Play along with songs that are not in A=440?

[lark_z]

Some Beatles, some Stones. I also pitch shift the Eb songs to E, one example off the top of my head is Jailbreak by Thin Lizzy. I pitch shift them in Audacity and then save them. It's a royal pain, because (at least for me) it's just trial and error to get it right. .

 

[Ostie]

I heard that recording engineers would sometimes speed up tunes to make them fit on a vinyl side. But I don’t know this for certain, it was word of mouth from someone who spent a lot of time in studios back in the vinyl era.

 

[jmattbassplaya]

What's an example of a song on Spotify I can play along to that has this problem?

Lots of Pantera. Mouth of War is 430, IIRC. Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All album also has songs slightly off from standard. I’m pretty sure Pantera was intentional as Dime used guitars with Floyd Rose bridges. I’m less sure about Metallica.

 

[bigdaddybass12]

I play along with songs on YouTube. Some are spot on and some are a little off. Make sure your bass is in tune. My practice bass will wander a little with tuning, when I tune it it, is close to the recordings.
Retune bass back & forth? No, causing wear on tuners and nut.
Live with it and play others that are in tune? Yea.

 

[EricOnTheBass]

Regarding why some songs are not tuned to A440, in covered wagon times, guitar bands would tune to each other. I used to play in a band with 2 guitars. We tuned down a 1/2 step, but we’d only use an actual tuner once a month or so. At rehearsal one of the guys would play an open string, we’d tune our open string to that, and then use harmonics to tune our instruments. Over the course of time our tuning would gradually get lower and lower until someone bothered to get a tuner out.

 

[Jazzdogg]

Regarding why some songs are not tuned to A440, in covered wagon times, guitar bands would tune to each other. I used to play in a band with 2 guitars. We tuned down a 1/2 step, but we’d only use an actual tuner once a month or so. At rehearsal one of the guys would play an open string, we’d tune our open string to that, and then use harmonics to tune our instruments. Over the course of time our tuning would gradually get lower and lower until someone bothered to get a tuner out.

I used either a tuning fork, a pitch pipe, or a piano back in the days before electronic tuners.

 

[Pdaddy1978]

Regarding why some songs are not tuned to A440, in covered wagon times, guitar bands would tune to each other. I used to play in a band with 2 guitars. We tuned down a 1/2 step, but we’d only use an actual tuner once a month or so. At rehearsal one of the guys would play an open string, we’d tune our open string to that, and then use harmonics to tune our instruments. Over the course of time our tuning would gradually get lower and lower until someone bothered to get a tuner out.

As a veteran of those covered wagon days, I can attest to this. I can't tell you how many times I've turned to the guitarist and said..."give me an A".
The only affordable tuning device was a pitch pipe. And they sucked!
It was about my 5th band before a guitarist joined that owned a proper strobe tuner.
It was about the size of a pignose amp..and expensive!
But it was Star Trek tech to us! When the little, cheap digital tuners came around, it was like finally having sliced bread! ☺

 

[Chrisk-K]

My biggest mystery is “Every breath you take,” whose pitch is somewhere between Ab and A. So it seems that they recorded it in Ab and sped up. However, the Police always played the song in A (with A = 440) in live concerts. So it is possible that they recorded it in A and sped down for some reason.

 

[Blue]

“Back in the old days” … we tuned to the keyboard. Period.

 

[Ritter667]

What's an example of a song on Spotify I can play along to that has this problem?

Try Strawberry Fields Forever by The Beatles.

That song modulates between all kind of different pitches, which was deliberately done in order to match the speed of the different spliced takes it has been clipped together of.

That bug definitely worked in the songs favor though, and contributed to it having an amazing unreal vibe that matches the song particularly well.

 

[Stingray5]

What's an example of a song on Spotify I can play along to that has this problem?

I Can Dream About You - Dan Hartman.

 

[BC Blackmur]

I like to play along to a lot of old AC/DC songs, Bon Scott era. I am recently of the opinion that they just tuned to the guitar player with "perfect pitch", whether it was Angus or Malcom, probably Malcom. Just my assumption, while in the studio. Their tunings are all over the place. Which kind of explained why it doesn't sound quite right when I tuned to 440 and tried to play along.

