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Downtuning Mega-Thread

#42
SturmUndDrang said:
Let's try to rev up this thread to make it mega worthy. How about some musical examples of drop tuned songs. Are there certain phrases or tunes that scream out , this was definitely played in drop D or C or what have you?
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SOOOO much metal. But a song you wouldn't necessarily expect is Tame Impala's "Elephant". It's a whole step down, and the bass fills are TASTY


 
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#44
SturmUndDrang said:
This is another great down tuned song. I figured we might as well start from the pioneers. I think Sabbath is playing in C#/Db standard instead of drop tuned.
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History:
Tony Iommi lost the tips of his middle and ring finger the last day at his regular job. He looked around for lighter strings to reduce the tension of the strings, and in doing so, the pain in his fingers. At first he used banjo strings since light strings weren't a think in early 70s. Starting on Master of Reality, they adopted a standard C# or C tuning. If you watch Tony play, he tends to play pretty high up the neck, because there is less tension there.
Geezer started experimenting with different brands of basses since he didn't like his Fenders tuned down. John Birch, who made Tony's SG knock off, made him his white "coke" bass do handle this. Unfortunately Geezer has never really said much about his setup as far as scale, string gauge, nut height, action, etc. These days it is believed that he uses a custom .115 set of Black Beauty strings. Personally, I wish DR would introduce a .115 Lo Rider and Hi-Beam set.
 
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#45
For examples of seriously low tuning, the first bands I personally am aware of that went B or lower was Carcass and Bolt Thrower. Carcass has always used a B tuning, and on Realms of Chaos, Bolt Thrower used an A tuning, which the bassist, Jo Bench, said was dreadful to play. In the late 80s it was probably hard for an underground grind band in the UK to get strings and a proper set up for that.


 
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#46
socialleper said:
History:
Tony Iommi lost the tips of his middle and ring finger the last day at his regular job. He looked around for lighter strings to reduce the tension of the strings, and in doing so, the pain in his fingers. At first he used banjo strings since light strings weren't a think in early 70s. Starting on Master of Reality, they adopted a standard C# or C tuning. If you watch Tony play, he tends to play pretty high up the neck, because there is less tension there.
Geezer started experimenting with different brands of basses since he didn't like his Fenders tuned down. John Birch, who made Tony's SG knock off, made him his white "coke" bass do handle this. Unfortunately Geezer has never really said much about his setup as far as scale, string gauge, nut height, action, etc. These days it is believed that he uses a custom .115 set of Black Beauty strings. Personally, I wish DR would introduce a .115 Lo Rider and Hi-Beam set.
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It's funny that Geezer has kinda come full circle on basses, as in the last decade or so he's mostly used Laklands, which are essentially superfenders.
 
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#47
socialleper said:
For examples of seriously low tuning, the first bands I personally am aware of that went B or lower was Carcass and Bolt Thrower. Carcass has always used a B tuning, and on Realms of Chaos, Bolt Thrower used an A tuning, which the bassist, Jo Bench, said was dreadful to play. In the late 80s it was probably hard for an underground grind band in the UK to get strings and a proper set up for that.


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Oh, how I loved Carcass.
 
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#48
Korladis said:
It's funny that Geezer has kinda come full circle on basses, as in the last decade or so he's mostly used Laklands, which are essentially superfenders.
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I think uses Fender in the studio but tours with the Laklands. In an ad for either his pickups or Lakland, he said he doesn't trust his old Fender basses on the road. Too "touchy" or something.
 
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#49
socialleper said:
I think uses Fender in the studio but tours with the Laklands. In an ad for either his pickups or Lakland, he said he doesn't trust his old Fender basses on the road. Too "touchy" or something.
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Makes sense.

I wouldn't want to tour with vintage Fenders either. Especially subjecting them to all the temperature and humidity changes when he probably has them perfectly dialed in for studio work.
 
