pitch ON ALL TRACKS at the tape machine. You couldn't do it too much, because over 50-60 cents sharp you start to hear the "sample" pitch change too much expecially on drums and voices (since they were the only acoustic instruments left in a general rock band). This was not even a producer thing, but a record company thing compared to todays "loudness wars". If you had a turntable with adjustable strobe speed that was floating you could bring it down to "proper" recorded pitch with lowering the 33 1/3 rpm or whatever it was. You did lose some bass, and some noise increased as well. Just the same thing as they dabbled with putting all slow ballads or not dense tracks at the inner tracks of the vinyl. The needle derailed in that case.

My bigget gripe today, is that I still hear those things on iTunes, Spotify, and Tidal, as well as remastered CD's of past. On CD this was a totally no-no. And all digital. BTW DJ's doing this all the time, and they align the BPM instead, and couldn't care less if the pitch was a full step too sharp or a full step too flat. But I tell you, nothing in within 5 cent pitch range.

 

[Honch]

I also doubt that,, but not sure tape speed manipulation is the reason for all their different tunings on all the old stuff..

I also think that it was absolutely no reason for it to "sound better" or "sound different". Since they had no keyboards they had nothing relative to tune up to, they just grabbed their guitar and basses and made sure every one was in tune with each other and then went on. Zeppelin did the same. Listen carefully to Led Zeppelin III and a number of songs - mainly acoustic - are all over the place. When "That's The Way" starts I always get the shivers, because it's "between" the pitch of the former song, and not a half step...

AC/DC was a rock band and not that picky about it at all. Believe me. Numerous tape recorders has been left with the "adjust speed" button whenever recording some big time bands and hits, and when the engineer discovers it, he goes "uh oh", and reset it to default and then listen back and thinks "uh oh, not that bad". They just turned it so it was "somewhat 12 o clock". They forgot to push it all the wack in/down to nail 15 ips or whatever. I think it's there most such things come from at least in the old analog days.

There were also - but this was rare - that something recorded at the end of a tape, would have different speed, than if in beginning of the tape. But that was more due to misalignment of the tape recorder itself by and large. I e the deck was i need of service and re-alignment, and maintenance.

 

[Savage_Dreams]

Mostly this was in the vinyl days. Where they just had to. You had only so much time you could cram into one side of vinyl, and where the songs just a tad too long, and the pauses between them short enough, you could cram them in if you raised pitch ON ALL TRACKS at the tape machine. You couldn't do it too much, because over 50-60 cents sharp you start to hear the "sample" pitch change too much expecially on drums and voices (since they were the only acoustic instruments left in a general rock band). This was not even a producer thing, but a record company thing compared to todays "loudness wars". If you had a turntable with adjustable strobe speed that was floating you could bring it down to "proper" recorded pitch with lowering the 33 1/3 rpm or whatever it was. You did lose some bass, and some noise increased as well. Just the same thing as they dabbled with putting all slow ballads or not dense tracks at the inner tracks of the vinyl. The needle derailed in that case.

My bigget gripe today, is that I still hear those things on iTunes, Spotify, and Tidal, as well as remastered CD's of past. On CD this was a totally no-no. And all digital. BTW DJ's doing this all the time, and they align the BPM instead, and couldn't care less if the pitch was a full step too sharp or a full step too flat. But I tell you, nothing in within 5 cent pitch range.

that may be true of some stuff that ended up at a higher than normal pitch, not that ive ever heard it mentioned to any specific albums. but there are plenty of recordings that are slightly lower than normal pitch because they were slowed down just a tad to make them sound thicker or heavier.

 

[Honch]

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[Anders Barfod]

Now, hear here. For the first time, you're making sense. Hence one of the reasons for fanned frets basses. You can lean in on the low string without them initially going up sharp in pitch. Usually it's way more than any plus minus 5 cents.

Yes going extended range ,, fan fretted is the Way to go. The 37” scale dingwall has the greatest low tight clean B string that Can be used Well above the 7 Fret and still Sound “Right” .. you can get a 35” 5 string to get a tighter low B but the High D and G string is not as round (sweet) as on conventional 32-34” scale.

A certain range fits a certain scale lenght. Just look at a grand piano

 

[Honch]

Yes going extended range ,, fan fretted is the Way to go. The 37” scale dingwall has the greatest low tight clean B string that Can be used Well above the 7 Fret and still Sound “Right” .. you can get a 35” 5 string to get a tighter low B but the High D and G string is not as round (sweet) as on conventional 32-34” scale.

Hence my capo thing. With using a fanned fret 4 string. Tuned BEAD (low B starts at 36.5"), with capo on 5th to "impersonate" regular EADG tuning. You can play up the neck on the thick string without it sounding sour, out of "tune" (intonation), or something else. Whatever, it sounds almost like a short scale bass anyway with short notes popping out. Yes, look at any grand piano, any church organ, or any other acoustic instrument.