Drop E0 tuning

[Bill Murray]

Distortion in the mix with E0? Whatcha tryin' to do, register a seismic event?

actually yes hahaha

 

[bholder]

actually yes hahaha

"One Ping Only"

 

[mrkrinkledude]

Distortion in the mix with E0? Whatcha tryin' to do, register a seismic event?

Wait, I thought that’s what we were all trying to do

I could only imagine how massive it would sound on your fretless bass.

 

[bholder]

Also reminds me of the story of Edward Teller, "Father of the Hydrogen Bomb", and how he announced that the first successful ("Castle Bravo Ivy Mike") H-Bomb test was a success - sitting at a seismograph in California, thousands of miles from the test site, looking at his watch and the graph, seeing the spike, suddenly announces "It's A Boy!". :dark evil scientist smiley:

 

[gricko]

Hey all,
I play in a death metal band and we have new songs that are in drop E0. The guitarist tunes to EBEADG....

all joking aside - 20Hz of E0 is very [if not extremely] hard to reproduce/amplify. mainstream amps will lose a lot of power trying to amplify low frequencies that you generate. mainstream speakers will lose power trying to reproduce frequencies they are not designed to reproduce.
if you insist on E0, you might take into consideration playing through a PA-like rig. some kind of preamp that can output different freq.ranges to different channels, that you could amplify through different amp/cab chains.
if that is your path - kalium used to have a chart with tension/note so you could easy assemble a custom string set.

other way could be to keep your 6 in B standard [or whatever tuning you keep it usually] and build bass lines around guitar, not straight mimicking them in an octave lower range.
or - tune to the same tuning as the guitar and add a sub synth generator to the end of your chain. something like digitech meatbox.

one thing to keep in mind is - any kind of dirt pedal is at the same time both a compressor and HPF. that is the nature of clipping.

hope i was not too confusing

 

[gricko]

I doubt you'd damage the amp, but I think it would be pretty easy to damage that cab; in fact it would probably be hard not to damage it. A high pass filter would be essential.

The manual for the SVT212AV says it's -3 dB at 71 Hz, -10 dB at 40 Hz, still an octave above E0. The speakers basically are seeing no air resistance at those sub-bass frequencies, so power handling is way down. The only sound you'll hear is the speakers being shredded, not very musical . You might have better luck with the SVT410HLF, but it will still need the HPF, just set a bit lower.

and... volume of air 2x12" can move will not be sufficient for bass to be heard
a wall of sound is strongly recommended

800RB has a bi-amp function
do not know, in a real world scenario, if you turn crossover freq all the way down to 100Hz - will 300W@4ohm [that you have at your disposal] be loud enough to compete with guitar

 

[Lenny JG]

Anybody here saying that it is floppy string nonsense or unamplifiable hasn't ever tried and doesn't realize how often people do this. Ive been playing in E0 exclusively for years. Just use a string tension calculator to get close and order from Newtone or Kalium. We don't play sine waves, every note has a ton of overtone frequencies. A lower note and bigger string is a natural frequency filter.

E1 = 41.2, when when play that on a bass you don't just get 41.2, you get something like:
41.2
82.4
123.6
164.8
206.0
247.2
288.4
329.6
Etc.

Playing E0 (20.6) would be closer to this:
20.6
41.2
61.8
82.4
103.0
123.6
144.2
164.8
Etc.

That's just a handful of the many frequencies that happen when you hit an 'E' note.

See how there are similarities, but distinct differences? This is what causes you to hear a low E0 coming through a cab that has a frequency response of 45hz and your brain goes 'that E (E0) is lower than the E I just heard (E1)

Our brains piece it together. It's just how we are wired.

If you have the correct tension strings and setup, the rest is EQ. There is absolutely no trick to this, just a different set of strings.