Aloha !
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bounce7800
Forgive my lack of musical knowledge but I'm sure someone previously had posted snippets of studio songs that had been downtuned half a step/a key whatever, and they sounded slower and quite similar to the live versions, looking like they record that way and then bump it back up in the studio?
Would anyone be able to post some the songs down another step in this case to hear how bad this would sound like? Is that possible?
|
Yeah, that was me. I can post you examples, but it's not the same, really. For example, if you tune a song in the key of C it'd go to a B. However, a B chord doesn't sound the same as a C chord tuned half a step down.
Therefore, tuning a song a full step down won't give the same effect as actually tuning instruments a full step down. Chords have a certain feel, warmth or cold feeling over them. Playing on a guitar tuned a full step down can be done, but for me personally, it gets borderline unplayable if you want to play songs like These Days and just strum away. Guitar strings give a certain sound under a certain tension. Tuning down means loosening up the tension. If you don't have enough tension, you can't play. So instead of just tuning down, you change the chords and start, in case of These Days, in Bb as opposed to C. These Days usually goes C-D-Em, meaning this would become Bb-C-Dm. It's a different world.
Songs build around a riff however like Bad Medicine, Born To Be My Baby, Bad Name, have riffs played in certain positions of the neck. Bad Name, for example, has a riff or lick played on the 1st and 3rd fret of the neck. Considering how you're not tuning down a full step, you just go down a full step. But going from the first fret a full step down would mean -0, which doesn't exist. You'd have to completely redo a riff on different strings, which makes the riff and lick lose it's touch.
A good example of this is In These Arms. The original version is in E. It sounds heavy, because overall, an E chord is the lowest sounding chord on a guitar. They play it in D nowadays, meaning a full step down. However, a D chord sounds higher, meaning poppier (For the lack of a better word) and not as heavy, hence In These Arms no longer sounding like the rocker it used to be.
I apologize if this isn't very clear, I rarely explain anything guitar related in English so maybe if things aren't clear Iceman could help you out.
Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan