How do you tune your bass?

[gln1955]

BEADG….B? Why?

Guitarist, I'm guessing.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

BEADG….B? Why?

Why not?

1. You have a low B and a high B, which is esthetically pleasing to me. Historically, AFAIK, most six-stringed instruments (guitar, viola da gamba, vihuela) in Western music have had some kind of hitch in the tuning somewhere so that the lowest and highest strings aren't dissonant the way B and C are. Admittedly, most are pitched higher. Still, though....
2. It reflects the tuning of the guitar, an instrument with which I'm familiar.

 

[Richard Lindsey]

Guitarist, I'm guessing.

As Tim Bogert once said about this tuning, which he used too, 10 million guitarists can't be wrong. (We know that's not true, but it's a good quip anyway.)

 

[Greenman72]

I’m not terribly familiar with the guitar. Never played it very much.

But shouldn’t it be BEAD - G-flat - B?

 

[Richard Lindsey]

I’m not terribly familiar with the guitar. Never played it very much.

But shouldn’t it be BEAD - G-flat - B?

Nope. The idea is to have the lowest 5 strings of the guitar (EADGB), an octave down, then a low B a 4th below that. That way you still have the G-B major 3rd, just as you would on a guitar.

And it would be F# in any case, not Gb.