My first band had a guitar player with so called "perfect pitch", we didn't use tuners. Everyone tuned to him and that was it. If the singer couldn't hit the high notes, we would tune down a half step to help.

I remember reading an interview with Metallica that they were surprised that bands down tuned. They really didn't know that you could do that because they didn't listen to other bands while they were touring in the early days trying to make a name for themselves.

 

[groovaholic]

What's an example of a song on Spotify I can play along to that has this problem?

“Black Hole Sun” by Soundgarden is A=432

 

[dougjwray]

I've always just retuned my bass to the track. It's a handy skill to develop-- good for the ears.
As far as "difficult" keys-- why not strive to be able to play comfortably in any key?
That's all I can offer.

 

[MrAB4003]

Not sure if this is the right forum to ask this question, but anyway...

Is there a Mac OS or Windows easy-to-use app that can pitch shift songs on Spotify to A = 440 so that I don't have to tune my bass to each song's idiosyncratic pitch when playing along? Lots of songs in the 70's and 80's are not in the standard pitch of A = 440. Of course, I could record those songs into Logic and pitch-shift them, but doing so is a hassle when I suddenly feel the urge to play along.

Having the ability to pitch songs up and down is one of many reasons why I buy my music from the iTunes Store. I don’t really like Spotify even though my own music is on there.

Because I own my own copy of a given song or album, I can simply open the song in Audacity (on my computer) or the Anytune Pro app (on my phone) and change the pitch at will.

 

[MrAB4003]

Depends on how accurate one’s pitch perception is.

In the old days producers often sped up or down tape recordings to finalize tracks, resulting in a nonstandard pitch.

“Light My Fire” by The Doors is an infamous example of that. The song was slowed down by 2.5% and the pitch was lowered by about 50 cents. The Doors played it in its original written key (A Minor) live, but the studio version is halfway in between Ab and A Minor.

“Creeping Death” by Metallica is 25 cents sharp.

“Mechanix” by Megadeth is 25 cents flat.

Also, I personally tune my basses (and music) to A4 = 432 hz tuning. That’s just how I prefer everything not to mention the more natural aura of that tuning. My relative pitch (which rounds to the nearest 25 cent microtone - I’m trying to get even more accurate than that ) tells me that I tune about 25 cents flat compared to standard A4 = 440 hz tuning.

 

[J Wilson]

Digital recording has minimalized this: You change playback speed with no pitch change. That's how they read the fine print at the end of the commercial at 90mph and the guy is in his normal voice instead of sounding like Harvey Helium.

Analog playback (records, cassettes, etc.) and less than perfect analog recording, and often pitches would be off enough if you're tuned properly. Better record players had a pitch adjust where you could pull or push maybe a half step. With analog, faster raises pitch, slower goes flat. And a lot of pre-digital recordings indeed are off, not mastered exactly to A440 test tones. And a lot of bands were matter of fact about tuning, you could search for weeks to find a completely in tune Dead or Stones tune.

I spent a lot of time back then playing along to vinyl, and if I was going to spend a lot of time with a certain record, I'd just retune by ear, not a bad skill to develop.

 

[MrAB4003]

Lots of Pantera. Mouth of War is 430, IIRC. Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All album also has songs slightly off from standard. I’m pretty sure Pantera was intentional as Dime used guitars with Floyd Rose bridges. I’m less sure about Metallica.

Lots of early Metallica songs are not tuned to standard A = 440 hz. Some are slightly sharp (e.g. “Creeping Death” and “For Whom the Bell Tolls”), others are slightly flat (e.g. “Metal Militia” and most of Kill ‘Em All).

If you ask me, not so perfect tuning is part of the charm of older music, even the most aggressive thrash metal.

 

[Jerry Catanescu]

I use Equalizer APO on Windows. It processes on the fly any sound that comes out of your computer. Spotify, YouTube – basically any audio your computer plays, as long as it's not using ASIO. One of its less-known features is that it can run a VST plugin of your choice. I loaded a pitch shifter and now I can pitch shift on-the-fly anything that plays! Right now I use an Eventide H949 VST because I happen to have a license. It works better than any free VSTs I could find, certainly well enough to play along to anything, but there might be something even better out there.

 

[Gopherbassist]

What's an example of a song on Spotify I can play along to that has this problem?

Bush - Machine Head