This comparison puzzles me...
Are you seriously saying that "Drop Tuning" is somehow more "Advanced" technology, that somehow old farts just can't "get it"???
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Drop tune - why is it looked down on?
- Thread starter EatADeadGoat
- Start date
This comparison puzzles me...
Are you seriously saying that "Drop Tuning" is somehow more "Advanced" technology, that somehow old farts just can't "get it"???
rockstarbassist
Inactive
I think that's exactly what they are saying.
harry, we were playing bass while these young pups were just a twinkle in their mama's eyes!
(I first picked up a bass in 1977)
No, I'm saying push button dialing was easier than rotary dialing, yet accomplished the same thing. Voice command dialing was even easier than push button dialing yet accomplished the same thing. Fuel injected engines are more efficient than carbureted engines, but both still make a car go. FM radio sounds better than AM radio but both still carry sound through the air... and so on.
Basically, I'm saying these are all examples of ways of doing things that are better than the old ways but accomplish the same thing. That's not to say drop tuning or alternate tuning is inherently "better" but it is a "different" way to accomplish the same thing... Getting noises to come out of a bass.
Along similar lines I ask if any of you drop tuning looker down uponers use active electronics in your basses... Leo never saw that one coming when he designed the first P and J basses.
Four legs good. Two legs bad. Four strings good unless you don't tune them EADG.
If all of your examples are "ways of doing things that are better than the old ways," but you acknowledge that drop-tuning is not inherently better, then your examples are really not good analogies.
You're tying this response to something different from what was intended. I was responding to the notion that drop tuning to make songs easier to play is wrong when it's silly to not make things easier/more efficient if you ultimately get the same results either way... In music or otherwise.
So, now you're saying that "Drop tuning" is "Better" - is an "improvement"...
I disagree. It is neither better nor worse - but it IS often used in a context that can be more subjectively judged...
(I have you beat by a two years - but I think we're on the same page).
I'm really amused by this idea that somehow *NOT* using "Drop tuning" is being stuck in the stone ages... Which is doubly amusing given that the ardent defenders of this tuning approach are, for the most part, metal players.
I figure that as long as I have a 5 string, I don't need to "drop" my tuning. If someone wants a note below that B, I'm thinking that it's a genre that I'm not into.
You should re-read. I said it was 'different' and yes... In some cases it's better than standard tuning. You have a hipshot & can attest to that.
Not to brag, but I can play all of their metal, no matter how complex, on a regularly tuned 5 string bass, unless it is dropping below B.
Just the other night at orchestra rehearsal, they decided to spend 2 hours on 1 bar of music. It's a very hard bit of unison playing, and they isolated each string section. First violins, then violas, then cellos, and finally us basses.
With 5th tuning, the "riff" is very hard to play, but it is all in one position. In 4th tuning, it is almost impossible to play, as it requires 3 position shifts in the blink of an eye. (Anyone wondering, it is a part of strauss: Die Fledermaus.) Needless to say, the basses were the only ones who got it the most correct, though we were the ones with the harder part.
Had this been a modern heavy metal band, we would have tuned our basses in 5th so we could rock out with our cocks out, just like the lead guitar, I mean, Violins.
I would have to pour through these posts to find it, but someone said that there were metal songs that would be impossible to play with a standard tuned 5. I disagree. Hard, but not impossible.
The metalists have no idea how hard other styles can be, compared to what they do. You got classical and jazz, which can be exponentially harder, and even more so because you don't have the frets and heavy distortion to cover the types of mistakes that would be unacceptable in classical, but are ok in metal.
The metalists have no idea how hard other styles can be, compared to what they do. You got classical and jazz, which can be exponentially harder, and even more so because you don't have the frets and heavy distortion to cover the types of mistakes that would be unacceptable in classical, but are ok in metal.
I said that along with a few others. I never said it was harder. And FWIW I hate distortion, there's no better way to totally fall out of the audible picture than to fuzz up your tone (in metal at least).
I sent Febs one of our songs and he even said he could not play it on a 5 without a capo. If you wish I can send you the Guitarpro file as well.
Written and played on a 4 string tuned CGCF btw.
I see now that you just looked at it, and did not even attempt to play it.
Go you! No bragging at all!
I can play pretty much whatever I want, also. I'm just not against using a drop tuner every once in a while.
I said earlier that I prefer to use my 4 string basses the most. If that's the case with me, what do you suggest, Oh Mighty One? That gets us into a whole other discussion of 4's vs. 5's, doesn't it?
It's the players' choice of instrument, just like it's the players' choice in tuning.
The only place we might agree is if the player chooses to only learn to play in a drop tuning, and ignore standard.
Exactly...and if you go to GC on any given weekend, those are the metal guys you will see.
Like i said 400 posts ago, the people on THIS forum are a lot smarter then the average bear. I have few doubts that a lot of YOU could play in standard just fine. But YOU are not representative of the typical metal dude. Not by a long shot.
You are welcome. Believe me, I have learned quite a bit from reading everyone's postings on this subject. Old dudes CAN learn new tricks.
Just the other night some 16 year old kid showed me how to use my tuner better. I was having trouble getting the E on my upright to read, and he suggested I play a harmonic E. it totally worked. Can you believe that? 34 years of playing bass and it never occured to me!
Just the other night some 16 year old kid showed me how to use my tuner better. I was having trouble getting the E on my upright to read, and he suggested I play a harmonic E. it totally worked. Can you believe that? 34 years of playing bass and it never occured to me!
If I could concentrate on nothing but playing bass I could play our songs on a 5 string. It was never my contention that one couldn't play our songs on a 5 string. Fact is, our songs aren't nearly as hard to play on a dropped 4 and it's a lot more beneficial for me to be able to sort of mindlessly play the bass parts and concentrate on singing.
Plus there aren't very many passive 5s and there are even fewer passive 5-string P basses... Fender is the only one I know of and they're way too much money.
