Drop tunings vs Standard tunings

[Mowgoli]

What do you guys think about using drop tunings? I'm starting on a heavy rock / stoner metal kind of project. I'm playing guitar and bass on this thing, and I certainly want to play with drop Db tuning on the guitar.

I'm wondering how I should approach the bass. Obviously I could just play in C# standard, but since it's going to be primarily riff based, it would basically mean I have to learn every riff twice. I feel like it might also make some riffs more difficult to play.

At the moment I only have 1 bass so it's not really convenient to retune the whole thing all the time. I do own a lot more basses and I should hopefully be getting one of them back soon but all of my basses are pretty different from one another, so if I had 1 bass for each tuning I might end up with a noticeably different sound for each tuning.

I have tried a 5 in the past but I didn't really get on with them. They don't really work for certain kinds of riffing anyway because the open E on the guitar ends up being a fretted note on a 5.

I guess I would have to learn new scale patterns but I already have to do that on the guitar.

What would you guys do in my situation?

 

[Mushroo]

If I were in your situation (which have been, many times), I would figure out which tuning sounds best for each song, and retune in between songs if necessary.

 

[Malcolm35]

I never leave standard tuning as that will mess up my patterns, etc. I never play the music you are about to play..... so….. If it was me I'd go with a 5 string. I understand you and 5's don't see eye to eye, but it may be something to rethink.

 

[Mowgoli]

I never leave standard tuning as that will mess up my patterns, etc. I never play the music you are about to play..... so….. If it was me I'd go with a 5 string. I understand you and 5's don't see eye to eye, but it may be something to rethink.

The trouble with doing this is that the C# is going to be somewhere like the 4th or 3rd fret depending on how you tune the 5. If you want to ride that c# you are kind of limited as to where you can go.

 

[bass40hz]

Just tune your 4 BEAD and you're done.
I have dealt with guitarists who demand CGDF tuning and I tell them to F off. I am not re-learning every song, some couldn't even be played when you need an open E as a pedal point.
Rock on.

 

[micguy]

I keep a bass tuned to D standard, and the rest are in E standard tuning. If I need the lower tuning for a gig I'm doing, I rehearse all the music that that gig with the D standard tuned instrument the week before the gig, and take that bass to the gig. Yes, it takes some work at first to transpose your fingerwork, but the more you do it, the easier it becomes. I've contemplated just tuning all my basses to D standard, bu haven't pulled the trigger on that option yet - it would require all new strings and a bit of nut filing on multiple instruments, so I need to be convinced before I do that. I'm also building a 5'er at present - a year from now, I may have an answer as to what my strategy is on playing stuff below E. Or maybe not.