Get Off My Lawn: Downtuning

[logdrum]

Good Mexican food can be had in other parts of the country but they're just not where Trader Joe's or iHop or Crackle Barrel are located.

What is disturbing though is what Chipotle claims as. If there is a store where you can buy Fanta and Jumex, then you are in the right place. But make sure, they are NOT dropping S from their sentences.

 

[Sam Dingle]

i love down tuning. don't see an issue with it. have my moollon downtuned a whole step, trying to get a bass setup for half step down, even have a p bass tuned BEAD. its a sound and imo its a good sound.

 

[Nev375]

A doesn't even sound tight on a 9 foot grand piano.

In my experience, that which you find on a grand piano is seldom tight.

 

[logdrum]

In my experience, that which you find on a grand piano is seldom tight.

I am making fun of most of us here who think they have a tight B string even on them Dingwals. No piano player obsessed over their A and B notes. You want tight fundamental on low notes, it's a pipe organ or a bass synth.

 

[Jay2U]

My white P-Bass is mostly tuned in D standard. The string gauges are pretty standard, ranging from 0.045 to 0.105". I like the somewhat floppy feel. I often think D standard is the better tuning.

 

[kev451]

Wow. Harsh. Even my self-deprecating confession generates nothing but negativity.

Yeah I noticed people just don’t read and understand what they are reading. They just get triggered and get upset and instead of thinking for a bit just react. Just shows lack of intelligence and intellect. I got what you were saying and found it funny.
Others…yeah must be that time of the month oops guess I’ll upset them too

 

[Carl Hillman]

What's your get off my lawn thing?

Slappers who use those little hair-scrunchy thingies to keep their strings muted.

Back in the day, we used our hands to mute the strings, AND WE LIKED IT.

 

[Carl Hillman]

Hair cutting places are the worst. They always have to call themselves "Shear Perfection" or "The Cutting Edge" or "The Mane Attraction" or something like that. Go @#*% yourself.

Wow, you'd really hate "Turn Your Head And Coif".

 

[60bass]

Wow. Harsh. Even my self-deprecating confession generates nothing but negativity.

Welcome to TalkBass where like most of the internet, everyone else's opinion is right and yours's is wrong. A trend I'm seeing more and more everywhere these days. That said, throughout the years I've always tuned down a half step. Except when playing with a keyboard player who uses Hammonds. Then we all just tuned to his boards. However if a player feels the need to heavily downtune, who am I to tell him/her they're wrong?
Hey were all bassists here so just play on

 

[Sid Fang]

I do appreciate a p-bass through an SVT and an 810 fridge. But generally I'm not a traditionalist when it comes to my music gear. Show me something new. But there is one modern bass thing that I just can't quite get behind: downtuning.

So get a 5 string. I found it a slight hassle to adjust my technique, but my band was playing material in dropped tunings, I didn’t like tuning down for those sets (tuning time and floppy strings) and re-arranging the part to not play below E works harmonically but guts some bass parts. BEAD five strings let me cover those parts, plus I’ve got new fingerings for a bunch of notes.

But the downtune thing is my personal get off my lawn issue. Fess up. What's your get off my lawn thing?

I was into avant-guardism at 16 and I still am at 65. So it’s hard to elicit that response. But I must say that people who populate their pedalboards with half a dozen different boutique distortion pedals make me roll my eyes.

 

[southpaw723]

How dare anybody play with the bridge pickup solo’d honky tonky ugly goose sounding tone!

 

[micguy]

Isn't that balanced by the fact that Texas used to be part of Mexico?

(Not that I actually have any opinions about Mexican food, I live like 13,000km away.)

You have a point, but not a strong one. The borders in North America were different at one point, but for the vast majority of time that people have been here (19,000 years or so) there were no borders. Texas being part of Mexico was a small blip in the big picture.

 

[smokescreens]

There are probably a few million people living in Mexico who think it's cute that Texans have staked a claim on Mexican food.

There’s several million Mexicans around the US that also find it hilariously silly.

 

[FirewalZ]

My regular band is all originals, we don’t down tune, and are usually the only band that doesn’t on multi band gigs. I think it makes us stand out a bit, with a tighter sound. From what I’ve heard, many venues have a questionable pa and/or sound man, bands that tune way down often sound muddy and mushy…everything is heavy and sounds the same.

 

[salmon256]

Bass guitar is a man made thing - saying it was “meant to be” a certain way is utter nonsense. God did not put instruction in the Bible about how to make or tune a bass guitar (two cubits in scale length). The issue with dead spots on G strings would strongly argue that something in that “recipe” is not optimized. Down tuning is one thing that actually makes a more optimal instrument in that regard - it lessens the dead spot issue considerably in most cases (tune your bass to D standard or BEAD, and you’ll see what I mean).

This. People forget that with nearly all of our inventions they aren't perfect because they are made by humans and are prone to human error. The instruments that we use today are what we see best fit to what we use. We are also are a form of primate that by nature terms shouldn't be alive but here we are thriving because of our minds! It reminds me of a music teacher I had who was awesome but sadly started develop neck pains from playing pianos, classically trained, great form and technique, but overplaying and just looking down at keyboards gave him neck pains because he did it so much! He is better now but still happens time to time, but at the end of the day it reminded me that it's something that is made by humans and something that isn't meant to be done. My point is I agree and whatever works for anyone as long as it is not dangerous to their body is what is best! Be it downtuning, this type of strings, this type of bass, this technique etc.

 

[Slevage]

View attachment 4710501

That was useless too!

 

[bobdabilder]

What if it's the only pickup??

How dare anybody play with the bridge pickup solo’d honky tonky ugly goose sounding tone!

 

[scottfeldstein]

A further thought. I'm glad that there are people out there doing things that almost nobody did when I learned to play. New things are good. Even if oldsters don't always "get" them. Yes, it makes my eyeballs itch when I read about others downtuning. But that's on me. Just thought I'd share it for a laugh.

 

[tpaul]

Wow, you'd really hate "Turn Your Head And Coif".

Bahahahaha! And also,

 

[waynobass]

Yeah, there’s no good Mexican food in LA.

Correct, since LA is Louisiana, east of Tyler. If you mean L.A., Los Angeles, that city is west of Tyler.