#52
socialleper said:
Weekly we all see questions from bass players on TB about downtuning their instruments, so I thought I would start a single thread to act as a resource to current and future users.
Tuning a bass lower than the standard EADG, BEADG, or BEADGC is a little bit of a dark art. It is something that bassists do enough to warrant a discussion about it, but not enough to garner a broad discussion with solid procedures for getting it just right.
That's where this thread comes in.
I want to share some of my successes, frustrations, and failures with trying to bend the rules to make an instrument set up for one tuning, work in another. Feel free to add your tips and tricks as well.
What this is not a thread for is the response "Why do you need to tune lower" or things along the lines of "Just use a 5 string if you need a low D or C." Sometimes people need to go lower than E; deal with it. If, by now, you don't understand why a player needs an open D C, B, or anything lower, I don't know if explaining it would be a good use of time.
Regardless, if you think your response will be anything close to the two trains of thought above, do everyone a favor, and just don't.
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Currently the lowest I go is drop A for a few songs. I have had a bass set up with low f# in the past. Sounded cool but we just never really wrote songs in keys where I was really using it, which is why drop A works out for me.

My advice for everyone who wants to tune super low. Get yourselves a good DI and let the PA do the heavy lifting. The super low frequencies will bleed back onto the stage if the PA subs are worth a damn so you don't need a ton of low end Coming out of your rig, well unless youre at home and want to see if you can vibrate pictures off the wall or stuff off of shelves lol. i use an Avalon u5 with the eq turned off, bass is flat and really only use eq on my Darkglass pedals for my dirty tones. I don't recommend buying a super low tuned cab because unless you're mainly at home or small gigs with no Pa subs. And avoid microphones because like speakers they have their own frequency ranges. A low tuned cab paired with powerful PA subs and low tunings is a mud nightmare.
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#53
Nephilymbass said:
Currently the lowest I go is drop A for a few songs. I have had a bass set up with low f# in the past. Sounded cool but we just never really wrote songs in keys where I was really using it, which is why drop A works out for me.

My advice for everyone who wants to tune super low. Get yourselves a good DI and let the PA do the heavy lifting. The super low frequencies will bleed back onto the stage if the PA subs are worth a damn so you don't need a ton of low end Coming out of your rig, well unless youre at home and want to see if you can vibrate pictures off the wall or stuff off of shelves lol. i use an Avalon u5 with the eq turned off, bass is flat and really only use eq on my Darkglass pedals for my dirty tones. I don't recommend buying a super low tuned cab because unless you're mainly at home or small gigs with no Pa subs. And avoid microphones because like speakers they have their own frequency ranges. A low tuned cab paired with powerful PA subs and low tunings is a mud nightmare. View attachment 2778550View attachment 2778549 View attachment 2778548
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Good advice.

Nice Warwick. I'd like to get my hands on a Thumb. I wish they would put the 6 string pickups on the 5 string.
 
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#56
LCAirPasta said:
I'm so glad this thread exists. I joined a band a month or two ago that tunes to C# or drops the low C# to B for their songs. I tried about 3 different sets of strings, I HATED how floppy they were. What I ended up doing is custom ordering a set of strings from StringJoy (.145/.105/.075/.055) and those have worked best for my Rick. I had the file the nut a bit but now my action is as low or maybe lower than even my Jazz bass that's in standard. The tension still isn't really high enough for me, but it's the closest I've gotten to what I want. The annoying part is that we are a metal band and so I do a lot of triplets on the lower strings to match the guitarist's riffs and the tension is lower so I end up getting that clacky,clangy sound on my Rick. Still, it's better than trying to make do with a .115 or even a 5 string .130. And honestly that's a minor complaint.
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If you want to avoid floppy but go with lower gauges, try the La Bella Drop Tune strings.
 
#60
LCAirPasta said:
Are they flats or rounds? I'd love to try some really thick gauge flats with this metal project
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See post#24 in this thread. I have since ditched my La Bellas for SIT Rock Bright nickels in a .110 gauge. They're much easier to get around on but I wouldn't tune them lower than D standard in that gauge. You should probably check out the DR DDTs or Dunlop heavy cores or maybe the Heavy set of SIT Power Wounds .060 to .120
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