Eb songs and 5 string bass

[Samus C]

So, you’d be willing to play ALL dropped D or Eb Pantera songs in standard? I get the sense you’ve never played in a metal band and followed the guitar riff.

I play in a power metal band that tunes to D and I play in Standard BEADGC tuning. I have also had a couple doom metal projects in the past where the guitarists tuned in all manner of weird things (B, Drop A, New standard, C standard) and I just kept my 6ers in standard and just played along as is.

It mainly came from not wanting to have to modify the nut on my basses to fit 145+ strings for downtuning. Ive been pretty adamant about not deviating from this over the past several years.

There was one exception where an old band just decided to tune down 1/2 step after playing in standard for several years, so i just bought a squier Vm5 Jazz bass and tuned it down 1/2 step cause i wasnt going to relearn a dozen and a half songs 1 fret south.

 

[CoffeeLove]

I have one bass tuned to Eb for one specific band, they play everything tuned down so the singer can hit the notes. They prefer this over other options since the singer has a pretty good range, and the half-step down helps him significantly on most tunes.

 

[mcnach]

I'm gonna tune my instrument to the same tuning that my band performs in.

Don't switch to brass then

 

[GBBSbassist]

Don't switch to brass then

I promise I won't.

 

[johnh89]

A key is a key . The notes do not matter . Intervals is where the music is at . I swear that I do not know what actual notes I play sometimes . But I can recognise if one of them is wrong . Do not get too hung up on what appears too difficult . I have to think about it if playing anything other than bass that involves chords but on the bass it is not a biggie . Find the root and everything else works from that .

 

[Kael]

So, you’d be willing to play ALL dropped D or Eb Pantera songs in standard? I get the sense you’ve never played in a metal band and followed the guitar riff.

I've played in virtually every genre. I pull hired gun gigs routinely with people in drop tuning. I get the sense that you are mistaking your inability to pull off a task with my capabilities.

 

[Element Zero]

I've played in virtually every genre. I pull hired gun gigs routinely with people in drop tuning. I get the sense that you are mistaking your inability to pull off a task with my capabilities.

 

[Kael]

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lol, have a nice day fella

 

[Les Fret]

Nothing wrong with tuning a four string down. It has nothing to do with inablity as some here say. In a lot of metal or rock bands this down tuning is common procedure. A lot of these heavy riffs are based on open strings and it doesn't sound as good and fluent if you play them fretted on a 5-string. Sure you can, but it doesn't fit the genre. Bands like Kiss, Guns and Roses, Black Sabbath, Queen of the Stone Age and so on all their bass players tune down their four strings.

 

[Jhengsman]

Not to mention the dreaded capo, where they shout "B" and you have to magically know whether they mean "B" or "B shape chord but with capo on 4th fret so actually Eb" or "the B section of the song"

After years of playing with keys I finally ran into that situation this year. And there is no question about it when those two guitarist are speaking they are talking about a B shaped chord. Well actually not a "B" shape as the capo is on to avoid the chord with a B shape so you would never hear that .

 

[Snarf]

It depends on the situation. If I'm working with a band that tunes to Eb, chances are their singers are incompetent (rarely), or there are riff-based ideas that I need to execute, and if they're tuning down and playing guitar-oriented material, that often means that open strings are going to be involved. Not all such lines are easy to play if you're using the B string to transpose. It's often worth it to have the same open strings the guitar player(s) have.