favorite tuning to play in?

[PostFusion]

I never really tried any alternate tunings outside of EADG, so I'm just curious as to some other tunings you guys enjoy that I might try.So how do you tune your bass?

 

[dedpool1052]

the only tunings besides standard i've tried are EbAbDbGb, DbAbDbGb, DADG, DGCF, C#F#BE. i have 7 basses that i could have in all these tunings and then some. but for some reason, i always end up back in standard tuning. it just feels like home to me.

 

[Munjibunga]

BEADG.

 

[PostFusion]

BEADG.

 

[Definitely]

I like HHYYVVXXTTRRQQUUHH on my 18 string.

 

[thorper]

I've been almost exclusively in DGCF lately. I like the looser strings and the ability to hit that D when I'm playing whatever in E minor. Plus it means I can play more Melvins lines.

 

[onosson]

EADGC

 

[monti2889]

I tune my A to 417hz then tune the instrument relative to that, using standard 5ths.

it's pretty cool especially when you play chords.

because most tuners won't reference this frequency for the A note (usually 440 (standard A) and 435 are the most common), I will generate the frequency through audacity and then tune.

A lot of studies have been done, and it's amazing how frequency wheels resemble the circle of 5ths.

here's a little something to get you started...
http://www.redicecreations.com/specialreports/2006/01jan/solfeggio.html

 

[bootsox]

All my basses are either half a step down, EADG, EADGC, or F#BEADG

 

[coldwar1977]

standard tuning for me. and sometimes DADG (= drop-D).

 

[Stealth]

CGDA was interesting to use for a while while I was experimenting a bit with alt. tunings. EADG/BEADG/BEADGC is what I stick with most of the time. I recently switched to C-Gb-Bb-Eb-Ab-Db due to the rest of the band using the drop-C tuning.

 

[khutch]

I tried CGDA earlier this year on a whim when my interest in fivers did not survive actually owning and playing one for a couple of months. At the time I had no "gig", I was just sitting in at worship band rehearsals at church, hoping to come up to speed enough again to get a position on one of the teams which play in a rotation. So there was no risk attached to doing something goofy. Or so I thought. I went to a rehearsal ten days after switching to the new tuning and was informed that the other bass players were unavailable this week and I was on for the upcoming Sunday. Ooops! Rehearsal is on Thursday so there was no time to relearn the material in fourths; I was in for a penny, in for a pound with the CGDA tuning.

I've never looked back, I love tuning in fifths! It is not perfect for playing a lot of material written around the fourths tuning, naturally. But it is workable and in fact since virtually nothing we play is literally written out for us and we pick up most things by ear and then modify it to make it our own, the fifths tuning is as good for that as the fourths tuning at the end of the day. It gives you the single hand position range of a five string on a comfortable and familiar four string bass. If you like to dabble in playing cello music, as a surprising number here claim to do, it is perfect for that. It is uncanny how every time you are playing a phrase in a cello piece and really wish you had that note on an open string you magically find that you do have that note on an open string! Listen to violin or cello music some time. The artistic and melodic range of a fifths tuning will be quite apparent. I was reluctant to try it for a long time because it does put some notes farther apart and it demands that a single hand position cover a couple of more frets as a consequence. I thought that would be starting to get impractical on the 27 inch scale length of a cello even, not to mention a bass guitar, and obviously no double bassists would even consider going there. Except, as I eventually found out, a growing number of double bassists are tuning in fifths now! So I had to try it and it is good.

I am about to get a third Jazz bass, a fretless. That will leave me with one more bass than I have any regular use for unless I can do something with it that will make it unique. So I will probably try another fifths tuning on it. I might go with the violin tuning, GDAE, to get a "baritone" tuning. Or I might go with FCGD to get closer to the traditional bass guitar lower end. Either way, all my basses will be tuned in fifths from now on.

Ken

 

[TolerancEJ]

@PostFusion - Look up some of Michael Manring's work. He works with many non-standard tunings. (Actually, using his Hyperbass, he has the ability to change the tuning multiple times mid-song.)

 

[dje31]

@PostFusion - Look up some of Michael Manring's work. He works with many non-standard tunings. (Actually, using his Hyperbass, he has the ability to change the tuning multiple times mid-song.)

I don't know if it still exists on YouTube, and am too lazy to look it up right now, but there's a Manring video where he's playing at someone's house...and in between tunes, he's talking to the group while tuning up, and it sounds better than anything I've ever done (not that that's saying much).

He's just fiddling with the tuners and D-tuners, which he has on all four tuners on the headstock, as well as four on the bridge.

Makes me want to quit the instrument.

 

[georgestrings]

Whatever gets the job done for me - I have BEADG tuned 5ers, 4 strings in EADG with a hipshot for drop D, and 4 strings tuned half step down in Eb,Ab,Db,Gb - because my band plays nearly a full set in that tuning, and another side project does about 30 songs that way...


- georgestrings

 

[Stealth]

This is Michael Manring's intro and he promptly segues into The Enormous Room.

 

[Ric5]

BEADG

 

[Eric!]

EADA

 

[Jazzkuma]

EADGC

 

[BassPlayer900]

I like Drop D and D standard. But because most of the songs I play are tuned to E standard, I'm usually tuned to that instead.